Microsoft plans to release a software update that modifies the default behavior of Internet Explorer for handling user information in HTTP and HTTPS URLs. The details are in Knowledge Base article 834489.

This is a big deal. It will completely block the majority (probably the overwhelming majority) of “phishing” attempts, where someone tries to get you to log on to a phony site and then give up your Ebay/PayPal/Citibank details.

It’s also noteworthy that this patch is being announced in advance of its release. Keep an eye out for it.

According to The Register, Microsoft is about to start selling Welsh language versions of Windows XP and Office.

If you’ve never seen Welsh in print, it’s a bit of a shock. Here’s one error message you might see: “Nid yw pori’r rhwydwaith yn bosib.” According to the folks at The Register, that means: “Browsing the network is not possible.” (They add, “Don’t be too concerned by the apparent lack of vowels: the Welsh language has two more vowels than English – w and y – and as you can see, makes full use of both.”)

An interesting essay by Esther Dyson, posted on her new Weblog:

The default anonymity of the Internet makes it easy for individuals to do bad things — send spam, invade people’s privacy and send data around the Net, launch viruses and other attacks. And that same anonymity makes it hard to enforce laws against those actions, even as it preserves our freedom.

But the Internet’s technology also makes it easier for individuals to protect themselves: They can take their safety and privacy into their own hands with tools such as firewalls and spam blockers. And, of course, on the Internet, it’s easier for people to get up and move to a virtual neighborhood that they like better.

I agree. About the last thing we need is more governments trying to regulate the Internet.

PS: Esther, your blog needs an RSS feed, and your links aren’t clickable!

Today’s New York Times (free, registration required) has an interesting piece entitled Now Where Was I? New Ways to Revisit Web Sites.

The story quotes University of Washington professor William Jones, who says that bookmark lists have become “information closets” that hold a jumble of sites people never return to. The Times concludes: “Only hyperorganized users sort sites into folders, clean out dead links or click on inscrutable addresses to figure out why they were bookmarked in the first place.”

That tracks what Robert Scoble wrote last week:

“I stopped using Favorites about five years ago. Hint, what happened about five years ago? Google. My favorites file back then was about 5000 items. It just got so big, and so out of date, that I stopped using it.”

Well, I rarely use IE’s Favorites pane either. In fact, the whole concept of having 5000 Favorites is kind of silly, don’t you think? I mean, isn’t that like having 5000 “best friends”?

Unfortunately, Google isn’t enough on its own. How many times have you searched and searched and finally found the page that contains exactly the information you need to answer a question you deal with all the time? Do you really want to count on a Google search to find that exact page again?

To make sure I don’t lose track of these high-value sites, I use a way-cool utility called PowerMarks, which lets me add the page I’m currently viewing to my list of saved sites with s single click. It includes the keywords assigned by the site’s author, and I’ve configured it so I can optionally add my own description at the time I add it. A simple search box lets me type in a word or phrase and instantly see a filtered list showing only the saved links that contain that text. I don’t have to worry about moving shortcuts among folders or creating a hierarchy. This simple, flat database works great.

Highly recommended.

Here’s a little trick that most Outlook users don’t know about.

About once a week, I have to re-send a message. Most people, faced with this task, would simply forward the old message. But if you use Outlook 2002 or 2003, there’s a better way. Open your Sent Items folder, find the message you want to re-send, and open it. Click Actions, Resend This Message.

You can edit the message, change the To: address (handy if the original problem was that you mistyped the recipient’s name), and change the Subject. Click Send when you’re done.

Even cooler: You can do this with a message that someone else sent to you. With the message open in its own window, choose Actions, Resend This Message. When you click Send, Outlook will protest that you don’t appear to be the original sender of the message. Click OK and send it anyway. The message will be from you, “on behalf of” the original sender. If the recipient clicks the Reply button, his message will go to the original sender, not to you.

In my travels around the Web, I keep running across references to a site called The Cheating Culture. It publicizes the book of the same name by David Callahan, whose thesis is that a “harsh unfettered market and soaring income gaps have corroded our values … and threaten to corrupt the equal opportunity we cherish. … [T]he Winning Class has enough money and clout that it can cheat without consequences – while many in the Anxious Class believe that cheating is the only way to succeed in a winner-take-all world.”

