According to broadband reports, phishing scams which exploit Microsoft Internet Explorer's bug that allows scam artists to hide the real url of a link while displaying a legit looking address.

While the story itself is interesting, theres an interesting thread evident in the comments posted by readers. A lot of them wrote about how they've moved to other browsers, mainly Mozilla or Thunderbird - which is great! It has been months since this exploit was discovered and Microsoft has not fixed it yet. Meanwhile, users are switching away from IE, learning that Mozilla is a perfect replacement for it, and will be telling their friends about it.

In a bit of a surprise announcement, the San Jose Earthquakes announced Alexi Lalas as their new General Manager. Ordinarily, such an announcement wouldn't be of interest to anyone outside of US Soccer, but this is Alexi Lalas. He's just about the only American player that made himself known to the rest of the US in the 90s. Everyone recognized him as the red head with the afro and goatee. Its great to see the players from that era moving into the business side of soccer. Thanks to MLS there is a business side of soccer for them once their playing days are over.

I purchashed a PNY 256MB USB Flash Drive. Partially to get a gadget hit but also to have something convenient to shuttle files in between home and work. There are a number of files on my work pc that I need to bring home. Other time, I need to work on a file at home and emailing it myself, downloading it over dialup is a big pain. So that's how I justified the purchase to myself and bank account.

I've started putting some software installers on it too, right now its the Mozilla projects Thunderbird and Firebird applications. I figure if I'm ever at a PC lacking said software, it'll be a breeze to fix it up. I'll also be perusing Jason's The Big List O' Quality Software for other gems.