DON'T PRESS F1!!!

There have been reports of attacks on computers from the internet via Internet Explorer...

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"Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability...on supported versions of Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 through the use of Internet Explorer..."

Affected Software

Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4

Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows XP Service Pack 3, and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Service Pack 2

Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2, Windows Server 2003 with SP2 for Itanium-based Systems, and Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition Service Pack 2

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/981169.mspx

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"On Friday 2/26/2010, an issue was posted publicly that...an attacker...could convince a user to visit the web page and then get them to press the F1 key in response to a pop up dialog box....

"Anyone believed to have been affected can visit: http://www.microsoft.com/protect/support/default.mspx and should contact the national law enforcement agency in their country. Those in the United States can contact Customer Service and Support at no charge (for computer security related issues) using the PC Safety hotline at 1-866-727-2338 (PCSAFETY). Customers outside of the United States can visit http://support.microsoft.com/international to find local support information."

http://blogs.technet.com/msrc/archive/2010/02/28/investigating-a-new-win32hlp-and-internet-explorer-issue.aspx

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"...Windows 2000 and Windows XP are impacted...Windows 2003 Server is also impacted...With this issue, it is possible for a malicious web page to display a dialog box which will trigger the execution of arbitrary code when the user presses the F1 key. The prompt can appear repeatedly when dismissed, nagging the user to press the F1 key. Platforms are affected regardless of the Internet Explorer version installed."

http://blogs.technet.com/srd/archive/2010/03/01/help-keypress-vulnerability-in-vbscript-enabling-remote-code-execution.aspx

Pogo Browser from AT & T

http://www.pogobrowser.com

So today I was "sifting" through my many emails that I receive in my Outlook and I came across an email called "invite" and "pogo"... I opened it up only to find out that I remember a while back that I had submitted my email for an invitation to "beta test" this new browser by AT&T. I was excited to say the least... I thought, "Will there be some competition with a new browser?" Let's see and find out.

So, I went through the "invite" steps and downloaded the new browser. I'll I have to say so far is "WOW!" Well, I'm obviously going to say more... but "WOW!" Just from the few minutes I spent looking around in the browser, I was quite impressed. But hey, I'm easily impressed by new technology anyway.

The browser looks similar to "Firefox" but it's different in many ways. The first thing I like about the browser is that it has this "strip" at the bottom called, "The Dock". On the dock you can open several different websites... you can view up to 12 but it has back and forth arrows that you can scroll through if you have more than 12 websites you are looking at one time and you can "toggle" between those sites. Right now I have the "blogger" site opened, as well as the Pogo Browser site and I am toggling between the two to get some information and then type in the blogger.

When you close the browser and open it again, the websites on "The Dock" that you previous had are not open anymore. However, you can save all the sites you were looking at by adding them to Pogo's "Springboard". By clicking one button, you can look at all the websites on your "springboard" and pick the one you want to visit. I remember Google having a similar feature, but cannot remember what it's called.

Pogo has a few "3-D" features built in... one being "Bookmarking". You can create what is called "Collections" and in these collections you can categorize your bookmarks. When you go into the bookmarking section, the different collections pop up as "3-D". You can scroll through them with your mouse or with the up and down arrows they have on the page. For example, if you create a collection called "Technology", you can store all the technology sites that you visit in this one collection, choose the collection and then choose which site you want to go to by double clicking on it.

The other "3-D" feature built in has to do with your browsing "History"... one button pulls up all your browsing history for the day and it's viewed in "3-D". You can delete certain websites you've visited, you can set a time period of browsing history from a certain date to a certain date. The browsing history even types out the URL of the website you visited.

I have yet to look around at some more features of the Pogo Browser, like the Pogo Fabulous Find or Pogo's Search Player but I like what I see so far. My recommendation one the browser launches is to see for yourself what it can do and what capabilities it has. For me, I like it so far!

One downfall that I did notice is that it's a "memory hog!" Way more than IE7. But for me, what isn't when you have a 5-year-old computer that needs more memory! LOL. You definitely have to have over 256MB of VRAM for this browser.

And what I'm reading, the reviews on the browser have not been so great BUT to each his own. Test it out for yourself and let me know what you think!

Firefox 3 Available and On the Way to a Record

In case you were hiding under a rock, today is the big day that Mozilla released then next version of the companies browser Firefox Version 3.0. Company officials are touting this release as faster then Internet Explorer 7 as well as more secure. We had no problem grabbing the new version which registered at a little over 7MB. After installing, we only had a couple of plug ins that were not compatible, one of them being the Cinema Now Manager for watching and downloading online movies. Everything else seemed to load fine and without hesitation, our flash videos on the TechtalkRadio Site loaded fine and again, we were pleased with the outcome.

