MS to force browser upgrades

[SlowModem]

IE 6 and 7 users to be forced to IE 8 (or 9 on Win7).

Story here.

[Bushman]

Yeah, I saw that.  One client of mine has apps  that won't run on IE8 and other apps (COTS) that are moving  to stop support of 7. 

One would think there is a simple solution like switch to a different browser like Chrome, but they have a number of custom coded web apps that don't play well with anything other than IE.  Not sure how they let that happen.  But now they are backed into a corner.

I hope that stuff I personally use (like online  banking) isn't going to force me to upgrade to IE9,  But I won't be surprised if that happens.

[Garth Bock]

We had that years ago at the university during the IE versus Netscape war and Frontpage did things to websites that made them unfriendly to anything but IE. All vendors were required to be cross browser compatible to prevent breakage caused by a version change. That went by the wayside since the browser war has calmed down and they all stick more or less to standards. Well we are now back into it but from the vendor side. We are preparing to launch RightFax university wide as a desktop solution to our crappy phone system and fax over voip barely works decently (Frontier bought out Verizon in our area and the day of the switch over faxes went offline campus wide). RightFax didn't test their web portal properly and now we find that there are problems in IE8/9 and it won't work in Safari and Firefox has problems with it. Yep it has hit the fan. Lots of money spent and no working product.

[Bushman]

The fact that FAX is still in use today surprises me.

[SLOweather]

The fact that FAX is still in use today surprises me.

There are entire industries such as requesting and filing prescriptions with pharmacies that will legally only work with faxes. Some legal docs are the same way.

[Bushman]

The fact that FAX is still in use today surprises me.

There are entire industries such as requesting and filing prescriptions with pharmacies that will legally only work with faxes. Some legal docs are the same way.

Funny - I just purchased some land and the whole thing was done via encrypted email/scanning.  Ther actual signed original documents were eventually couriered to  the out of state lawyer since neither scanned nor faxed docs were permissible.

[MoradaWx]

I was just hired by a major company 8 months ago, and all legal/security/dmv records about me were e-filed with digital signature as well. There never was any scanning/faxing and only one signature the day I started on site.

Rick

[ed2kayak]

The fact that FAX is still in use today surprises me.

 entire industries such as requesting and filing prescriptions with pharmacies that will legally only work with faxes. Some legal docs are the same way.

CMS has been trying to eliminate fax transmissions from doctors to pharmacies for a while.  I'm not sure when the current phase out date is. They want everyone e-prescribing. Most doctors use e-scripts, but controlled substances rx 's still arrive in pharmacies by fax.

[xykotik]

CMS has been trying to eliminate fax transmissions from doctors to pharmacies for a while.  I'm not sure when the current phase out date is. They want everyone e-prescribing. Most doctors use e-scripts, but controlled substances rx 's still arrive in pharmacies by fax.

And here in Washington State, those have to be hand-carried into the pharmacy by the ID holder or their legal guardian.  30-day supply max and no refills.  Out-of-state pharmacies are only allowed to fill a 10-day of narcos shipped back into WA, and the paper prescription with signature must be snail-mailed to them.  No fax or e-scrip.  For everything else, anything goes, fax, escrip, napkin, as long as it has the MD's DEA number.  Prescribers in facilities subject to Joint Commission Acreditation must use a computer-printed scrip on tamper-proof paper with specific rules for labelling and units to avoid mistakes.  Small offices and the candy man do not.

[SlowModem]

The mail-order pharmacy Medco requires a faxed prescription from the doctor.  I don't forsee that changing any time soon.

[racenet]

The mail-order pharmacy Medco requires a faxed prescription from the doctor.  I don't forsee that changing any time soon.

The same with CVS Caremark.

[Garth Bock]

Our state still requires documents fax'ed especially financial records from the university. Faxes will be around for awhile longer because they are secure point to point. RightFax was going to eliminate the physical dedicated fax machine but now that is totally screwed. Since Frontier took over our lines we have had to set the fax machines to 9600baud and no ECM. This is stupid. I come from the modem days and allowing auto speeding handshaking and full error checking was the only way to survive and get clean data. Seems they are doing some kind of compression on the lines and ECM doesnt work. Also they can't handle anything about 9600. When the switch over happened everything went to crap including our VOIP system. Now things work decently and the fax machines are hanging in there but still disconnect occasionally. One of our "smart" people at Telecom said "why don't they just scan and email the attachment". I said "so you wouldn't mind your personal records, financial and payroll info being scanned and emailed ?" ...lol he shut up quickly !!!

Funny thing. With our faxes having trouble....I am able to fax from home just fine....I have my HP AIO connected to a MagicJack via Comcast.