Odds and Ends: A melting MacBook; Web malware common
Two stories to make you sweat.
A melting MacBookThe MacBook and MacBook Pro portables seem particularly prone to hardware troubles, and high internal temperatures have been one of them. Now AppleDefects.com, which has done a particularly fine job of cataloging those troubles, reports an isolated but alarming case of a MacBook become so hot (while playing a DVD) that the plastic melted.
Web malware common Whether you call them savior or Big Brother, no one has a better overall view of the Web as a whole than its prime indexer, Google. Now the BBC reports that Google, investigating as part of the StopBadware coalition, finds malware quite common on the Web; just viewing a Web page and clicking a link can cause trouble, and the percentage of Web pages where this can happen is surprisingly high. A Web page doesn't have to spread such stuff intentionally; the server could be hijacked, or the demons could lurk in secondary content such as automatically placed ads. Internet Explorer is the most common vector, but Mac users should not be complacent.
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