Odds & Ends: Remove Open Firmware password; Virex Scheduler; Zip and NAV follow-up; more

Remove Open Firmware password According to The Macintosh Security Site, if you use the Open Firmware password setting, and forget your password, the following procedure will remove the password protection: "To remove this protection the total amount of RAM in the computer must change. This can be done by either adding or removing DIMMs. After this is done, the PRAM must be reset 3 times by holding down CMD OPT P R at restart. This will completely bypass the password protection." [See previous coverage.]

Mac OS 9.1 and Virex Scheduler Paul Fuchs notes that after installing Virex Scheduler 6.1, his iMac Rev B with Mac OS 9.1 slowed to a crawl. We have noted similar reports from users with previous versions of Virex as well.

Zip and Norton AntiVirus follow-up Tom McCain found another workaround for a previously reported glitch with Norton AntiVirus and PC-formatted Zip disks: reverting the File Exchange control panel from 3.0.4 to 3.0.3. We've noted that solution before also, in a slightly different context.

Epson scanner and Acrobat glitch workaround Jake Koeppel, in a follow-up to a previous report, notes that Epson informed him that using the scanner feeder will bypass the problem of Acrobat 5 freezing when scanning in more than one sheet of a mulitpage document using the TWAIN driver. He writes: "Epson also told me that the crash has been happening on other scanners and is Adobe’s problem to fix."

Update: Larry Yarak replies: "I have also had this problem using Acrobat 4.05 and 5 with UMAX scanners (I am now using a 6400 with Vistascan 3.7.2). I have found that I am able to work around the freezing problem by adding a copy of UMAX's Photoshop Plug-In to the Acrobat Scan plug-in folder, and selecting this plug-in rather than TWAIN when importing a scan to Acrobat. I have been able to scan multiple pages to Acrobat 4.05 and now 5 without a freeze in this way."

Earthlink leaks passwords? Rob Kennedy recently requested support via Earthlink's secure page, and received an automated confirmation email that included his name, address, user name, and password. While it was sent only to his address, putting a password in an email message is a bad idea.