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Actually, Tiger updates have been all essentially painless, unlike with Panther, which had a couple of troublesome builds, at least on my rigs, around versions .5 and .6 - modem issues and USB glitches. Tiger has, by contrast, been pretty much a rock for me, and I'm happy to report that the latest, and probably ultimate version 10.4.11 is proving the same in the early going at least.
My default preference is to run the Combo updater version, but in this instance, at 171 MB, it was just not a reasonable proposition over my broadband connection. The incremental Delta updater at 70 MB was bad enough, taking 10 hours to come down overnight Thursday.
I've been running behind this week due to an unscheduled road trip, so I dispensed with my usual drill of running a slate of system maintenance routines with OnyX before updating.
Since the installed system I would be updating was version 10.4.9, I first ran the OS 10.4.10 Combo updater, which I had on hand, before the 10.4.11 Delta, so I only went up one update version incrementally.
Everything went as smooth as butter, and after the requisite installer runs and requisite serial reboots, Tiger was purring happily on the PowerBook.
So far, everything is just great. Nothing broke, and even Safari 3.0.4, which some upgraders have reported issues with, is working very nicely, and with a substantial speed improvement over version 2.0.4. It flies, and may well now be the fastest OS X browser on some sites.
A couple of notes on Safari 3; it is speculated that the troubles reported may be due to old third-party add-ons left over from Safari 2. Before starting up Safari 3, I went to the "Input Managers" folder, trashed SafariStand (which is a very nice Safari enhancer that I like), rebooted the Mac, and it's been smooth sailing. There is a version of SafariStand that supports Safari 3, and I will download it eventually.
For more on what has been tweaked in Safari 3 (there's a lot) see this article:
http://webkit.org/blog/122/webkit-3-10-new-things/
Another happy thing I've noticed is that in a long and intensive computing session last evening, the PowerBook's cooling fans never cut in. This is in contrast to them usually running about half the time once the 'Book is warmend up and working hard. We are having an unseasonable warm spell here this week, so it's not cooler ambient temperatures. Perhaps some coding efficiencies in 10.4.11 are helping keep things cooler?
[UPDATE: That was short-lived. Must have been the clean memory heap due to the recent restart. This evening (Friday), the fans are screaming away, maybe worse than they did with version 10.4.10. Sigh.
UPDATE 2: Later: I had been using a bunch of graphic programs fairly intensively on Friday, and on Saturday when I checked the var/vm folder, there were six or seven swapfiles in there even though it had been less than 36 hours since my last reboot hours. I restarted, and the fan activity ceased. Through a several-hour online session Saturday evening the fans never cut in and I never noticed the Temperature Monitor readout climbing above 55.8 C° CM]
Based on my experience in the early going, I have nothing negative to report from the early going at least, and subjectively, 10.4.11 seems to be, if anything, a bit livelier in Finder response, but that's had to gauge objectively. It had been two weeks since I rebooted my computer prior to doing the update, so things had been getting pretty sluggish and flaky.
As noted, version 10.4.11 will likely be the ultimate, definitive OS X 10.4 Tiger update, just as OS 10.3.9 was for Panther and OS 10.2.8 for Jaguar, in this case OS 10.4.11.
The Mac OS X 10.4.11 Combo Update updates Mac OS X Tiger (versions 10.4 through 10.4.10) to version 10.4.11.
To update to Mac OS X 10.4.11, use Software Update or the standalone installer (my personal preference and recommendation is for the latter, which give you more control over the update process).
Software Update, located in the Apple menu, will automatically check for the latest Apple software using the Internet. (Software Update might have linked you to this article to learn more about the update.) If your computer is not up to date, software updates for your computer will appear that you can install. Note that an update's size may vary from computer to computer when installed using Software Update. Also, some updates must be installed prior to others, so you should run Software Update more than once to make sure you have all available updates.
