On Nov 24, 2010, at 3:01 PM, Walter Sheluk wrote: > On 10-11-24 2:25 PM, Dan wrote: >> Out of the millions of Mac users, there are maybe a handful of loud people >> having problems... > I don't think it's being loud to mention a problem.
No, he didn't mean it that way, more like 'there are just a few people having problems, but they're being loud enough to make it sound more widespread.' > My wife installed the update but she only uses her computer to float around > the internet, email her friends and use Microsoft Mac Word and play a few > games. Her application folder has what Apple installer installed plus her > purchases of Microsoft's Mac Word and some games. As long as she can start it > up, run those services and then shut down she is happy. She does not even do > repair permissions or directory. And neither should ANYONE on a regular basis. OS X is very robust OS, it does not break unless you mess with it, generally. You should not be getting directory corruption from even heavy use by AV programs. > I'm sure there are many other similar users and of course they make very > limited use of their computers or demands on the cpu and naturally the update > is fine on their machines and if not they would simply re-install. > > I depend on all my macs in my audio/video recording business and if they go > wonkey then i have problems completing projects. . Reinstalling is a major > pain in the studio here. Discussing the update problems affecting my high end > Audio/video applications would have a limited audience at this forum. Again, Barring hardware failure, OS X is robust; it can maintain uptimes of months without issues. Your AV software may rely on things that break when Apple offers an update so it's wise to CHECK before you blithely install those updates. This does not mean OS X breaks easily. This DOES mean that you make sure the developers of your critical apps test the updates first. There is really only two rules for maintaining production systems: 1) If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It. You don't HAVE to run every update Apple puts out the moment it comes out. Look at the list of what an update does. If it doesn't mention a specific problem you're having, put it on a test machine first, see what breaks before you install it on the system you rely on to run your business. It doesn't have to be a serious production system, but it does need to run the stuff you need to use. An old G4 or G5, or iMac or Macbook if you use Intel systems. Set it up with your major software, and use it to test system updates. When and if you upgrade main systems, use the oldest as your testbed device. It can be a regular production system, just make sure it's one you can do without for the time it takes to re-install. Be smart about re-installing. Get your system set up so it's 'just right'. Then use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone it to an external drive (even just a bare HDD, using one of these <http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=2020&cpc=SCH>) clone the drive, then put the cloned drive on the shelf and leave it there. If you need to re-install, get the drive off the shelf and let OS X restore everything for you. when you re-install the OS. It takes a few hours to redo everything, but you don't need to be there, you can be off doing something else. We use these same techniques at the college to streamline disaster recovery; they're equally applicable to Fortune 500 multinational companies as they are to one-man shops. Even Microsoft Word can break things...one professor here charged ahead and got Office 2011 for the Mac, because she had a persistent problem with Word; it fixed her problem, but too late she discovered that EndNote (a bibliographic database widely used in the sciences) is not yet compatible with Office 2011. She discovered this 2 days before a big grant proposal was due (at about 8PM on a Friday, to be exact), by adding a reference and finding that all her references and her end notes vanished. (fortunately she is one of the users I support, and has been lectured ad nauseam about the importance of backups, so she was able to downgrade to Office 2008 then open up a backup copy of the document.) 2) Don't install anything more than you need on critical systems. Your studio systems are the core of your business. You should be installing just the software you need to do that on them. By all means get a 'playtime' mac to install all those cool browser plugins, and trial programs and windowshade icon changifier screen backgrounds that look cool but don't actually contribute to the task of running your business....like LiveBackground... -- Bruce Johnson "Wherever you go, there you are" B. Banzai, PhD -- You received this message because you are a member of the iMac Group, a group for those using Apple iMacs and eMacs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to imaclist@googlegroups.com To leave this group, send email to imaclist+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/imaclist