Now, I haven’t read the book, but I see plenty of evidence that this thesis is at least partially true when I look around the Internet. Everywhere you turn, someone is lying, cheating, and scamming, in an effort to rip you off.
Continue reading “The Cheating Culture” →

Everyone knows Google. But have you tried typing elgooG into Google’s search box? That takes you to a remarkable (and quite literal) mirror of Google’s site. (Go ahead, type ttoB dE and see where it takes you.)

According to the Google Mirror FAQ, Internet users in China have used elgooG to get around censorship by the Chinese government. How cool is that?

I’ve spent a fair amount of space lately on techniques for getting rid of spyware. If you’re sick of having your browser hijacked by this crap, consider installing SpywareGuard, which claims to prevent many common types of spyware from being installed in the first place. I can’t personally vouch for it, but it gets good reviews from people I trust. If you’ve tried it, let me know how well it works for you.

Robert Scoble reports on his recent lunch with the Internet Explorer team. The IE team is looking for feedback as they design the next version, and they’re reading Robert’s blog. So if you have comments, now is the time to make them known.

My list is short: tabbed browsing, a better Favorites manager, full support for IE add-ins, and the ability to load 99.999% of all Web pages “in the wild” so I can use one tool for Web browsing.

Anyone who has used a browser that supports tabs can’t go back to the old IE. For the last year or so, I’ve been using MyIE2, which I enthusiastically recommend. (Steve Bass at PC World just came to the same conclusion, saying “My2IE looks and feels like IE but I swear–it does so, so much more. Tabs, built-in ad and pop-up blocking, and much more. It’s so good that I’ll be writing about it in PC World just as soon as I can.”)

Scoble’s article mentions an alternative called iRider, which is terrifically whizzy and slick. Instead of tabs, it uses a navigation pane along the left edge of the browser window. Unfortunately, it adds a separate preview icon for every page you look at. On many of my favorite sites, that makes navigation a nightmare, and it seems to break a few sites. Still, some great ideas there and I’ll keep experimenting with it in my spare time.

I’m surprised that out of 141 comments (and counting) on Robert’s blog, hardly anyone has mentioned Favorites. I use Powermarks, which doesn’t require any upfront categorization and supports full-text searching of my bookmarks collection. If the IE team hasn’t looked very closely at this app, they should. I’d love to see its functionality incorporated directly into the next IE.

What about Mozilla? Hey, I have it installed and I think it’s an amazing piece of software. But it simply doesn’t work on a few of the sites that I visit every day. Yes, that’s not the Mozilla team’s fault, but that’s the way the world is. And I don’t want to have to remember “Oh, this site doesn’t run with Mozilla so I have to open it with IE.” So I use Mozilla about 2% of the time.

This question arrived in my Inbox today:

I’ve used Spybot S&D daily as well as Ad-aware since you suggested it a short time ago. However, the problem continues. In my case, it doesn’t appear to be “pop-ups” that are the problem, but “pop-unders”. The darn things pop-up (sometimes two or more as I close IE).

First of all, you shouldn’t have to use either program daily. These are clean-up utilities, and you need to use them only after you’ve installed a program that you think may have added something nasty to your computer, or when your computer is displaying symptoms of spyware (excessive pop-up windows at sites that don’t normally display pop-ups is one such sign).

Have you downloaded the most recent updates for both programs?

It is possible, indeed likely, that you are infected with a spyware program that is either not detected by these utilities or is actively suppressing their ability to work. Some variations of the CoolWebSearch “virus” will do that, for example. These invaders are ugly and persistent programs.

If you’re suffering from similar symptoms, I strongly encourage you to go to SpyWareInfo.com. Read the FAQ, What to Do If Your Browser Has Gone Crazy. Follow the link to the tutorial on how to remove spyware. If Ad-aware and Spybot don’t work, you will probably need to download a utility called HijackThis (you’ll find a link at the beginning of the detailed instructions) and post your results on the SpywareInfo forum. However, don’t do this until you have read through the FAQs.

Whatever you do, don’t delude yourself into thinking that this is too much trouble or that you can just put up with the nuisance. A number of these programs also contain Trojan horse software that can open your system to further infections and allow someone to steal passwords to sensitive data, such as your bank account login. A Trojan horse can also make identity theft a reality. If you think this “infection” is hard to get rid of, try cleaning up your credit report after someone has stolen your identity.

Good luck.