Odds & Ends: Cable/DSL security; Railroad Tycoon; ATR bug work-around; more

NYT on cable/DSL security risks The New York Times has an informative article on the increased security risks of using cable and DSL "modems" (a topic we have covered here before). Thanks, Jon Pugh and Dale Sorenson (of the DSL Providers List page) for the heads-up on this.

Railroad Tycoon problem: a work-around? Reader Saint John had a problem playing Railroad Tycoon II on a multiple-monitor setup. For example, the game screen displayed on the smaller monitor but the cursor stayed on the larger one. He writes: "Through correspondence with representatives from GODgames and PopTop, I was able to get the Railroad Tycoon II demo working. The secret is to hit F4 when the game begins. This will launch the game from then on into a window, and not full-screen. Once this is done, the game plays nearly perfectly in a 1024x768 window on any screen." (See also the updated item on Railroad Tycoon posted here last time.)

ATR bug work-around Regarding problems with Adobe Type Reunion (ATR) popup font menus not working correctly in some applications, Jungle Payne suggests this work-around: "Temporarily disable ATR by pressing the Shift key when clicking Font menu." Or you can use the "Compatibility" tab in the control panel to permanently disable ATR in a given application.

Command-Shift-keypad # glitch ShiroWilde notes that, in recent versions of the Mac OS (at least as far back as Mac OS 8.5), Command-Shift-(numeric keypad) now works the same as Command-Shift-(number). This was not the case in Mac OS 7.6.1 (see Apple Tech Exchange posting). This can cause problems: "The trouble occurs when applications (such as Word and PowerPoint) which use Command-Shift-(numeric keypad) keys, since the System now overrides these and maps them to FKEYs."

Apple password algorithm revealed? The Macintosh Security Site lists what they claim to be the algorithm Apple uses for its passwords, such as in the Users & Groups Data File in the Preferences folder.