I just about missed posting about it all together too. More details here, including some my recommendations.
I've been reading post after post about how ".Ject" is "just more proof that IE suxors." You know, part of me agrees. IE has the biggest target painted on it, and Microsoft needed to do something a lot sooner than XP SP2 about it. But part wants to say "Hey, IE doesn't hurt people, people who misuse IE hurt people."
Yes, a lot of that is aimed squarely at the ass hats who seem to have nothing more constructive to do that develop exploits for IE. If even half of them would put that much effort into fixing FireFox, I might think about using it as my primary browser. But then, its always easier to tear something down than to build something better, isn't it?
But there is plenty of dumb behavior on the user end of IE as well. If I'm understanding correctly, the spread of Ject is through IIS5 and IIS5 gets infected by IE. Hello? Whomever users a server as a surfboard just doesn't get security. And what's up with still running IIS5 on Windows 2000? Yeah, I know, upgrading to IIS6 on Windows2003 takes time. But then, Server2003 has been released for more than a year now. If you're waiting for SP1, don't, move now.
If your a corporate Admin and you're not using GPOs and/or the IEAK to harden your IE installs, shame on you too. Used to be that I was somewhat known as an IEAK expert. There's a reason that I liked that tool so much. It allowed me to harden up IE for a corporate environment. I took a lot of hits for saying "you know, we really should prompt on each ActiveX control, if not just flat out disable them." I knew from having developed ActiveX controls just what a kick in nut sack they could be. Recently, I've been on a "assume Javascript is disabled" kick for exactly the same reason. Let's hope I'm wrong about that.
I've been an ardent IE user since 4.0 and I've only had one bad experience with it. And I deserved that, because I went someplace in a trusting mode that I shouldn't have. I learned from that experience. Why can't others?
Sure, blame the technology all you want, but also hold the people accountable.
Seems you can't stop by a .NET-centered blog without hitting a post about the new deck of products soon to be announced and released. There's talk of an express line of products, meant for the hobbyist and student; the release of Beta1 for VS2005 (Whidbey) and Beta 2 SQL2005 (Yukon.)
Am I excited? You bet! If all this "express" stuff holds out, one of the biggest barriers some folks have to using .NET pretty much evaporates. And having seen what I've of SQL2005B2, I'm very much expecting a lot of jaws to drop.
While I'm excited to see these bits stream out the door, remember folks, they still need to be imaged up and posted. I doubt we will see them on any authoritative site before Friday and if you're relying on the post... well, you won't have to worry about them getting in the way of your Fourth of July weekend, I bet.
One other thing I want to point out is that I'm hearing rumors of a new way to give MS feedback about these products on-line. If you find bugs -- report them. If some feature seems counterintuitive -- report it. When you see something that you just blows your mind -- report it (then blog about it too, of course!) We're all in the same boat here: MS is making these betas available just as much for their benefit -- exhaustive field testing -- as they are for ours -- learning about the new products. Love it or loathe it: get it, use it and let 'em know.