Mac OS X 10.4.3 Released

parry writes "Software Update just delivered the Mac OS X 10.4.3 update to my PowerBook. Key changes include improved responsiveness when searching in Spotlight, Safari now passes the Acid2 test, better performance for MS-DOS formatted volumes and numerous bug fixes."

Comments

What will it be for early downloaders...

[xactuary]

Trick or Treat?

Yes, it is snappier!

[Anonymous Coward]

... even my old Dell inspiron running Win XP is snappier now that 10.4.3 is out!

Re:Yes, it is snappier!

[Johnathon_Dough]

I had the same problem on my wife's ibook, so i disabled dashboard and spotlight (she used neither) and it got a whole lot better.

to disable spotlight try spotless

and instructions on disabling dashboard.

Re:Yes, it is snappier!

[Mononoke]

Clean off your desktop.

Seriously.

I had been watching Activity Monitor, and an app called WindowServer was taking vast amounts of CPU, especially during startup of other apps (things would bounce 'forever' in the doc before opening.) It wasn't a pre-binding problem either. I finally thought I might clean off my computer's desktop (there were about 340 items there, as it's both my default download folder and the place I drag images and clippings to from Safari.) I simply dragged everything into a folder that I created on the desktop, restarted for luck, and all the snappiness was back.

WindowServer is behaving itself now, and everything loading quicker and working more as expected. I don't know exactly what WindowServer does, but I do know it hates a 'dirty desktop.'

Re:Yes, it is snappier!

[skinfitz]

Windows runs faster with a clean desktop too. They must have copied that from Microsoft...

Re:Yes, it is snappier!

[derflammenhund]

Macs did have a proper file structure before OS X: it was whatever you wanted it to be. Personally, I stuck to the Applications/Documents format Apple presented me with on our first mac back in 1995. I still use this format, but the OS let you create as many subfolders wherever you wanted, so whatever organization scheme worked best for you was the one you used. Unfortunately, with OS X, and especially with the removal of things like Favorites-as-a-default, the HD icon is the only folder you see on the desktop at startup, so it's probably quite a bit more compelling to put things in there if you don't "know any better."

I'd guess there's some compulsion to try to simply drag files to My Computer on windows machines for some people.

As a more stereotypical guess, mac people tend to have relied on visual layouts in folders to deal with filesystem issues, so those people like to see all of their files in one view. A professor I have to deal with during the course of my job is like this; he has 400 files on his desktop, and then on top of that he keeps nested folder after nested folder of files for his class presentations on his drive. I have no clue whatsoever how he gets anything done, especially as one of his main subfolders is labled with his name.

Ugh.

Seems to work fine...

[knightinshiningarmor]

I installed it a few hours ago and everything seems about right. The only problem I've had so far is in starting up Safari:

Safari 2.0.2 (v416.12) has not been tested with the plugin PithHelmet 2.6.1 (v70). As a precaution, it has not been loaded. Please contact the plugin developer for further information.

Any ideas on getting this working?

Anyone with iTunes 5 done the OSX upgrade yet?

[artifex2004]

If you have, did it stealth update to iTunes 6?
I don't want 6, yet.

Re:Anyone with iTunes 5 done the OSX upgrade yet?

[itwerx]

I'm new to Apple and their package updating scheme, so I'm worried the update might change other dependencies or my ability to update it back to 6, later.

There speaks a Windows refugee... :)
      Fear not! A - the iTunes updates are always separate, so if it shows up in the list just deselect it and B - it is just an app, so if you make an archive of whatever you've got then if you did accidentally grab 6 by mistake just delete that, un-archive and you're good to go!

RE: getting PithHelmet to work

[KURAAKU Deibiddo]

here is probably the easiest way, since I don't know if you're using Apple's Finder or not. Path Finder (which I use instead of Apple's Finder) allows you to look at the contents of a package or app, which would be easier for this edit if you want to use the GUI all the way.

first of all, you may want to make sure you have version 2.6.1 of Pith Helmet (the latest version). then open the Terminal. paste or type this line, all on one line:

open "/Library/Application Support/SIMBL/Plugins/PithHelmet.bundle/Contents/Info.plist"

(this will open the file you need to edit in the Property List Editor.)

click the triangles to expand "Root", then "SIMBLTargetApplications", and then "0".

