Get del.icio.us

Do you work on more than one computer? Do you find yourself searching for a bookmarked website only to realize that you bookmarked it on your home computer and not your school computer? Have you ever wondered what sites other teachers are using in their classes? If so, you need to get del.icio.us

The website del.icio.us is a “social bookmarking” website that allows one to store and share favorites. When a user bookmarks a site, they are prompted to enter a “tag” for the site. Tags are one word descriptors that are chosen by the user. There’s no limit to the number of tags one can assign to a site. Tags can be modified or deleted at any time.

Not only are tags valuable for organizing bookmarks but they become a collaborative collection when various users use the same tag. The neat thing about tags is that they are personal — there are no wrong tags.

The Wikipedia article, del.icio.us, provides further information about the site. For those needing help understanding tags, check out the del.ici.ous help page

Dangers Lurking on Web Pages & in E-mail

A remote control vulnerability exists in Microsoft Windows – particularly Internet Explorer. A user could infect his/her computer by visiting a Web page or viewing an HTML e-mail message that an attacker has configured to exploit this vulnerability. A successful attacker could take complete control of an infected system. Anti-virus and anti-spyware software will NOT protect against this type of problem.

Microsoft has released a patch for this bug. Thus, users should be sure that Windows Update has been run. A web page to test whether your computer is correctly patched is available at http://www.isotf.org/zert/testvml.htm. If Internet Explorer locks up and/or crashes when trying to load this page, then your computer is not patched for this problem. If your computer is patched, then the page will load and 2 colored boxes will appear on the screen.

The SunbeltBlog was one of the first to report this exploit. On Tuesday, the Microsoft Security Response Center Blog posted an advisory regarding the VML exploit. According to the blog:

We’ve also been adding detection to our various offerings. Customers can also visit Windows Live OneCare Safety Scanner and are encouraged to use the Full Service Scan option to check for and remove malicious software that take advantage of this vulnerability. Also, Windows Live OneCare users who’s current status is green, are already protected from known malware that uses this vulnerability to attempt to attack systems.

Technorati Tag: Security, Computers, Windows, VML