Hi.

I am happy to have this latest update. You have been missing for over 20 months! Are you back for good? I convinced my brother to get a mac – well his wife bought it for him for Christmas – a 24″ refurbished iMac and he loves it – BUT HE NEEDS YOUR TIPS. He’s driving me crazy!

Also, I heard that Snow Leopard had a bunch of issues with compatibility with other programs (read about them months ago) and wonder if you know if these issues have been resolved, or what issues still remain?

Thanks!

Judie

Hey hey, welcome back in my RSS folder
Been missing your very informative postings, tips and tricks that helped me a lot while being a OSX rookie.

Happy new year from Hamburg(GER)

@Judie,
We are trying to be back for good. Shooting for once a week posts. Possibly two, I am still trying to figure out how to work it all into a schedule.

As to the compatibility issues, you did hear correct, but most of those claims were probably a little exaggerated. If you look in the post, you can see we linked to wikidot, which has a breakdown of which apps will run on Snow Leopard, and which will not.

Thank you for the long time support.

I went to order this via your link, and in reading through Amazon user comments on the Snow Leopard Missing Manual, somewhere I read there’s a 10.6.1 version out, and that it removes the ‘bugs’ in 10.6 – that scared me. I’d like to order 10.6 – but would appreciate your comments on this concern first. Thanks so much – Karen

@Karen, once you install 10.6, it will prompt you immediately to update to the 10.6.2 release, which is if course free. If it does not, you just go to the usual Apple Menu, and select “Software Update”, follow the steps, and you should be pretty good to go.

It is all rather painless. Also, keep in mind, the chances of you buying a copy of 10.6.0 are slim, Apple makes sure to restock with the most current version they are shipping, so you more than likely will be buying 10.6.1 at least, maybe even 10.6.2.

Thank you – it’s ordered! I look forward to the faster operations – some functions on my Mac are frustratingly slow. Karen

Snow Leopard is still bug-ridden:
1. hanging when a blue tooth modem is used (that can’t be fixed by a Forced Quit) at the drop of a feather
2. failing to display the proper calendars when F4 is pressed
3. still calling the Jewish calendar (based on calculated new moons) Hebrew (based on observed new moons, and other differences for the sake of convenience; alternatively, failing to implement the Hebrew calendar properly)

@Milton
Yes, Snow Leopard is not perfect, I could add to your list as well. But from the underlying performance boost that I was mainly referring to, I consider it a great step in the right direction. I am not aware of any other company putting a full OS development cycle in which they concentrate on cleaning API’s and core aspects of the OS, and then releasing that OS for such a trivial price.

Your issue with the bluetooth modem, I would only be curious as what makes you believe it is a Mac OS X issue, and not the vendors issue for their drivers? BlueTooth also maxes out somewhere around 1Mb/s, which is slower than most internet connections.

On your #2, I would need more detail. I am not aware of F4 being a shortcut in relation to any calendar aspect of OS X.

#3 I would suggest you file a feedback report with Apple. That is the only way to make them aware of these issues.

All in all, relatively small issues for an entirely new update to an entirely new OS that breaks the 32 bit barrier and moves almost all aspects of it into 64 bit land.

Simply by reading in-between the lines, one can see that Apple has simply enhanced the speed of Leopard, including those of the simplest bugs to fix, yet remain unfixed.
The easiest one to fix is to stop calling the Jewish calendar (based on the calculation method of Hillel II) “Hebrew” (based on observation, and superseded by the Hillel).
The next easiest is to display international months to display properly when F4 is pressed. You obviously haven’t tried using a different calendar setting, and pressed F4. Try it – it doesn’t display the correct month.
The most difficult are those that are in the kernel, such as bluetooth modem code, even at G1 speeds, which are well below 1 Mbps> I have no issue with it,nor any beliefs on the subject: it is simply fact that they now execute faster than before.
Nor is this my opinion, but what I was told at the Genius Bar, by a Mac Genius, who gave me Apple’s feedback adress, and I filed a report last year.
Thus, I’d prefer only to pay for an update that has at the very least up-to-date calendars.

@Milton
About all I can add that will help our readers, is the changes in 10.6 are mostly developer related and end user performance related. The developer changes alone are huge. Nothing says it better than the 23 plus pages at Ars Technica.

