Mac OS X 10.3.6 Update Available

An anonymous reader writes "Apple has released the Mac OS X 10.3.6 update via Software Update as well as their downloads page. List of improvements is available. In short, the improvements are in remote file server issues (AFP, NFS, SMB/CIFS), OpenGL, ATi and NVidia drivers, Safari, Calculator, DVD Player, Image Capture, and also previous stand-alone Security Updates. Hurry up and get the update! ... and tell us if I should go to get it, too. ;)" A Mac OS X Server update is available as well.

Comments

Updates

[blueday4]

Hoorah, a calculator update..

Re:Updates

[TheRaven64]

And you still can't enter numbers in number bases other than decimal. You can set the display mode to hex, binary, or octal, but the input is still decimal. Makes it completely useless for doing any kind of calculation in other number bases.

Re:Updates

[Trurl's Machine]

...completely useless...

A practical solution would be, of course, something from the incredibly rich selection of free alternative calculators. However, the inner nerd in me jumped on the "completely useless" part of your post. First of all, Calculator.app accepts input from standard clipboard ("command-v" for paste), so you can use any hex->dec converter, even something from equally rich selection of Unix CLI tools. Calculator.app is also AppleScriptable, so you can write yourself a simple script (and if you need hex, oct and bin - or for that matter, even know what it means - you obviously can write a simple AppleScript) to automate the conversion. Since Apple, in its infinite wisdom, has chosen NOT to include built-in conversion to AppleScript, you can use something from the not-that-rich-but-still-useful selection of hex/dec add-ons to AppleScript.

Having said all that, I agree with you that no hex input in Calculator.app is just plainly stupid, just had to let my inner nerd go, otherwise he would harrass me for ages whispering dirty things about Natalie Portman to my inner ear when I try to concentrate.

Mac OS X 10.3.6 Update Available

[skinfitz]

Yes we know. See, we have this thing called "Software Update" that jumps up and down like a little yapper dog whenever there is an update available.

Maintenance

[xpccx]

I found this link to be very helpful for regular maintenance as well as a simple TODO list before each incremental OS upgrade. It covers:

• Repairing priviledges
• Repairing the disk
• Forcing periodic maintenance
• Updating the prebinding

caclulator?

[austad]

Finally, maybe I can actually divide stuff by zero. I hated that bug.

Re:Some of us had more than three views

[Smurf]

... but some people (myself included) turned them on by moving them from the Calculator.app/Contents/Resources folder to the Calculator.app/Contents/PlugIns folder.

It was easier to select "Get info" for the Calculator icon, and set all the checkboxes in the Plug-ins section.

I'm sorry to learn that the special views got broken. Some of them are rather useful.

Uninformed opinion is right

[SkiifGeek]

As per your sig, your opinion is uninformed.

Right / Control click on the calculator.app -> show package contents.

Under resources are a number of folders ending in .calcview. Drag them into the PlugIns folder and, voila, you now have a 2D Graphing calculator, a fully blown Hexadecimal calculator, and so on, available through the View menu in Calculator.

If it still doesn't rock your boat, there are plenty of valid third party calculator applications, such as GeekCalc, WCalc and a host of others.

Breaks a lot of Firewire drives

[anuj]

this tells of many users (myself included) whose firewire drives no longer mount. system profiler sees a device, but the drive doesn't show up in the disk utility. the drive mounts fine on an older machine, so it's not damaging to the data like the original panther release was. i guess the ball's in apple's court. ~A

10.3.6 Fixed Something! (NVidia/6800)

[wildsurf]

I'm one of the lucky few who picked up the 30" Cinema Display, with the NVidia 6800 graphics card. In 10.3.5, I would get frequent kernel panics when booting, that seemed to be related to the NVidia driver. (I installed the drivers from the disk that came with the 6800).

When this happened, I would have to remove the 6800 card, plug in my old card (ATI 9600 Pro), restart (at half-resolution on the 30"), shut down, plug in the NVidia card, and restart at half-res, which would work around the kernel panic.

Now, in 10.3.6, the system automatically switches to half-res while booting, which at least prevents the kernel panic. I hope they find a better fix though.

The kicker is that the left half of my new 30" display is about 25% dimmer than the right half. :/ A bad backlight inverter, seemingly; hopefully it will be fixable because the monitor has NO DEAD PIXELS (out of over 4 million!!) One takes the good with the bad, I guess :-)