Yet another bug has surfaced in Internet Explorer 7, and Microsoft are urgently preparing a patch for the security flaw which could allow hackers to steal passwords and gain control of computers.

Microsoft is continuing its investigation of public reports of attacks against a new vulnerability in Internet Explorer - Microsoft.com

The BBC report that as many as 10,000 websites have been compromised since last week to take advantage of the security flow, mostly serving up programs that steal computer game passwords, but the flaw could be "adopted by more financially motivated criminals.

So it doesn't sound like anything to stop you surfing as yet, especially if you're going to websites you know.And make sure you point IE7 at Windows Update sometime within the next 24 hours to download the patch!

I'm desperately trying to find an article somewhere which compares the discovered and patched security flaws in the top browsers but there doesn't seem to be one immediately available. I'm just interested to see if IE7 actually is any worse than Firefox, Opera or Safari or whether Microsoft's reputation and communications policy let it down. Once tarred with the bug brush, always tarred?

If anyone has a link to such a report i'd be interested to have it!

Another excellent post from the BBC on the recent climbdown by the IWF over censorship of a wikipedia page featuring a small naked child.

It must have been a long and difficult meeting. All day on Tuesday, the Internet Watch Foundation was taking calls from journalists like me and promising a new statement about what must have been the most controversial decision in its history - the blacklisting of a Wikipedia page about the heavy metal band Scorpions. That decision had sparked fury not just among Wikipedians - those people in the UK who found themselves unable to edit any pages in the online encyclopedia as a result - but among a wider public concerned about what they saw as covert censorship. On this blog alone, we had more responses than on any other previous post - more than 200 within 24 hours - and the overwhelming number were critical of the IWF.

Well I'm not sure you can beat this package! I've just switched web hosts to a company called JustHost.com, and their standard package is excellent!

• Unlimited monthly transfer
  
• Unlimited FTP space
• Unlimited SQL databases
• PHP5, CPanel, Perl, Cron, access to logs and so on

Well it's about time I practiced what I preach, and it's time fidgen.co.uk got a complete makeover. The old design worked to a point, but it wasn't very functional and it completely lacked the dynamic content which I always provide my clients.

The redesign had a simple brief - make fidgen.co.uk look flash and professional, but keep the user interface extremely easy to navigate, and highlight the important elements of my work clearly. I also wanted a site which was really easy to update, as my time is getting more and more put-upon as new contracts come in, so I can't afford to spend too long each day ensuring my own site is fresh and up-to-date.

Content Management System was the key word here, and again Joomla seemed to be the easy option, as it came with content editing as the core feature, and the extensions directory provides any and all extra functionality I required. Saying that I don't tend to use the 3rd party extensions if I can help it, so a lot of this site is heavily customised and coded by me!

The end result is coming along nicely it has to be said! I've broken my own golden rule about thorough testing before the site goes live, as I really need this ASAP, and there are still indeed some sections which are rather bare of content! But then it's christmas soon, and there should be a slow period over the festive bank holidays where I get an hour or two to rectify this.

This week fidgen.co.uk won a contract with Newall Civil Engineering to completely overhaul their web presence from top to bottom. Their current site is 4 years old, and has not been updated in at least 9 months because they don't have the time or the technical skills to do so.

The brief was to provide Newall with a modern, professional website which would compete on all levels with their competitors and stay in line with the corporate ID and colour scheme. After a short consultation, and a few days of solid work, a Joomla! based CMS solution was unveiled to the Newall management team, and the rest is history. A great success.

fidgen.co.uk provided Newall with:

• Joomla! Based CMS enabling easy site upgrades by non-technical staff.
• Customised theme meeting Newall's visual ID specifications.
• Modern, businesslike, professional look and feel.
• Private test site to ensure all web upgrades are suitable.
• Migrated website to a new and better hosting package.