Odds and Ends: G5 fan noise at startup; File mapping issues; iBlog security problems?

G5 fan noise at startup Much has been made of the innovative fan system in the new PowerMac G5 towers and its ability to cool the G5 with minimal noise due to independent "cooling zones," processor slewing, and fans that only spin when needed. However, a number of MacFixIt readers have written in reporting (with concern) that when booting into single-user mode (to run the fsck utility, for example), or when experiencing a startup problem, all fans run at full speed. The reason for this is that the software that controls the G5's cooling system is loaded during the normal OS X startup process, and is thus not loaded in single-user mode. To ensure that the PowerMac G5 is properly cooled, all fans turn on by default. This is normal behavior and should not be cause for concern.

File mapping issues We previously reported on an issue where the OS X 10.2.8 (pulled) update "reset" custom file mappings. We've received subsequent reports that the update changes file mapping for documents that were previously set to open in Classic applications, when an OS X-native application is present that will open the files. For example, some users who have Microsoft Word 5.1 or 6 (Classic applications) as well as AppleWorks (for OS X) installed on their system have found that Word documents now open in the OS X-native AppleWorks by default, even if they previously opened in Word. The solution, as discussed before, is to change the file mapping by getting info on a Word document in the Finder and in the "Open With" section of the Info window, selecting Word from the list of applications. (Clicking "Change All" will force all similar documents to be opened by the chosen application.)

iBlog security problems? MacFixIt reader Murray Williams has written an article about some of the potential security flaws (for private blogs) in the iBlog component of .Mac that Apple recently began offering. An excerpt:

"Vulnerable Sites Found via Google: The final straw is that Google (and any web crawler) is able to lead you straight to these insecure web logs. The Login.html page has specific text (including the title of "Authentication Check") and it doesn't set any "robot" meta tags that would prevent the page from getting indexed. Thus, if you type in the right criteria, Google will give you a handful of sites that you can break into instantly. (Just turn off Javascript, replace Login.html with index.html and voila!)"

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