Mac OS X 10.5.2 Update Brings Welcome Fixes

jetpack writes to make sure we're aware that Apple's OS X 10.5.2 update is available and that it contains plenty of improvements and fixes that users have been asking for. Macworld enumerates some of the big ones, saying that the update "shows Apple listens to users" (sometimes). A couple of the new features simply restore Tiger (10.4) capabilities that Leopard (10.5) had inexplicably withdrawn. You can now shut off the much-maligned transparency of the menu bar, and organize your Dock stacks hierarchically and display them as folders. And Apple has provided welcome access to common Time Machine functions in the menu bar.

AEBS backups

[sam.thorogood]

You can't back up to drives plugged into an Airport Extreme, though, even though the much-toted Time Capsule [apple.com] will apparently be able to (In their defence, this could come with an update before the Time Capsule actually ships).

Without reading the reversion list

[Scareduck]

... would it be possible for Apple to realize who their customers are and restore the ability to do two-way copying of MP3 (non-AAC, really) songs in iTunes? That got yanked a while ago, and it's an irritating functionality loss. There [macworld.com] are [scifihifi.com] alternatives [crispsofties.com] (hat tip: MacWorld [macworld.com]), but Apple's customer control tactics are almost as bad as the record companies'.

right direction

[je ne sais quoi]

Sounds like this is a step in the right direction. As soon as they remove the silly rooting behavior in column view in the finder, I'll buy leopard. Funny how one of these "features" they decided to include is keeping me from buying the OS. I run a mac shop, but I just bought an additional license for 10.4 instead of 10.5 because frankly, I don't see much worth shelling out the extra dough for in leopard. (In 10.4 you can bypass the rooting behavior by making an alias for the folder.) I know how to use rsync and cron, so I don't really need time machine.... and I'm not all that interested in the new preview view for the files. It's not like I'd delete it off a computer that I just bought, but I don't see much reason to upgrade since some of the things they did are not the behavior I want.

Re:Does it bring back the "Windows Shade"?

[chthonicdaemon]

Actually, I think you meant to say "they don't tell you all the things you are used to doing one way that you'll have to learn to do another way". Trust me, every person moving from Windows to Mac that I have spoken to the day they get the mac has a few things that piss them off. Number one is probably "there is no delete key". Then there's the way that compose keys work (my native language has a lot of accents, and they've learned to use ALT-137 or whatever, and it actually annoys them that they have to do ALT-e e to get the same result). In my experience, very few people actually miss cutting files, as it's not more trouble to drag them to the new location -- you have to open the new folder anyway, and Finder has those spring-loaded folders. The thing is, it gets to one when the things that you are so used to doing don't work. This doesn't mean that you can't move files away from your desktop, it just means you can't cut and paste files.

Another thing that I am only getting used to now is the whole Mac philosophy of windows not being full screen most of the time. It really does work if you give it a chance, but it is very alien to how I was used to working. So the "zoom" button, which most Windows users expect to be "maximize" doesn't work like you're used to. The point I'm trying to make here is that Apple aren't too lazy to implement all these windows-like behaviours, they really believe that their way of doing things is better. I don't really care one way or another, but I think many of the Mac ideas are pretty solid. I can tell you that I don't miss cut and paste on files at all.

Leopard Delays

[shmlco]

OS X Leopard's release was originally scheduled for the end of 2006 or early 2007. A year later, this was amended to "Spring 2007". And as of March 23rd, Leopard was still supposedly on track for a spring release. Then on April 12, just 20 days later, Apple announced that Leopard would be delayed. The reason? Apple needed to "borrow some key software engineering and QA resources" and put them to work on the iPhone in order to meet that product's promised June release.

But the revised release date for Leopard was October 26th, 119 days after the day the iPhone would ship and those "borrowed" developers could return to work on 10.5. Four months put back into the timeline, not two. And in actuality the postponement gave Apple over six more months of Leopard development time, counted from the announcement on April 12th to the revised ship date on October 26th.

Apple had only borrowed a few key people, remember? Presumably the rest weren't just sitting around waiting for the others to get back to work.

Even with the extra time, Apple didn't have enough time to fix all of the problems. So as the October release date loomed, Apple rushed one more final candidate past developers, patched and polished a few last-minute issues, determined that it was "good enough", and shipped OS X 10.5 Leopard to the public.

So short was the time frame that few outside of Apple saw the gold master. Even major software development firms like Adobe received their final copies at nearly the same time as everyone else.

Is that the profile of a company that isn't rushing a product to market? Nope, 10.5.2 is what Leopard should have been [isights.org].

Re:Bah

[metallic]

Also, apple doesn't come with a standard VNC server, instead it uses VNC with some proprietary shit built in, so I had to install vine server to get a remote desktop. Of course, vine server sucks as well, because I can't get it to start on boot, without logging into the server with either the native server admin tools, or locally with a KVM.