Download it yourself here

maximize Internet Explorer

On our radio show, we had talked about how to configure Internet Explorer so it always opens maximized. We received calls with suggestions, and I wanted to post links to articles in our blog. After reviewing the Microsoft website, I sent a message to them (via their website)...

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--- Original Message ---
Subject : I cannot find an article

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
Message: I am seeking an article on how to configure Internet Explorer so it opens in a maximized position, but one does not seem to exist...

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From: "Microsoft Online Customer Service"
Subject: RE: SRX1060333998ID - I cannot find an article

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Customer Service.

I understand that you would like to obtain an article where you can know as how to configure Internet Explorer page so that the page opens with a maximized page. I will assist you regarding this.

As there is no article regarding this, I suggest you to follow the below steps mentioned in Method 1 or 2, to accomplish your task of opening up a maximized Internet Explorer page:

1. Open Internet Explorer.

2. Click one of the window corners and drag it out to completely fill your screen. (Do not use the Maximize button to maximize the window).

3. In Internet Explorer 6, press and hold down either "Ctrl" or "Shift", Select "Exit" from the "File" menu. (Use the Close button in Internet Explorer 7).

Now when you launch Internet Explorer, it should open in a full window. If it opens in the same small window, repeat the steps but hold down the opposite key in step 3, that is either "Ctrl" or "Shift".

Method 2:

1. Close all the windows that are opened.
2. Open "My Computer"
3. Open "C" drive > "Program Files" > "Internet Explorer"
4. In this folder, right-mouse click on "iexplorer.exe" (or iexplorer). Now, a popup menu will appear
5. Select "Copy" from the menu. Close the window
6. Right mouse click on desktop. A menu will appear.
7. Select "Paste Shortcut" from the menu. A shortcut will be pasted on the desktop.
8. Right mouse click on the shortcut > select "Properties".
9. Select Shortcut tab, select "Maximized" in the "Run" field
10. Click on "Apply" and "OK"
11. Restart your Internet Explorer page.

I hope the above answers your question. Should you have any other concern, please write back to us.

Thank you,

Sam
Microsoft Customer Service Representative

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It's great that I received a response, but I still think they should write an article about it...

IE "freezing"

Dean called and said his computer is running windows 2000, and at times Internet Explorer "freezes"...when he right-clicks, he sees and error message relating to (what we believe to be) shdocvw.dll

My "down and dirty" recommendation is to uninstall as many versions of Internet Explorer as possible ("How to Uninstall Internet Explorer 6")...and (try to) install a new copy of Internet Explorer 6...

(Internet Explorer 7 is not available for Windows 2000.)

runtime errors

Brendan called in about "runtime" error messages...based on my research...

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A Runtime Error is an error that occurs during the execution of a program...they indicate possible bugs in the program or problems that the designers had anticipated but could do nothing about (running out of memory can cause a runtime error).

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Reasons runtime errors can occur:

operator error...

bugs in the original program...
the web page author made some programming error....
can be caused by other add-ons, plug-ins, or other extra software that has been installed onto the computer and is associated with the program generating the error. If you have any extra software installed that is associated with the program generating the error make sure there are no available updates for the programs and/or try uninstalling each of them to verify they're not the cause of your issue.

...you are running a pop-up killer that closes pop-up windows so fast that the script on the web page fails.

...you might have some adware or spyware installed on your computer that opens the script error pop-ups.

virus...

resource exhaustion...

Robert, a programmer, called into the show and suggested that there may be a memory problem...based on everything I've read: he's right. It could be "software interfering with hardware", or there may be a problem with hardware.

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To troubleshoot a runtime error you will need additional information, such as:
* An error number
* Where you were in the program with the error occurred
* What you did just before the error occurred
* What you say just before and just after the error occured
* The state of the machine when the error occurred (memory, disk, and cpu usage)

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I found a listing of runtime error codes at http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000380.htm

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"A Runtime Error has occurred" error message when you view Web pages (in Internet Explorer after you install Office 2003)

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822521

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To configure Internet Explorer to ignore script and runtime errors:
1. Open Internet Explorer.
2. Click on Tools, then on Internet Options.
3. Click on the Advanced tab.
4. Look for the "Disable script debugging" line and put a check mark in the box.
5. Now look for the "Display a notification about every script error" line and remove the check mark in the box.

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Also consider:

How to troubleshoot by using the System Configuration utility in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310560

and

How to configure Windows XP to start in a "clean boot" state
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353