Change "MaxBundleVersion" to "416".

it should look like this.

then hit Cmd-S to save, Cmd-Q to quit, and you're all set to use Pith Helmet. i've tested it for a bit, and so far it works perfectly.

let me know if you have any questions.

Re:Quartz 2D Extreme disabled?

[TheRaven64]

You are being confused, I think, by the fact that three technologies have very similar names.

Quartz 2D (often just Quartz) is the 2D rendering system used on OS X. It uses a display list format that has a 1:1 mapping with PDF display lists, allowing resolution-independent UI elements to be drawn.

Quartz Extreme was the hardware accelerated compositing system introduced with (I think) Jagwyre. Each window in Quartz 2D is rendered to a buffer. Originally, these were then composited in software. With QE, they were rendered to OpenGL textures and then composited in hardware. This allowed things like translucent windows to be drawn quickly, and made effects like Exposé possible.

Quartz 2D Extreme moves a lot of the things in Quartz 2D into hardware. For example, each character in a font is rendered into an OpenGL buffer with Q2DE, and then composited in the window by the GPU. This makes text rendering much faster with Q2DE (assuming that the GPU is fast enough).

Apple never advertised Q2DE. It was mentioned at the WWDC, but that is a developers conference - and developers can enable it for testing purposes. They advertise Quartz 2D and Quartz Extreme, because these are shipping features.

Re:Quartz 2D Extreme Disabled?

[avalys]

Quartz 2D Extreme is a developers-only feature that could be enabled for testing in previous versions of Tiger. It was never enabled by default, you had to run a special application to enable it. And it was always buggy.

This is not the same thing as Quartz or Quartz 2D - those are still enabled. There is a post a few above yours that explains the difference more fully.

Re:Shnappy Shnappy

[cpt kangarooski]

He is incorrect, as downloading is capable of being copyright infringement, which can rise to the level of a crime in the United States. But you're incorrect too. You can't use a stolen property law as a substitute for a copyright law; this was settled decades ago by the Supreme Court.

Re:I Broke Safari's ACID2 Support

[Yaztromo]

Perhaps not. Part of the Acid2 test is to test various positioning mechanisms. Some are static, some are more relative. It may just be that the elements which were left behind were the static elements.

AFAIK, Acid2 isn't really designed with scrolling in mind. I'm surprised you're able to scroll the page at all.

Yaz.

Re:Shnappy Shnappy

[cpt kangarooski]

Wrong.

Copyright infringement is the infringement of any of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder, per 17 USC 501. One of the exclusive rights is the right to reproduce the work in copies, per 106(1). As it happens, the courts have generally considered the reproduction of works into RAM, hard drives, etc. to qualify, and to be infringing. The MAI and Intellectual Reserve cases are examples of this.

This is too well settled for you to be able to truthfully dispute it. You can argue that it's dumb, but that doesn't mean that it's not the current law.

The only question left is whether it is criminal copyright infringement, which is a subset of copyright infringement generally. Per 506(a), copyright infringement of the reproduction sort is criminal if it is willful and either a) is for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain, or b) involves the reproduction during any 180 day period of works with a total retail value of over $1000.

Private financial gain is defined in 101 to include the "receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works." That's what the NET Act added, to cover warez trading. Presumably it isn't applicable for a mere downloader. Of course, making a copy through downloading, where you anticipate someone will return the favor by making a copy of something for you would qualify. Uploading without any receipt or expectation of receipt would not. So it's more complicated than whether data went up or down, as you seemed to think.

In any case, if the retail value of the downloaded work -- or all the downloads over the last 180 days, as your typical downloader probably downloads a lot -- is over $1000, then it is irrelevant whether or not he planned to trade warez. He's a criminal infringer anyway, if he infringed willfully.

You really ought to try reading the statutes instead of relying on just the laws that tweak them, or more likely, the sort of gossip and hearsay that most people on the net seem to believe in.

Re:WARNING!!! 10.4.3 render iBook G4 not bootable!

[carboncopy79]

Looks like I am not the only one.

Insight from ArsTechnica on this.

[interactive_civilian]

From the ArsTechnica Mac.Ach 10.4.3 thread:

Posted by MightySpoon:

Quote:why has apple dropped the development of Q2DX in tiger?

To avoid potential lawsuits from Vanilla Ice.

(Say Quartz Two Dee Extreme out loud and then try not to shoot yourself in your face. You can't do it.)

The truth hurts, doesn't it? ;p