You can get a standard VNC client to connect to the built-in VNC server that ships with OSX. It takes some very specific settings, but it can be done. I've done it using TightVNC and UltraVNC on Windows before I finally switched to a Mac on the client side. If you Google around a bit, you should be able to find them.

Oh wait, the X Serve doesn't play nice with a standard KVM. I have an extra mouse and keyboard setting in my rack just for the X Serve.

Are you sure your KVM is standard? I have a 16-Port KVM complete with terminal, keyboard, and trackpad that works fine with the 6 XServes in the rack as well as with the FreeBSD, Linux, and Windows boxes in the rack.

Once you manage to get in the damn thing, if you have any sort of complicated setup at all, you simply CAN'T DO it using the server admin tool. I've usually had to bust into the config files just like any other Unix system. Take a look at the SQL section of the Server Admin tool, its a fucking joke. Also, even if you do start to do some things by hand, shit still doesn't work right.

That's what really sucks about OS X Server. Unless you have really basic needs that Apple envisioned, the GUI tools are useless. On top of that, you can't really customize anything that Apple has provided with the server. I tried compiling a custom PHP5 and installing the module on the stock Apache server only to have it crash Apache. I called Apple Support, and while they said it is technically possible to do what I was trying, they wouldn't provide any support for it. I ended up just compiling my own copy of Apache and PHP5 and saying to hell with the GUI tool.

On the other hand, OS X Server is awesome for managing a network of Macs. That's all about I can really recommend it for.

Re:AEBS backups

[MemoryDragon]

Dont tell me, I have been using leopard for a while and have vista on my side on my working notebook. Leopard, almost no problems except cosmetic ones. Vista, WLAN often refuses to connect to already registered networks. The harddrive thrashes my disk almost 10 minutes after booting, the problem is known you can find lots of references on the web, but no definitive solution. (And yes even indexing is off on my machine) The entire configuration is a mess, ok this is cosmetic, but severe enough that it takes me often 10 minutes to find something. The entire configuration has become way worse than KDE ever was and definitely is not in the same league as Apples easy configuration! Once I play a video locally file transfer rate over the network goes down the drain! (Thank you DRM!) UAC is not a pain I see it as necessary, again 2 blue screens in the last weeks, Leopard has yet to fail on me. One update introduced a deadlock in some applications for an entire month until the next update cycle. But to give Vista one credit, the 3d desktop is as slow as apples, the only system which shows that a 3d desktop can be fast currently is Linux. Ubuntus 3d Desktop flies on my machine compared to those two systems. Or in other words at least Vista allows you to turn the dreaded thing off!

Re:Send window to back? please?

[misleb]

Some way to manage windows from the total pool (or even better just what is in your current "Space*) instead of just switching between windows within the current app or switching between apps, would be very welcome indeed.

Re:Fonts fixed yet?

[vertigoCiel]

That George Ou article is worthless. He's just another flame-baiter like Dvorak, whose only purpose is to draw hits. I have yet to meet a Mac whose font rendering actually looks like Ou's "examples" - the rendering on my Macbook Pro looks tons better, and subpixel is turned on by default. Graphic and type designers make up a significant amount of the Apple user base, and if OS X's font rendering actually looked as bad as he claims, those users would be making a stink about it.

Re:AEBS backups

[jellomizer]

I am not sure if you are either a New Mac User who has gotten your first Mac Within 2 years or you just tend to forget quickly...
Every New Major version of OS X comes with a bunch glitches which they slowly but shirley fix in time. It happened in 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 10.4 and 10.5 there are new features that pop in that people don't quite like that get adjusted, there is some odd combination that doesn't seem to work just right. and by 10.x.4 or so. things run so smoothly that you begin to forget the pain you once had, and By the time of the next version you are on 10,.x.10 or so. Where everything is rock solid. Then you get a New version 10.x+1 and it is full of these little glitches again, normally annoying but rarely a huge show stopper.
You are under the impression that Any Software Company with deep pockets can produce a bug free system, which is wrong. I could write a complex program and debug it and check it for a huge amount of time much longer then miss a simple bug. For example I was making a type ahead dropdown box in HTML/Javascript for an intranet app. I have tested and tested it it was perfect. Then when it went to testing it came right back saying the drop down box disappeared when ever someone scrolled down. What happened when I was testing it I always used the mouse scroll wheel to scroll down the list while other people just clicked the scroll bar to drag it down and caused a lost focus on my control, causing the menu box to go away. The fix was easy but the issue was I never though of testing it that way because I do things a particular way consistently. So does Apple, and the Beta Testers... So they could have worked out all the issues they have found then on Day one of the release someone just did that one thing they never expected.