My offer of a Gmail invite in exchange for an Orkut invite has been answered.

I do have two remaining Gmail invites at this time–let me know if you want one.

Antonio Cavedoni has come up with an automatic translator from Blogger/LiveJournal-favored Atom (0.3) to the more universally-recognized RSS (1.0). The practical upshot of this is that Blogger/LiveJournal Atom feeds may now be subscribed to in standard RSS readers (a nifty one is included in Opera 7.51) — including this very site.

So not only can Microsoft (apparently) not build a secure, safe Web browser, they don’t even bother doing regression testing. Slick, guys. This is a particularly nasty one:

According to the latest bulletin, the vulnerability affects people who have multiple IE browsers open. Through one of the open browsers, hackers can change the content of another Web site without users ever knowing that it has been altered.

Using this attack method, hackers could insert links into legitimate Web pages and direct people to malicious sites where they could solicit personal information such as bank account or credit card information. Because the link comes from a legitimate and trusted site, victims may not realize they have been redirected to a harmful site. Hackers could also insert links that would trick users into downloading malicious software.

So, for example, you have one IE window open to a site which is (knowingly or not) carrying the malicious code to exploit this vulnerability, and another window on Windows Update. The vulnerability makes it possible for the evil site to write new content onto the Windows Update window. Such as rewriting download links to point to infected or trojaned files.

Any other product by any other company displaying the shockingly dangerous behavior of IE would be banned from sale, and the manufacturer subject to criminal prosecution.

If you still use IE, please consider Opera (free ad-supported, $29 ad-free) or Mozilla (free). Both are extremely standards-compliant–moreso than IE–and will work with the majority of Web sites you visit. Not to mention being wholly non-susceptible to these vulnerabilities.

Office Space Wars
(30 MB WMV)