Mac Update 10.6.5: the Borked Mysteries

So the most recent update was released today and I waited a fair amount of time before taking the plunge -- approximately half a day. No, really, it just so happens I was poking around the news and found out about it. There was no official System Update notification at all. Strange? Nah, its Apple holding off for fixing feedback most probably.

Step #1. First things first was to run a Time Machine backup as instructed by the Knowledge Base (KB) article. That took about 30-minutes for me including connecting my external hard drive and backing up somewhere around 500-MB of data.

Step #2. Next was to say farewell to the world and update everyone about the attempt through the usual social media like Twitter and FaceBook -- this was of course easily done via a single post on Plurk. This is an optional step, but for those of you who only have one way to be online apart from your mobile device (ie. iPhone) it at least notifies everyone why you could be unreachable for a while. :-)

Step #3. Just to be sure in case the update would actually cause drivers to fail, I downloaded the standalone combo update package from Apple's Support Downloads site (approximately 977.21-MB).

Step #4. My wife was previously badgering me to try out FaceTime for Mac, so I did that too. Another optional step, but just in case the update includes an official release then why not?

Step #5. Finally, I clicked on Software Update ... This then asked for my Administrative password for system changes and proceeded to pre-update the initial components. It then logged-off the system and updated the core components (this flow prevents interruption by running applications). Once done, it did a system reboot.

I logged-in and everything seemed the same, except ....

Borked #1. GrowlMail bundle gets disabled. Those of you who use Growl for Mail.app simply have to download the unoffical update or follow the manual instructions from reaperhulk.

So far nothing else looks amiss, but these issues will slowly be teased out eventually and I will update this blog entry as I come across them. One of the most probable issues would be headers needed by MacPorts, but thats just in theory and for later.

Until then.

Apple Time Machine, Back to the Past

Thats right, the first thing about the Macbook Pro to blog about is the backup software called "Time Machine". Its an interesting concept on Mac OS X similar to System Restore on Windows XP with a plus.

The main complaint so far has been that Apple wants you to use their own brand of backup drives (a) when the reality is that most modern homes right now are probably running a NAS or other network storage device. What is worse, if you do decide to do option (b) then you may end up having to format that external storage using the proprietary Mac OS X file system.

Thats easy enough to fix by modifying a registry entry to allow an unofficial modification (c). Not one to be limited, thats exactly what I did to redirect storage to my Promise NS4300N. The transfer time over the network though is understandably slower than direct plugged (and even worse if you're really pushing your luck like I am via wireless-N).