Snow Leopard update… and pondering the iPod
There is some good news about an issue with MacOS Snow Leopard that an engineer friend of mine told me about days ago. Apple released an OS update today that fixes the downgrading of Adobe Systems’ Flash Player that occurred during the Snow Leopard installation.
The Snow Leopard release on August 28 included an older version of Adobe’s Flash plugin that is known to have security issues. Graham Cluley at Sophos warned users of the downgrade and urged users who installed Snow Leopard to upgrade immediately.
Snow Leopard 10.6.1 addresses the issue (heck, let’s just call it a “problem”) by updating the Flash Player plugin to 10.0.32.18, the most current, stable release.
Apple also included some minor fixes as well: improved compatibility with Sierra Wireless 3G modems, addressing a problem that caused some DVDs to stop playback, printer compatibility improvement, improvement in the automatic setup of Apple’s Mail application, and a fix for an issue that affected Motion 4 becoming unresponsive.
(Note added September 20, 2009: I upgraded this June-2008-vintage MacBook Pro (4 GB RAM, ’cause you NEVER have enough RAM 
) to Snow Leopard yesterday. I included the optional Rosetta and QuickTime 7 for “ounce of prevention” backward compatibility. So far, life is GOOD!)
Moving on from “Apple-polishing” to the popular sport of “Apple-watching,” we find this CNN article about the lack of a camera in the iPod Touch and the inclusion of a video camera (no stills) in the new iPod nanos. When I spent a year based onsite at Apple in Cupertino, CA, as a Netscape employee, I got to watch the sport of Apple-watching “from the inside.” The experience was a “eye-opener.” I personally know of no other company whose loyal customer base watches their every move so closely! Apple’s famous secrecy, besides being necessary to protect their leading designs, also generates a huge amount of interest and speculation – some of the best advertising that a company can have!
(Note added September 13, 2009: It looks like CNET has decided, “Why PONDER the iPod when you can DISSECT it?” [I am an “experimentalist, ” too, but I have a smaller budget.] Take a look at this hardware discussion that raises more questions!)
Read the CNN article about the agonizing technical decisions (similar to the ones that I made concerning a computer upgrade last year) about “should I or shouldn’t I” as the author tries to make a “purchase decision” concerning iPods on the basis of known models, and guesses as to what the future holds!
-Bill at Cheshire Cat Photo™
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