Tag Archive for Internet Explorer

News Stories I Passed On This Week

Friday, December 19, 2008 Apple, Apple (Mac), Blogs, Computer Crimes, Consumer Electronics 4 comments

How’s that for a headline?  There were a few stories that popped up the past few days that I could have written about, but, ultimately, I decided not to write about them …. until now.

Two stories were Apple related:

Mac Sales Slow (Tuesday, Dec. 16)

macThe Wall Street Journal and various other news sources reported a drop in sales of Mac computers in November 2008.  According to the NPD Group, computer sales overall increased by 2 to 7% over the previous year, but Mac sales dropped by 1%. Though they did note that it desktop Mac sales dropped by 35% its sales of laptops compensated for it.
Other companies such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard saw a growth in sales due to the rising popularity of the ultra-portable, ultra-mobile netbooks. Mac, on the other hand, did not have a comparable product on the market.

Apple Announces Its Last Year at Macworld (Tuesday, Dec. 16)

Steve Jobs, "not to be", at MacWorld

Steve Jobs, "not to be", at MacWorld

macworld-logoApple announced that 2009 is the last year the company will exhibit at the Macworld Expo, and it will be Apple’s last keynote at the show. In the past the big speaker has been Steve Jobs, but he has cancelled his appearance at the Jan. 5-9, 2009 event. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote instead.
Apple is scaling back appearances at trade shows overall, but they plan on hosting their own events instead. This isn’t so surprising as other Apple products have greater popularity these days than their computers. Most notable are the iPhone and the iPod.

One was about a favorite monkey…

Monkey Tales Plagiarism Exposed

Monkey Fables and Tales

Monkey Fables and Tales

Charlie Hatton

Charlie Hatton

Well, this isn’t really news, but you may recall I reviewed a blog entitled Monkey Fables and Tales back in Sept. 2008. I hadn’t looked at this blog in a few weeks recently, and when I went to read it earlier this week, I found it was gone without a trace. It turns out that the blog had been copied almost word for word from Bosten stand-up comic Charlie Hatton’s web site “Where the Hell Was I?” Charlie’s little known site had been idle for some time as he was involved in other projects. Meanwhile, Monkey Tales had become a favorite of the Entrecard link circuit which was the site of a conversation on just what became of the monkey.  Charlie Hatton was a participant in the conversation.
I often wondered about Monkey Tales silence amidst so much commentary from fans. The charade may explain it all.  Bloggers are now wondering if Charlie Hatton will write again. For now, you can read Charlie’s retelling of how he found out about Monkey Tales. Other stories can be found at My Dear Hard Drive, and at Lainy’s Musings and there are others. Bad, monkey, bad!

Internet Explorer Emergency Patch Released (Wed., Dec. 17)

Okay, I did write about this one. If you didn’t read it, here’s your chance to read about the Internet explorer patch and why you should get it now. And check up on your antivirus software while you’re at it.


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Emergency IE Patch Released Today

Wednesday, December 17, 2008 Alerts, Browsers, Consumer Protection, Exploits, Internet, Microsoft 2 comments

Microsoft typically releases its updates on Tuesday evenings, but today they will be issuing a special patch specifically for Internet Explorer. The patch will be released at 1:00 PM EST. Windows XP users can get the patch downloaded and installed by going to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/. Windows Vista users can get the patch by either by going to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ or by clicking “Windows Update” on their Start menu.

What’s the patch for?

The patch fixes a flaw which allows thieves to remotely take over a computer and steal passwords and — potentially — financial information.  The scam works by secretly planting malicious code on hacked Web sites.  The code causes Explorer to crash briefly, then allows thieves to take over the infected computer. Microsoft said one in every 500 computers that use Internet Explorer — up to 2 million computers worldwide — may be infected.

Initially the problem was though to be unique to the current IE7 browser, but it has since been discovered to exist in versions as old as IE5, and even in the upcoming IE8 browser.

Is this a virus?

No, this isn’t a virus. This is an “exploit”.  There is a flaw in the programming of a specific area of the Internet Explorer’s code. It is connected with a HTML web site programming tag called “span”.   The flawed code mishandles the span code, and there are programmers out there exploiting this flaw. The patch fixes the flawed code.

Also, Symantec, the makers of Norton Internet Security and Norton AntiVirus released antivirus signature “Bloodhound.Exploit.219″ and “IPS signature 23241 – HTTP MSIE Malformed XML BO” to protect users against this exploit. These updates were released on Decmber 10, 2008. Yet another reason to keep your anti-virus software and subscription up-to-date.

How Do I Update My AntiVirus?

Norton updates can be found here.
McAfee users can use the Virtual Technician here.

Be aware, if you renew your antivirus subscriptions every year, then your computer is likely to be protected already. Modern antivirus programs update automatically at least 4 times per day so long as your computer is connected to the Internet.

My AntiVirus Is Fine, Do I Need The Patch?

I strongly encourage you to download the patch. Multiple layers of protection work better that single layers.


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Is Google sending you to foreign countries?

Tuesday, December 2, 2008 Alerts, Google, Internet, Tech, Tips 6 comments

Update (12/3/08): The “let us know” link in this article has been repaired.

In my earlier post, “Why is Google sending me to France?”, I discussed a problem many people are experiencing at Google: Being redirected to another country domain. In my case, France or www.google.fr. Skylarking reader, Lulu, has also been experiencing this problem, as well as a few readers over at Martin Brinkman’s Google Hacks blog.

Though many people have suspected spyware or viral activity, I had suggested a misread or misdirected IP address. Yes, spyware could cause such a problem, but Google’s computers read your IP (Internet Protocol) address, and attempt to detect your geographic location based upon that numeric address.

Today, I found to some people over at Google Groups who were commenting on this same problem. The “Google Guide” responded by directing them to the Google Web Search Help article “Connecting to Google: Redirecting to another country domain”.  Here’s what the article had to say:

General information

We normally redirect users in countries other than the United States from http://www.google.com to one of our country-specific sites (e.g. http://www.google.co.uk for Google UK) to provide easy access to country-specific search features. We use your computer’s IP address, which is frequently the Internet address of your Internet Service Provider (ISP), to determine your location and the corresponding Google domain.

If you’d prefer to visit Google.com instead, click the Google.com link on the bottom right-hand side of the Google homepage.

If you have cookies enabled, your browser will connect directly to Google.com on all subsequent visits. For more information on cookies, please visit http://www.google.com/cookies.html and http://www.google.com/privacy.html

Tips to prevent the redirect

If cookies are disabled, you’ll experience the same redirect each time you visit Google. Try these methods to prevent the redirect:

Report incorrect IP detection

Finally, if you feel that we’re detecting your IP address incorrectly, please let us know and we’ll investigate.

Using the “let us know” link will take you to a form where you can report a misdirected IP address to Google. The form asks for your Name, email address, your geographic location (City, State, Country), your IP address, and the Google domain you are being redirected to. I filled in the form this afternoon. I’ll see what happens. It will take time, of course.

If you don’t know your IP address, you can find it by going to http://whatsmyip.org/.

Now I just have to find a way to keep my PC here in New York now that it’s seen France. Oh, Google?


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