Yesterday a ton of people (possibly you included) received an auto-update from Microsoft patching the security flaw recently discovered in IE 7. If you haven’t received it yet for auto-update you will soon enough.

Not to be outdone, malware authors have already begun work on alternate ways of exploiting security holes in that browser.

One of the ways mention that people get suckered in to getting their PCs infected with malware is by receiving a Microsoft Word document file attachment with an embedded ActiveX control via e-mail, then opening the document which activates the trigger for the control.

I think people need to exercise common sense when it comes to file attachments.

Rule #1 of file attachments from those you don’t know is: DON’T OPEN THEM, period. Don’t do it. Delete it. Don’t bother scanning it or any other of that crapola. Just don’t open it and get rid of it immediately.

Rule #2 of file attachments is that if you do receive an attachment from someone you do know: DON’T OPEN IT.

However, if you feel that you must open an attached document anyway, my suggestion is to use Google Docs or ThinkFree. Just bring the file out of your e-mail, send it over to Google Docs and let that open it up.

"But that’s inconvenient."

What’s more inconvenient? Getting infected with malware or bringing a document into a safer environment to open it? The answer is obvious.

In addition, saying "Use Firefox" or "Use Opera" is not a proper course of action. What is proper, as mentioned a moment ago, to exercise common sense. That alone is better than all the anti-virus/spyware/malware/whatever-ware you have installed on your computer.

You absolutely should not solely rely on software for protection. Use your head and the vast majority of the time you’ll avoid all the bad stuff on the internet.

According to a recent news story, the official release of IE 8 will not be in 2008 as once planned. Basically put, Microsoft feels it needs more shakedown and testing before becoming official - and to be honest I am in 100% agreement with this.

I’ve used the beta version of 8 (which obviously isn’t finished since it’s beta), and while the browser is better at some things than 7 it does need some buttoning up. I do sincerely appreciate that Microsoft is basically stating "We want to know every single possible complaint you have about 8 and address it before release."

Some are quick to say to use Firefox or Opera as an alternative instead of IE, however there are those who (believe it or not) like IE and want to stick with it. As long as 8 delivers (primarily with its enhanced security and privacy), it will be a worthy upgrade.

On a personal note, some have written that 8 is slower than 7. In the time I used beta 8 that certainly wasn’t the case. Tabs were faster, rendering was better and simply put, it was just easier to use than 7. I will be happy to ditch 7 for 8 and will do so without hesitation - but not until official release.

[Source: ChannelWeb]

A tool every Windows user uses every day without thinking twice is Windows Explorer. Windows Explorer allows you to do everything from browsing to organizing and searching for files. One thing you may not have considered when using this tool is that you can user other file manager applications as well. One such tool is xplorer2.

xplorer2 offers many features you may be interested in, but here are a few I noticed:

• Tabbed dual-pane interface
• Instant preview of files (this feature is included with Vista, but not in XP)
• Compare and synchronize folders
• Discover and cleanup duplicate files
• Robust file transfers

There is free version available (lite) as well as a full version (pro) which offers lots more features.

If you are looking for an alternate to Window Explorer’s file management, this is a great tool to take a look at.

MSFeedSync.exe is an executable file used by the Windows Internet Explorer 7 web browser to periodically update in-browser RSS feeds. It only appears in the Windows Task Manager if IE7 is running. In addition it only appears from time to time and isn’t in "always on" state.

If you use the IE7 feature to read feeds in-browser, you need this enabled in order for it to work. However if you use another feed reader (such as Google Reader, Bloglines, RSS Bandit, FeedDemon, Thunderbird, etc.) you can safely disable this.

To disable:

1. Go to Control Panel.

2. Double-click Internet Options.

3. Click Content tab.

4. Click the Settings button under Feeds. See image below for example.

5. Uncheck Automatically check feeds for updates. See below for example.

That’s it. Click OK a few times to exit.

The last time I used IE 8 I had to stop using it because it was reported that it broke Windows Update. But being that I just reinstalled XP on my older Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop I decided to give IE 8 a go to see what had been improved since it’s in Beta 2.

My particular laptop was a good test bed for this because it’s an older machine with a 1.5GHz Celeron M with 1GB of RAM, and testing newer software on older hardware is a good test to see if performance has improved or not. Continued

There are times when you just have to ask the question "WHY?!", and this is one of those times.

Google has performed a Gmail upgrade for those still using Microsoft Internet Exploder Explorer 6. Yes, you read that correctly. Version 6. Not 7.

Evidently there’s still a fair amount of internet users getting by with version 6 of the IE browser. If you happen to be one of those people, you must be an adventure seeker. One who likes to live on the wild side. One who looks at all the dangers of using that browser, spits in the direction of the internet and says.. "Bring it on.."

To give you an idea of how old IE6 is, it was released on August 27, 2001. IE7 is also old (released October 18, 2006). Regardless of that, if you’re still using IE6 by choice.. you seriously need to upgrade.

I would imagine most of the IE6 users are in corporate environments run by idiots who positively refuse to upgrade the browsers on the end user machines to version 7. Why? Nobody knows. I blame corporate stupidity.

I will admit that I much prefer to do things via keystroke rather than mouse whenever possible. The reason is because keystrokes don’t change. You don’t have to worry about things "going away" or missing from an icon or button you can’t find. Both Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 3 are chock full of keystrokes you can use. No, you won’t use all of them (nobody does), but committing a few to memory is good for when you need them.

Zoom in/out/reset

Keystrokes:

Zoom in: CTRL-Plus key
Zoom out: CTRL-Minus key
Zoom reset to normal: CTRL-0 (zero)

There are times when you will be sitting at your computer for long hours and your eyes start to get a bit blurry. Even if you have a big monitor it’s a blessing to have a zoom function.

Jump to address bar

Keystroke: F6

You’ve clicked inside a Google or Yahoo search field and typed in a web address before, right? If you remember F6 then you’ll never make that mistake.

Open link in a new tab

Keystroke: CTRL-Click (hold down CTRL, click link)

Make use of the tab feature in your browser. This is one of the best usability features ever invented for web browsers; it’s far easier to manage tabs than multiple program windows. Use it, love it.

Switch between tabs

Keystroke: CTRL-TAB

Once you’ve got those tabs open you can switch to them with this keystroke (and back).

Closing a tab

Keystroke: CTRL-W

You’ll notice that you’ll be using your left hand a lot when doing the tab thing. You’ll be CTRL-TAB’ing about and need to close one every so often. Fortunately CTRL-W is just a few keys away from TAB to close tab(s).

Full-screen mode

Keystroke: F11 (F11 again to return back to windowed mode)

Need just a little extra space to read stuff? Sometimes you do. Pressing F11 will do just that.

Finding text on a web page

Keystroke: CTRL-F

There are times you’ll be confronted with a ton of text in a browser and need to find a specific word or phrase. CTRL-F allows you to do just that.

Note: In Firefox the input field will appear at the bottom. In IE it will open a mini-window which usually appears at the top left (or right depending where you last placed it).

In this video, we will introduce Microsoft’s web browser, Internet Explorer. While we’re at it, we’ll introduce the number one search engine online: Google.

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