30. August 2008 by Myke.

Microsoft has officially launched it’s Beta version of Internet Explorer 8.  If you have been hiding under a rock in the IT world recently here is a list of “cool” new features of IE8.

Accelerators - Accelerators let you efficiently complete your everyday browsing activities like mapping directions, translating words, emailing your friends, and more in just a few mouse clicks.

InPrivate Browsing - Browse the web without saving your history with Internet Explorer 8’s InPrivate Browsing. Now you can “shop for that special gift” with confidence knowing your family won’t accidentally find out or use a shared computer without leaving a trace.  More like surf the Internet for PORN without your significant other or boss knowing.

Web Slices - Keep up with changes to the sites you care about most. Add a Web Slice and you won’t have to go back to the same website again and again for updates on news, stock quotes, online auctions, weather, or even sports scores.

Search suggestions - Search smarter with detailed suggestions from your favorite search providers and browsing history. See visual previews and get suggested content topics while you type in the enhanced Instant Search Box.

SmartScreen Filter - New security features help to protect you against deceptive and malicious websites which can compromise your data, privacy and identity.

Pretty cool but after a recent quote from Microsoft that was either misheard or elaborated by the MFIA (Mozilla Firefox Intelligence Agency), someone has some explaining to do.

“The core web rendering engine in IE8 is compliant with web standards, but we have also tried to maintain compatibility with sites written specifically for older versions of IE,” says Ryan Servatius, senior product manager at Microsoft’s Internet Explorer division.  This actually sounds pretty cool so far.

The new browser will come with a ‘compatibility button’, which users can click if they stumble across a site that was designed for older versions of the software. Once pressed, the page will reload in ‘compatibility mode’.  Again, sounds great so far to me.

“Sites that are specifically written for IE will not display properly. Many people probably will not ever use the compatibility button that Microsoft has built into IE8, which means some sites will not work and the user will get a message saying the site needs Internet Explorer.”  Huh???  Come again my man.  Maybe I am misreading this but it sounds like you know that a lot of sites will not even work and most people will never even know why.  I think you need ot go back to your marketing team and re-phrase that statement…maybe.

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30. August 2008 by Myke.

After the FCC ruled against Comcast and it’s illegal bandwidth throttling, they moved forward with publishing that all “excessive users” will be subjected to a possible warning and/or disconnection of service. Now granted the usage threshold you get to hit is 250GB per month, but those of us in the IT world know we can hit that with ease.  For the average Joe at home using the Internet for his bills, surfing and day trading this will be just fine as they will never hit that mark.  I still hate Comcast and their service and their lack of customer service.  Let’s just say I am one of MANY dissatisfied ex-customers of Comcast.  Just like my favorite Comcast haters Travis “Sugar Bear” Sarbin and Mona Shaw.

Let me give some advice to those over at Comcast that make the high level decisions.  A very large community of IT professionals and hard core gamers used/use your service because it was good and it worked great.  But then you basically slapped all of us in the face and said, “sorry, we no longer want your business”.  Ever since a group of us in Denver, CO switched over to QWest DSL we have been made happy again.  We can do business/work/pleasure all at the same speeds without any interference from QWest.  Do not crap on the best customers you can have.  We will hardly ever call you for service unless it is down or being throttled so you spend less money working with us.  You screwed up and are now are paying for it with large amounts of us leaving your service.  Goodbye and good riddance.

posted by: Myke Reinhold

Posted in Internet, Rant | No Comments »