Unfortunately, you are experiencing front facing software bugs. This post was mainly about the performance gains you will see from 10.6, not the bug fixes, for which there were very few to my knowledge.

I do not see F4 attached to any of the menu items in iCal, so I can not test what it is you are mentioning. I believe to see what you are talking about I would have to change the language of the OS, is that correct? I am also on a laptop, and F4 is the volume down key for me. You will have to explain in more detail what your issue is for those who are only familiar with a US-English layout.

For the sake of correctness to others reading… There is no bluetooth code in the kernel. I am not really sure what the issues are with your BT modem, as in your first post, you were not happy, and now you seemingly state things are faster.

Users here, and myself, can try to assist, but it works better to have detailed technical data, over what we are getting now. Good luck with your troubles, I hope they work out for you with a software update some time soon.

Why do you people insist on making false accusations against me? It is not me who is having
problems with Snow Leopard’s bugs! All I did was talk to the MacGeniuses at an Apple Store,
who told me that none of the bugs that I mentioned had been fixed. Misnaming the Jewish
calendar “Hebrew” is the easiset bug to fix, as that’s like the difference between British
“Old Style” & “New Style” calendars except that the Hebrew calendar has been outdated for
much longer. Or is Apple now employing Levites to make sightings of the moon? On a 10.5
MacBook, F4 brings up a calendar display of the current month, which has the correct month
name & date on top, but is displayed incorrectly DIRECTLY underneath, I.E. WITHIN THE SAME
APP, so it’s not a problem of the left hand not know what the right’s doing. Otherwise,
perhaps they didn’t mean to imply that the modem code was in the kernel, but they did say
that the modem bug will still hang the system; or still require a reset, despite a popup
implying that a modem error had occurred. The error is definitely in the OS – only resetting
it will get it to reconnect from scratch.

Make that “OS bug” rather than “modem bug” – there’s no bug in the modem, esp. as resetting the modem is never necessary.
Also, the BT modem code isn’t an application that runs under the OS, because it’s not possible to “Force Quit” it when it hangs.
At least this is what I was told at the Genius bar.
Is there another way to kill it & restart it from scratch?

@Milton
The people you are referring to here ( in this case ) are just me, the site owner and admin, and I am doing the best I can to help you, despite your hostility.

I think I will close with doing what I can to answer your final questions. Beyond that, perhaps there are other forums you can find that are more suitable for venting.

On Mac OS X Laptops, the F4 key is generally the volume down key. It can differ from laptop to laptop, and on other keyboards, it can control other things.

I have no idea what application you are referring to when you speak of a calendar. I have, as mentioned before, looked at iCal, and F4 is not a key that controls anything in that application. I can only guess you are using F4 to activate the OS X Dashboard, which is usually reserved to key F12.

The calendar widget in DashBoard probably does have a bug in it as you suggest. Those widgets are nothing more than html and css with some javascript. I would imagine if you found forums that catered to Dashboard Widgets, someone could easily explain to you how to change the name of the calendar.

Is this the calendar you are referring to?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/340087/drops/02.25.10/db-caledar-e0360396-194325.png

If not, what calendar is it, where did you get it, and how are you changing the behavior of it? Are you not running US English as the language for the OS? Or is this a localization change that is just for this calendar?

If F4 does not bring up the Dashboard, then I am at a loss as to what calendar you are referring to.

I will emphatically state, no one here has made any accusations toward you. If you were to read our FAQ, you would see that goes against a core principle of why I even started this site. Any such behavior is not tolerated.

Remember, everyone’s computer is configured differently, and to their own liking. While some things are the same, others are not. In order to get the help you seek, or a workaround, those that are offering help will need to first be able to replicate your problems.

When I press F4, my volume goes down, so I obviously am not on the same page as you, and am not able to replicate your issues.

On a semi-related note, while the Genius Bar employees, are indeed well versed in Macs, there is in all honestly, not a time I have been in an Apple Store, which I have not witnessed first hand, the dishing out of false information. It is a clear attempt to create an analogy, or an explanation that is “good enough” to move the customer along, so they can move alone to the next customer. And of course, as with anything technical, they can make mistakes, and are prone to simply not understanding everything 100% accurately.

