iDirect’s IP-based approach to shared bandwidth using iDirect’s patented D-TDMA significantly reduces satellite bandwidth by dynamically allocating bandwidth to multiple ships based on a bandwidth pool, providing a more efficient and cost-effective option.

Coupled with iDirect’s award-winning advanced Group Quality of Service (GQoS), service providers can segment bandwidth across multiple ships — even across fleets — and prioritize allocation according to each ship’s dynamic requirements, all while protecting minimum CIR and QoS settings for high-priority traffic.

You can read more about Maritime Connectivity here.

Unfortunately, Windows 7 users are reporting that they are spending too much time troubleshooting the problem before they finally give up. Some get lucky and find a solution. Others, who must use IE8 for whatever reason, have no choice but to continue looking for solutions.

What’s the under lying cause of all this mayhem? Well, there are thousands of Web sites that are displayed improperly, or not displayed at all, when you use IE8 engine to surf the Web. In February 2009, Mary Jo Foley posted this article: Microsoft’s IE 8 Incompatibility List: 2,400 major sites (and counting). In her article she lists the incompatible Web sites, which include major Web sites such as:

microsoft.com

msn.com

amazon.com

ebay. com

google.com

yahoo.com

myspace.com

youtube.com

…..and more.

A Compatibility View List is essentially a list of Web sites that are broken in IE8. In other words they are incompatible with IE8. Obviously, calling it an Incompatibility List won’t sound too good. Compatibility View List puts a very positive spin on a painful experience and makes it sound as if it were a preplanned “feature” of IE8.

Let’s take a closer look at the actual issue behind the scenes. Unlike previous versions, IE8 renders content in a standards-compliant way. That’s a good thing. Because the previous versions of IE were so messed up (for lack of a better word) and Microsoft has decided to offer a browser that is “standards-compliant”, now all these Web sites are inaccessible in IE8. It’s going to take a while before the Web designers fix all the mess because they wanted their Web sites to appear properly in previous versions of IE and as a result intentionally created sites that won’t follow the standards just so they would run properly using IE engine. To help the public, Microsoft now puts out a Compatibility View List which may make these Web sites accessible. However, I can tell you from personal experience that the Compatibility View will not fix the problem in all cases. Some times it works, some times it doesn’t.

Possible Solutions & Workarounds

There are several solutions and workarounds that work for some individuals. Here are a few examples. Keep in mind this is not a complete list by any means. Also, don’t be surprised if you still have problems accessing the inaccessible Web sites after you have tried all the tips that I’ve listed below because there are too many possibilities and I can’t possibly cover them all.

NOTE: You may have to first install another browser, such as Mozilla Firefox, before you try these solutions because if you use IE8 you may not be able to go to Microsoft’s Web site and access the KB articles that I have listed below. Microsoft’s Web site is one of the thousands of Web sites that are reported as inaccessible in IE8.

1. Go to Tools, Internet Options, Advanced tab and click Restore advanced settings. I know, you are going to tell me that this means that you can’t configure IE8, but you want to surf the Internet don’t you?

2. Run the command prompt as an administrator and type “netsh winsock reset” without the quotes. Reboot the computer. This KB article 811259 has more details.

3. Try Resetting TCP/IP.

4. Uninstall all IE8 updates. Yes, it may make your computer less secure.

5. Disable all IE8 plug-ins and add them back one-by-one.

6. Your computer may be infected with a virus so go to Safe Mode and run a program that will clean the virus. I prefer AVG, which is free and includes anti-virus and anti-spyware components. You may not be able to access AVG’s Web site in IE8 that’s why I mentioned earlier that you may have to install another browser, such as Mozilla Firefox first so you can download the AVG software.

7. Disable Windows firewall. Yes, it may make your computer less secure.

8. Turn on Compatibility View, either for individual Web sites (Tools, Compatibility View) or for all sites (Tools, Compatibility View Settings, Display all websites in Compatibility View). To view the content of your active list you can type the following in the IE8 address bar:

res://iecompat.dll/iecompatdata.xml

9. If you are running more than one browser, make IE8 your default browser. For example, if you run Firefox as your default browser you need to make IE8 happy by making it your default browser. Just do that temporarily so the sites start to work. Then switch back to Firefox as your default browser. You’ll have to remember to keep doing this whenever IE8 starts to give you problems.

10. Use Mozilla Firefox. All the 2,400+ sites that are incompatible with IE8 are likely to work in Firefox.

1. Use Bing search engine. Don’t be scared. Bing is a serious contender among search engines. It’s much improved and people have started to really like it.

2. Don’t just go to Google, instead use the special search engine for Microsoft resources that is offered by Google: http://www.google.com/microsoft. If you search a KB article on Microsoft’s site and can’t find it, go to google.com/microsoft and chances are you will find the KB article, which will point back to Microsoft’s own site.

3. Looks for answers on TechNet,  Microsoft newsgroups and forums.

4. If you’ve tried other resources and can’t find an answer, go to an MVP’s Web site or blog. For example, for solutions to Outlook, find an Outlook MVP’s Web site or for SharePoint solutions look for a SharePoint MVP’s blog or Web site. The MVP blogs/sites are located at: http://www.mvps.org/links.html.

