The second Tuesday of the month is here, and Microsoft's Lincoln's Birthday present is no less than eleven patches, six marked "critical" and five "important." One of the patches affects only Windows Vista users. The complete details of the eleven patches is available from the Microsoft TechNet site. Visit Windows Update to check whether your computer is patched, especially if you have Automatic Updates turned off. Remember to do this using Internet Explorer; Firefox or other browsers won't work with the Windows Update site.

The anticipated Service Pack 1 for Vista isn't available - officially - yet. It's expected in March. Reports from Windows news site WinBeta suggests that it's available now, but it's probably best to wait for the offical release date to avoid problems.

Apple also updated Mac OS X to version 10.5.2 yesterday. If you're using the third most popular operating system (after XP and the intrepid Vista users), you can find the updates here or by checking for software updates under the Apple menu.

Alternative browsers Firefox and Safari continued to slowly erode Internet Explorer's market share in January, with Firefox now holding just under 17 percent of the browser usage and Safari nearing six percent, according to the latest data from Market Share by NetApplications. Of course, this still means that Microsoft's market leader is used by three out of every four internet users, and at the current rate of decline, about three percentage points a year, it would be 2016 before it lost its majority status.

Naturally, by 2016 we'll all have brain implants to directly surf the entire contents of the GoogleNet, so it's silly to consider a world where Internet Explorer isn't the dominant browser for the short term.

After hitting a peak of 0.65% in November, Opera (the myNetworkTV of browsers) dropped to a 0.62% share in January.

Other interesting data from January showed Windows XP holding 75.07% of the operating system market, followed by Windows Vista at 11.96% (over a year since its introduction), MacOS at 7.57%, Windows 2000 at 2.71% (and you thought the XP holdouts were hardcore), and Linux variants at just 0.67%.

As always, I recommend Firefox with the NoScript add-on for a safer browsing experience, but regardless of your browser choice, make sure it's completely up to date with all patches, including updating any plug-ins or add-ons such as Java, Flash or Silverlight.