Archive for November, 2005
More on the latest Internet Explorer security problem
Yesterday I mentioned the latest security problem with Internet Explorer and gave a reference for defending against the problem. This is the first of several pages on the subject of making IE safer. Another page in this group is at http://surfthenetsafely.com/ieseczone6.htm. Today, George Ou at ZDNet also has posted directions for disabling scripting in [...]
How to find a live human when you call for help
One of the less pleasant aspects of this technology driven age is the automation of help lines at many (most?) companies. Not only do you have to thread your way through a maze of button-pushing to get to the right subject when you telephone for help or information but you never actually get a [...]
Another crtical and unpatched Internet Explorer security hole
Warnings appeared today of a critical security hole in Internet Explorer. Apparently, Microsoft has been aware of the problem for some time but has issued no patch because they assumed that it was limited to DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. However, Secunia reports
Benjamin Tobias Franz has discovered a vulnerability in Internet Explorer, which can [...]
Add spell check to Internet Explorer
Back in the year 2000, Steve Yandl at PC911 wrote a little script to add a spell check feature to the right-click context menu of Internet Explorer. I forgot about it until I ran across it again when I was cleaning out some old Windows 98 stuff from my hard drive. Although the script was [...]
Editing Internet Explorer Favorites
The “Organize Favorites” function in IE is pretty primitive and can be a pain to use. It is much easier instead to open the Favorites folder directly and to do editing functions there. Since IE Favorite are just files, they can be moved, renamed, and deleted in the same way as any group of files. [...]
Fifteen years of the World Wide Web
November seems to be the month for anniversaries. Not only does it mark the advent of Windows but it is also the month when the World Wide Web was born five years later. Here is Wikipedia on the origin:
In March 1989, Tim Berners-Lee wrote “Information Management: A Proposal”, which referenced ENQUIRE and described a more [...]
Twenty years of Windows
It is now 20 years since the first Windows operating systen came out. For those who are interested in some of the history of this system that now monopolizes the PC, the Desktop Pipeline has a series of articles. Here is an excerpt:
Since 1985, we’ve lived through more than 15 major releases of the operating [...]
More on who’s running the Internet
PC World has more on what went on at the conference in Tunisia that dealt with the question of Internet governance. It seems that how you interpret the results depends on who you are.
Both the U.S. and the European Union are claiming victory in an agreement reached over Internet governance, viewed as one of the [...]
New Microsoft security and maintenance site
The new operating system called Vista that Microsoft will be releasing next year will have a lot of new security and maintenance features. You can try out some of these at a new Microsoft site. Here is the description:
Windows Live Safety Center is a new, free service designed to help ensure the health of your [...]
Confrontation over international Internet control avoided
The attempt by some countries to have the UN take control of administering the Internet has resulted in a postponement. I previously suggested that the way to deal with international proposals that you don’t like is to propose a committee to study the issue. After a lot of posturing and blanket refusals to consider the [...]
Troubleshoot your cable modem
If your connection to the Internet is through a cable modem, you have probably experienced the fairly common event of losing the Internet connection. Very often all that has to be done is to remove power from the modem for a few seconds and then turn it back on. If your modem does not have [...]