5. Go to kbalertz.com for knowledge base articles.

6. For event ID errors, go to eventid.net. The annual subscription is practically free (only $24/year).

After playing around with Google’s brand new Chrome browser, we’ve discovered that its history search box will fetch all types of data – even text from HTTPS-protected financial sites like Washington Mutual and Capital One.  With a few utterly simple keywords like balance, account and Sept., everything from balance information, account numbers and even how much you spent at Costco can be pulled up.

To see all of this in action, just open up Chrome and log in to your favorite financial website.  Like most important sites, it should be protected with HTTPS/SSL encryption and that should be evident in the address bar of the browser.  Do the stuff you would normally do like look at your balances and gawk at your latest transactions and then open up a new tab in Chrome by clicking the “+” symbol.  In the right-hand history search box, enter a few keywords and see what they get you.  Surprised?  I bet you are.  No luck?  Then try something simple like oh Visa, Mastercard, balance and account.  Also try out the names and abbreviations of months like September, Sept and Sep.

And on Guardian‘s Web site I read the following:

The history search feature means you can find all your financial, medical and other secrets from the browser without going anywhere near the secure site. Or someone else can. If you have a PC where someone else can access it — for example, in almost any office — then it’s a recipe for disaster.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a different concern. It says, according to CNet’s headline, We’re concerned about Google’s Omnibox. There’s a privacy issue because anything you type in gets sent back to the Google mothership, and it’s storing some of it. The ways to avoid that include (1) turn off auto-suggest; or (2) use a default search engine that isn’t Google; or (3) use porn mode. Any one will do.

Sorry, I forgot to include the (mercifully short) story of the day: you can crash Chrome by typing :% in the address bar. I expect someone will figure out how to crash it remotely, if they haven’t already done so….

According to Google their browser is supposed to “make the web faster, safer, and easier”. Safer? Really? Funny I just switched my default search engine from Google to Live Search as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post Goodbye Google, Hello Live Search!. And no I didn’t do it because of privacy concerns, I did it because I liked Live Search better.

I made Windows Live my default search engine on December 1 and in this article I am documenting my observations. Keep in mind that I have only used Live Search for ten days as my default search so my experience is rather limited. However, I wanted to document my experience because when I wrote the article about TechNet and MSDN Search in July , I clearly stated that I do not prefer Live Search over Google, at least not at that time.

So what changed my mind that I wanted to give Live Search a serious try? Well, the simple fact that Microsoft made tremendous improvements in TechNet/MSDN Search, which impressed me, and I assumed that Microsoft must have made significant changes to Live Search over the past several months. Also, at the last MVP Global Summit Steve Ballmer told us that Microsoft is making improvements to Live Search and asked us (MVPs) to give it a try and then give our honest feedback. So here’s my honest feedback.

For me, the easiest way to compare and contrast two products is to use them both for the same task. And that’s exactly what I did with Live Search. I used the exact same search for both Google and Live Search to better compare the two search engines.

General Observations

Here are some general observations after running same searches on both engines. This list in the following table is not in any particular order.

There are some areas where Live Search blows away Google out of this world, like searching for images. Look at the side-by-side comparison of the two graphics below to get a better idea. With Live Search I can simply move my slider down and it automatically takes me to the next page. Unlike Google search, there is no need to scroll down to the bottom of the page, click Next, wait for the images to load and then start this procedure over for the next page. If you want to search among thousands or even hundreds of images, Live Search is the way to go. Google allows you to refine your images by selecting options from a drop-down button at the top of the page, while Live Search allows you to refine searches by options such as size, aspect ratio, color, style, face, etc. Live Search options are more intuitive and will be easier to navigate and understand by most users.

Live Search Example:

Google Search Example:

In Live Search, when you hover over an image, you get several options including the size of the image. The four zoom options further enhance image searches. Another thing I noticed is that images look much crisper in Live Search. I haven’t spent time to further research this and it may be due to the fact that Live Search has a much cleaner and sharper look to it, while Google feels too messy and the ads definitely add to the clutter.

There is a typo of sorts in Live Search screen. At the time of writing, the cashback link in the upper right hand corner should be spelled Cashback with an uppercase C, just like the rest of the links.

Conclusion

My overall impression about Live Search is that it has made significant improvements since I last used it. I consider it a serious competitor to Google. After using it for 10 days, and mind you it’s only 10 days, I believe an average user is not going to find a significant difference between the two search engines. More sophisticated users will find pros and cons in both search engines. Because I primarily work with Microsoft products, I would prefer to use Live Search just for that reason alone even though I realize that that’s no guarantee for better results.

I like Live Search for aesthetics and clarity, I didn’t notice a significant speed difference in either of the search engines, and the most important factor in search for me is relevance. Well, I didn’t find either of the two search engines having any significant edge over the other in relevance of search results. As far as searching for images, Live Search is light years ahead of Google. For all these reasons, I’ve decided to switch to Live Search for now. I will use it for a while and see how I like it. If I find significant deficiencies I will report back with my findings. Until then, goodbye Google and hello Live Search.