Hello guys.
I know the topic is kinda old but I had the same problem and wanted to share my fix.
nealaoresources3 is a html5 and css3 template.
Support for both it very limited in IE8.
Add this code to your main.php's html head
<!--[if lt IE 9]><script src="
http://html5shim.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script><![endif]-->
Get yourself a local copy of the script... you never know.
This will make IE8 and maybe lower (not tested) render the side.
To get most of the css stuff working for IE (like rounded borders) I recommend using css3 pie.