Do you need a quick job done or do you have a talent to provide? A glance through the various jobs posted at Elance (www.elance.com) shows that there are a lot of talented people willing to bid pretty cheaply to build your Internet site, write your press release, design your logo or provide some legal advice.

Elance is an Internet site, which matches freelance service providers, mainly those in the information technology, writing, site design, or legal professions, with people or companies needing jobs done. It seems to me this is an ideal place for a small business or an individual in Bermuda, or elsewhere, to avoid the astronomical prices some service providers charge for what has essentially become a commodity that's easily replicated.

At Elance companies and individuals can list their jobs on the site for free. Registered service providers bid for those jobs in an open process on the Internet. The service providers, usually individuals who work freelance, pay up to 10 percent of the fee to Elance for the work. Both buyer and service provider then enter their ratings of each other after the job is complete and the ratings are shown on their profile pages.

For example one business has put in a job for a "fairly simple" site with a home page, up to four information pages, a contact page, a 30 to 40 question form, and credit card processing. The company expects about 1,000 orders per month. The average bid for the site so far is $880. Bids range from a low of $500 to a high of $2,500. Many of the bidders give good details of their experience and seem very competitive.

The average bids for a design for an online flower shop is $5,543, for a construction company logo $328 and for a book cover design is $246. There are hundreds of jobs on offer in the accounting, finance, bookkeeping, financial planning, software and technology, web site development, administrative support, business strategy, graphics design and legal sections.

The prize for the biggest software glitch last year has to go to Microsoft, which released Windows XP, its updated operating system, with a massive security hole.

The hole allows any XP computer connected to the Internet to be hacked by any script kiddie, allowing them access to the entire contents of a person or company's computer.

It's a very dangerous hole so download the patch immediately from the Microsoft Internet site.

Windows 98 and Windows Me operating systems are also affected.

One commentator from the International Herald Tribune also warns that XP has many hidden costs that are not apparent until the operating system is installed.

While admitting that it is the best operating system that Microsoft has yet produced, and is much more stable than earlier versions of Windows, he advises not to make the switch unless you're prepared to pay big bucks to upgrade the other software on your machine.

Despite the company's claims, it turns out that not all of the Windows programs work with XP, and in some cases, it is not simply a matter of downloading a free upgrade.

You have to buy new versions of the programs that are incompatible with the XP system.

The writer ended up having to shell out an extra $100 or so for upgrades to the programs he had on his machine.

That could translate into much more spending for companies that need multiple use licenses.

Another word of advice: If you're using Internet Explorer as an Internet browser do not forget also to install the latest security patch from Microsoft, or to check that your technician has installed it on the company's browsers.

The update eliminates all known security vulnerabilities affecting Internet Explorer (IE) 5.5 and Internet Explorer 6 according to Microsoft.

In particular the update fixes a security issue that allows the browser to execute code automatically.

The patch also fixes three newly discovered vulnerabilities.

One allows an attacker to run any program on the victim's system, including the ability to read or destroy files, determine network traffic, find passwords, install backdoors to break into computers or place viruses.

My IE5.5 browser has been patched so often that it has probably become a new species all together.

By the way if you use Hotmail as your e-mail provider and access it using Outlook Express then do not upgrade to IE6.

Microsoft will not tell you this at the time, but upgrading to IE6 makes your Hotmail account inaccessible from Outlook Express.

It is only after doing the upgrade that I discovered the problem, and the fine print.

I was forced to revert back to IE5.5 and reinstall previous patches.

Tech Tattle deals with topics relating to technology. You can contact Ahmed at editoroffshoreon.com or ((33) 467901474.