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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: Neal Reid on 13 Feb 2010 15:55
In article <1jdqvjv.1oawq5rxdogk7N%dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz>,
dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:
> The release notes never tell you everything, just the most significant
> changes.
VERY unprofessional! I worked for many years in I.T. If I had proposed
we ship undocumented updates I would have been fired. That's exactly my
point. I've written hundreds of installers. They were all rigorously
tested (within a testing group separate from the designers/developers).
A great deal of the work involved NOT making assumptions.
> 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.
Again, you (appear to) miss the point. I am bitten by iTunes 9 not
because I failed to blindly update - but because Apple choose to release
an upgrade that made a (false) assumption.

Last time - The iTunes 9 installer should fail on a 10.5.6 system
because it CANNOT work there. The documentation makes it clear (if you
dig deeply enough) that iTunes 9 requires 10.5.7. The point at issue is
NOT how I choose to run my system - but how did a company like Apple
manage to release a broken installer and get away with it.

(And for others commenting on backups, that is precisely what I
generally do. I keep complete backups before consciously doing any
upgrade. iTunes 9 installs quite a mess; it is non-trivial to back it
out, even with backups.

(Just out of curiosity, I just checked System Update. It offered me a
chance to apply an update for all users of iLife 09, iWork 09 and
Aperture - none of which I have on my machine (other the the already
erroneously installed.)
From: David Empson on 14 Feb 2010 06:10
Neal Reid <nealreid(a)magma.ca> wrote:

> In article <1jdqvjv.1oawq5rxdogk7N%dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz>,
> dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) wrote:
> > The release notes never tell you everything, just the most significant
> > changes.
> VERY unprofessional! I worked for many years in I.T. If I had proposed
> we ship undocumented updates I would have been fired. That's exactly my
> point. I've written hundreds of installers. They were all rigorously
> tested (within a testing group separate from the designers/developers).
> A great deal of the work involved NOT making assumptions.

If you are a registered developer (Select or Premier) with access to
pre-release versions, you get much more detailed release notes, but even
they don't list everything which changed.

The general public never sees more information than the summary
presented by Softare Update (or Installer), plus the detailed list of
security fixes (which only gives a general description of each component
which was updated and the problem fixed).

> > 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.
> Again, you (appear to) miss the point. I am bitten by iTunes 9 not
> because I failed to blindly update - but because Apple choose to release
> an upgrade that made a (false) assumption.
>
> Last time - The iTunes 9 installer should fail on a 10.5.6 system
> because it CANNOT work there.

The iTunes application itself works. You can use it to manage an iPod
and your own music collection, and to play music. Just some parts of it
don't work (the iTunes store) because they require the WebKit version
which came with Safari 4.

If you think it is a problem, you should complain to Apple via
appropriate channels. Stop grumbling about it here.

> The documentation makes it clear (if you dig deeply enough) that iTunes 9
> requires 10.5.7. The point at issue is NOT how I choose to run my system -
> but how did a company like Apple manage to release a broken installer and
> get away with it.
>
> (And for others commenting on backups, that is precisely what I
> generally do. I keep complete backups before consciously doing any
> upgrade. iTunes 9 installs quite a mess; it is non-trivial to back it
> out, even with backups.
>
> (Just out of curiosity, I just checked System Update. It offered me a
> chance to apply an update for all users of iLife 09, iWork 09 and
> Aperture - none of which I have on my machine (other the the already
> erroneously installed.)

iLife Support is some system-level private frameworks which are used by
and interact with iLife '09, iWork '09, iTunes, Aperture and others. The
main component is the iLife Media Browser. This component also works
with older versions of iLife, so I expect Apple is offering it to every
compatible system version just to cover all the bases. It may contain
bug fixes relating to the iLife Media Browser if you have iLife '08 or
'06 installed, but it mainly targetted at iLife '09 and similar.

--
David Empson
dempson(a)actrix.gen.nz
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