Last week the German government warned web users to ditch Internet Explorer and go with some alternative (Firefox, Google Chrome or Safari being the obvious choices).

Why?

As far as  I can tell there is a fairly vicious exploit out there which preys on IE version 6.0. It uses an invalid pointer reference to allow it to remotely execute code and hence place a trojan on your PC to steal your information. Microsoft has released Security Advisory #979352, which you can read about here.

The problem only impacts customers using IE6 and while that may still be around 20% of web users, IE7 and IE8 are not vulnerable to this exploit. And even so, to get infected you have to visit a rogue web site with the exploit embedded in it. There are emails in circulation that try to provoke you into doing that. So the risk is there, but it’s not particularly high.

It has to be said that it is not Microsoft’s fault that IE6 users have not upgraded.

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As I remarked a while back, I’m gradually moving much of the content of this site to The Virtual Circle, which is going to be a more organized repository of writings. Here, I’ll just write a blog – which means no analysis but comments on this, that and the other – and breaking IT news.

I’ve done my 10 Predictions for the coming year and I’ve finally finished all my Xmas Words You Don’t know, which I amused myself with over Christmas. Here’s the full list, with meanings, in case you don’t want to read the associated posting.

#1 Hwoelor-tid; Yule tide (a Norse alternative)

#2 Brumalia; The Roman Winter Solstice feast.

#3 Protomartyr; The first Christian martyr in a country

#4 Dulocracy; Givernment by slaves

#5 Pohutukawa; The New Zealand Christmas tree.

#6 Hagiolatry; The worship od saints.

#7 Sinterklaas; Santa Claus

#8 Prolicide; The murder of your sons.

#9 Apophoret; An end of year gift.

#10 Kenosis; The manifestation of God as man#

11 Psilanthropy; The belief that Jesus was just a man.

#12 Parepochism; Errors in assigning dates to historical events.

I’m about to launch a new web site entitled WordsYouDontKnow (.com) – I’m in the process of building it. You could think of it as a new web site, but really it’s a child of this web site – or we could be more accurate and declare that HaveMacWillBlog.com is in the process of asexual reproduction, splitting like an amoeba into two distinctly different components of approximately equal size.

HaveMacWillBlog.com had been steadily growing traffic to the level of about 500 page views per day, when, quite by accident, I wrote one of the vicarious postings I sometimes write for who-knows-why. Maybe it’s to prove I’m not totally engrossing in studying the evolution of IT. This was 10 Words You Don’t Know. I’d been browsing through the web and run into a site which listed a collection of obscure rarely-used long words. So I wrote a short essay on 10 of them that just happened to appeal to me.

To my surprise the posting quickly became the most popular posting on the blog, ever.

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