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From: David Empson on 10 Feb 2010 18:33
Neal Reid <nealreid(a)magma.ca> wrote:

> In article <1jdovxy.13dww6f1e4ilz6N%dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz>,
> dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:
>
> > By deliberately staying on 10.5.6 you are missing at least six batches
> > of security updates (and all future ones), plus other Leopard update
>
> You must have missed a recent answer. I explicitly documented why I have
> not upgraded

Yes, I saw it and chose to comment this time since you brought it up
again. J.J.'s followup covers my position exactly.

> - I read through all the release notes for 10.5.7 and 8 and
> found NONE of them applied to my needs.

The release notes never tell you everything, just the most significant
changes.

One of the most important "features" in updates to Mac OS X is
compatibility with future applications that need some API or framework
change which was introduced in that system version. You are now being
bitten by that with iTunes 9.


Have you also looked at every single item in every security update? How
do you know that you won't be affected by some of them?

That includes the security issues fixed in 10.5.7 and 10.5.8, the four
subsequent security updates (about to be joined by a fifth one when
10.6.3 is released), at least four releases of Safari 4, three Java
updates and one QuickTime update.

In total there are at least fourteen batches of security updates you are
missing by staying on 10.5.6.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

--
David Empson
dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz
From: Mike Rosenberg on 11 Feb 2010 08:59
Neal Reid <nealreid(a)magma.ca> wrote:

> Having twice now been burned by 'upgrades' breaking my system, I no
> longer do them unless they fix a problem I have.

And you know they fix a problem you have without installing them just
how exactly? (They often fix far more problems than you'll read about.)

Meanwhile, some of us have backups we can restore from. Fortunately, I
keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency.

--
My latest dance performance <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_9pudbFisE>

Mac and geek T-shirts & gifts <http://designsbymike.net/shop/mac.cgi>
Prius shirts/bumper stickers <http://designsbymike.net/shop/prius.cgi>
From: J.J. O'Shea on 11 Feb 2010 12:22
On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:59:31 -0500, Mike Rosenberg wrote
(in article <1jdqqzy.eeylpkticxwkN%mikePOST(a)TOGROUPmacconsult.com>):

> Neal Reid <nealreid(a)magma.ca> wrote:
>
>> Having twice now been burned by 'upgrades' breaking my system, I no
>> longer do them unless they fix a problem I have.
>
> And you know they fix a problem you have without installing them just
> how exactly? (They often fix far more problems than you'll read about.)
>
> Meanwhile, some of us have backups we can restore from. Fortunately, I
> keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency.
>

The lack of a backup is quite often one of the markers of a user who has a
problem with his/her system. This was excusable in the past, when you had to
go to a lot of trouble and take time to back up on floppies (remember
floppies?) or tape or CDs or DVDs. I _still_ have five full boxes of floppies
with my last (my very last) backup to floppy of a certain very large (for its
day) system sitting in the back of a storage cabinet. Whether or not any of
the floppies will still work after about a decade of storage is another
question...

Nowadays, though, with the low price of external hard drives and the lower
price (as in free or very cheap indeed...) of good backup software there's no
excuse. Go buy an external drive, USB or FireWire, that's a little bigger
than the internal drive in your system. (FireWire is recommended. Also, USB
drives may have problems booting PPC Macs, check it out before you buy.) Plug
it in. Do _not_ allow Time Machine to grab it. Go and get SuperDuper! or
Carbon Copy Cloner or something else that will clone a drive. Run it. SD! and
CCC are shareware; you can test 'em out for free, and if you don't want to
use the higher levels of SD! or if you can live with the ads in CCC you can
use 'em for free, too. (I paid up for both...) They'll make perfect, bootable
clones of the system, and you can rig them to update those bootable clones on
a regular basis. (CCC clones my boot system on all my home Macs with regular
weekly updates. I just have to remember to turn the clone drives on.) Also,
buy a second external drive, make it substantially larger than your internal
drive, and again it can be FireWire or USB. Hook that to the system, let Time
Machine grab it. TM will copy over the complete contents of the drive, which
will take some time (especially on a USB connection) and will then update the
copy every hour. Now you'll have a bootable clone and a complete record of
all your work; the TM volume on my main home Mac reaches back to September
last year, or just after I put SL on my system. In the event that you need to
fix a problem, you can boot from the clone and restore from the TM volume, or
just restore from the TM volume, or even do a complete erase install on your
internal volume and when the Installer asks if you want to use an old backup
to put your stuff back, say 'yes' and use either the clone or the TM volume.
Before I do a major install of _anything_, system software updates,
applications, application updates, whatever, I fire up CCC and update the
clone and then force TM to do an immediate backup. If there's a problem, it's
instantly fixable. I've never had a problem, possibly 'cause I'm prepared to
fix it.

An external FireWire 320 GB drive (the Mac partition on my home iMac is 270
GB, the rest of the 320 GB drive being set for Vista) is about $80-100. An
external 1 TB FireWire drive is about $150-200. Subtract $20-40 if you use
USB instead of FireWire. CCC is $15. TM is free. (rsync is free if you want
to play with the command line, and as CCC is essentially a GUI interface on
rsync, you don't even have to pay the $15...) $120 will get a clone setup
which you can have run once a day if you want. $200 will get you a TM setup
that will take months to years to fill up. How much is your data worth, Neal,
m'man?

--
email to oshea dot j dot j at gmail dot com.

From: TaliesinSoft on 11 Feb 2010 12:53
I am one who is somewhat compulsive about maintaining a proper backup
routine. Currently I have Time Capsule which itself is in a not easily
found location in the house and that receives both Time Machine backps,
and nightly SuperDuper! clones of my internal and external drives. I
also use SuperDuper! to backup my external drives to a second set of
external drives so that I have full redundancy in case of a failure of
any single drive.

From: Daniel Cohen on 12 Feb 2010 03:10
TaliesinSoft <taliesinsoft(a)me.com> wrote:

> I am one who is somewhat compulsive about maintaining a proper backup
> routine. Currently I have Time Capsule which itself is in a not easily
> found location in the house and that receives both Time Machine backps,
> and nightly SuperDuper! clones of my internal and external drives. I
> also use SuperDuper! to backup my external drives to a second set of
> external drives so that I have full redundancy in case of a failure of
> any single drive.

I might consider Time Capsule so that I have a backup that is not next
to my computer.

There's also CrashPlan, SpiderOak, and others for backing up to a remote
location.

My situation doesn't make physically moving backup drives a solution,
but for those who can do it, a physical off-site backup is a good idea.
--
<http://www.decohen.com>
Send e-mail to the Reply-To address.
Mail to the From address is never read.
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