The Standalone installer is downloaded first (c70 MB) and run manually. This also a sensible option when you need to update multiple computers but only want to download the update once. These versions of the standalone installer are available from Apple Downloads:
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/
• The delta update for PowerPC-based Macs updates Mac OS X 10.4.10 (PowerPC) to 10.4.11.
• The delta update for Intel-based Macs updates Mac OS X 10.4.10 (Intel) to 10.4.11.
• The combo update for PowerPC-based Macs updates Mac OS X (PowerPC) 10.4, 10.4.1, 10.4.2, 10.4.3, 10.4.4, 10.4.5, 10.4.6, 10.4.7, 10.4.8, 10.4.9, or 10.4.10 to 10.4.11.
• The combo update for Intel-based Macs updates Mac OS X (Intel) 10.4.6, 10.4.7, 10.4.8, 10.4.9, or 10.4.10 to 10.4.11.
The following modifications are included in this update:
Improvement /Platform /Category
Includes Safari 3 PowerPC, Intel Internet
Adds RAW image decoding support for the following cameras: Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50, Leica V-Lux 1, Olympus E-400, Olympus EVOLT E410, Olympus EVOLT E510, Canon EOS 40D
PowerPC, Intel Third-party
Improves compatibility when using OpenType fonts in QuarkExpress
PowerPC, Intel Third-party
Improves reliability when running VMWARE's Fusion
Intel Third-party
Improves support for using Image Capture to import pictures taken on your iPhone
PowerPC, Intel iPhone
Improves syncing between iPhone and Yahoo! address books
PowerPC, Intel iPhone
Addresses an issue copying files from a Mac OS 9 AFP sharepoint
PowerPC, Intel Networking
Improved reliability advertising an AFP sharepoint over Bonjour
PowerPC, Intel Networking
Addresses an issue which could prevent the use of port mapping when sharing your Mac's internet connection
PowerPC, Intel Networking
Improves reliability when trying to authenticate to an AFP share using Kerberos
Intel Networking
Improves compatibility with third-party wireless wide-area network devices
Intel Networking
Improves reliability when mounting external USB hard drives.
Intel USB
Adds support for Microsoft Presenter Mouse 8000
PowerPC, Intel Bluetooth
Addresses an issue in which selecting two rows of album art within the iTunes artwork Screen Saver may cause System Preferences to unexpectedly quit
PowerPC, Intel Other
Includes updated Daylight Saving Time information for customers in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States state of Indiana
PowerPC, Intel Other
Allows the use of the special keys on aluminum Apple Keyboards to control Aperture slideshows
PowerPC, Intel Other
Addresses an issue in which help content for some applications may be displayed in English when using the computer in another Mac OS X language
Intel Other
Addresses issues with certain Apple Dashboard widgets: Unit Converter, Calculator, Stocks
PowerPC, Intel Other
Includes recent Apple security updates PowerPC, Intel Other
You can find detailed information on the security updates here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307041
Combo updates: The combo update delivers many improvements. It includes modifications delivered above as well as these previous Mac OS X 10.4.x updates.
• For PowerPC only - 10.4.1, 10.4.2, 10.4.3, 10.4.4, 10.4.5, 10.4.6
• For PowerPC and Intel - 10.4.7, 10.4.8, 10.4.9, or 10.4.10
For more information, visit:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306297
Charles W. Moore
Tags: Blogs ď OSX Odyssey ď Hot Topics ď
I have been using Safari 3 since the beta came out, and it has finally caught up with Firefox in support of web standards. Any web page that is designed to work on multiple browsers should work fine in Safari. If it doesn’t work in Safari, it is either a Firefox or Internet Explorer only site or Explorer only which means it almost definitely is infected with spyware. I don’t see a need for Camino anymore - if it doesn’t work in Safari 3, the only other possible solution is to try Firefox. Anything Mozilla specific that the site will likely use will not work in Camino. Another nice thing about Safari is that it is the only browser on the Mac where you can get PDFs viewed inline with Preview or Adobe Reader and Flash Player is optimized for it. It does crash a lot though, hopefully the final version is mores stable.