You've probably seen the news reports about Microsoft's Internet Explorer having bugs. But did you pay attention? This isn't theoretically problematic - there are already bad guys taking active advantage of the browser and you need to take action. Here's a few thoughts on what to do.

First of all, Microsoft now says they have a patch available for IE. Remember, this isn't just for old versions of the browser but from version 5.5 through 8.0. Not sure which you have? Click "Help" then "About Internet Explorer" to see the version number. You'll want to run the Windows Update service in either Custom or Express mode to pick up the patch. I had some trouble getting Express to download it but it worked like a champ under Custom. Then you'll want to reboot your computer for the change to take effect. To run Windows Update, go to Start and you should see Windows or Microsoft Update listed as one of the options.

Another suggestion is to switch browsers to something like Firefox. I actually like having both browsers on my computer anyway. For some reason the blog software I use prefers Firefox so I actively toggle back and forth between the two.

Now that you've taken action to correct the situation, you probably are wondering what the concern was about. This particular bug in IE was worrisome because there were active exploits, allowing a user to simply visit an infected website and pick up some malware along the way. Just to be sure you didn't fall victim to this problem, make sure your security software is up to date and take a moment to run a full system scan.

OK, now back to your regular programming.