I would not be so quick to point the modem error at the OS. If it is a 3rd party modem, and I am not aware of Apple making any BlueTooth Modems, then I would lean on it being a firmware issue, or software issue of the modem itself. Again, it is not possible to say without looking at the logs, or taking a physical look at the system. As it is now, I am not even aware of the brand, make, model, etc, of the modem.

It is largely debatable as to who is at fault when a system is stuck. On one hand, the OS should never allow any application to hang the system. On the other hand, bugs happen, and programmers can in fact do things deep into your system that will cause it to hang.

The Genius Bar gave you false data in regards to something not being running under the OS if you can not force quit said application. I could name 100’s of sub processes that can not be force quit that are indeed applications that are in fact running.

Yes, you could find a way to restart the modem, though it would require digging into the terminal and looking at how it works.

What modem is this? Is this just a BlueTooth bridge to a PPP type internet connection? Then at some point you get a message that something is wrong, and you have to perform a reset? Actually, before I make more conjecture, perhaps you can explain in as much technical details as possible, specifically what the modem is doing wrong.

Projecting MacOS supremecism onto me as hostility is to “blame
the victim” further, never mind blaming the modem for MacOS bugs,
or accusing the MacGeniuses of giving out wrong information. From
my point of view it’s “Apple’s issue” irrespective of the modem
being used, or whether their bluetooth code runs inside or out of
the OS, as it’s their code (& not 3rd party) with a known bug that
isn’t modem-specific, and their MacGeniuses. This is the kind of
bug that I expect Apple to fix.

Apple shouldn’t promote a developer OS release as one for the
general public. Cosmetic bugs are the easiest for them to fix, and
users shouldn’t have to do Apple’s work for them. On a MacBook
running 10.5.8, F4 brings up a calculator, a clock, a weather
forecast, and a calendar giving correct date-stamps for the Jewish
calendar, yet displaying incorrect tables of dates for that month.

Under Preferences>International>Formats one must choose “Hebrew” to
get the Jewish calendar, yet the two varieties of Islamic calendars
seem to be properly implemented. The Hebrew calendar is the lunar
equivalent of the Julian solar calendar, in that each has been
superseded by other calendars. No change in the OS display language
was necessary to change calendars & date-stamps.

Should my language be US-computer in order to have Unicode text as
the default across all apps? Non-unicode text will sometimes fail
to copy over from one terminal window to another. Setting both windows
to “lossless ASCII” or Unicode doesn’t always avoid that bug. But in
this case I’m not expecting Apple to be able to fix that bug for
all possible scenarios, so I’m willing to employ a work-around
for my specific situation, thus making it “my” issue instead of
Apple’s.

@Milton,
Your calendar issue is one with a dashboard widget, as I had suspected. You are experiencing a localization bug in the calendar widget. You can find a Dashboard widget specific forum in which someone has more than likely patched the issue, or, file a bug report with apple.

As to the modem issues, you have not explained enough about it for anyone here to be able to help. Unless Apple makes a BlueTooth modem that I am not aware of, then I would never hold Apple responsible for any problems a 3rd party product was causing, in the same way I do not blame the auto manufacturer when a Diesel will not run in a Hybrid. It could very well be Apples core BlueTooth driver, but I do not have enough information to debug that scenario, so I would not be willing to make any statements as to who is to blame at this point.

We have maintained the sites civility towards you, and I have done my best to help answer your questions with the little information I have been given. We will no longer be able to accept posts from you in this particular comment form.

It is our policy to make it publicly known when we make these decisions, and not delete any posts so the users can make up their own minds as to where the communication issues were happening. In this case, the scope of your posts is beyond that of which will help any of our new beginner users, and while we will not be taking any particular action at this time, we would appreciate it if this particular topic of conversation ends here, now.

Thank you for your understanding.

thanks for letting milton go. hard to know what was bugging him, but it was out of line.

@Arial,
Yeah, We gave it the ole’ college try, but in the end, I think someone had a bridge to burn with Apple, which has nothing to do with us.

I certainly can understand when people get frustrated with their computers and the lack of attention that a certain feature that may not work correctly is getting. However, there are proper channels to go through to try to solve those problems. In many cases, Apple simply may not be aware of the issue.

The good news is, there is almost always a workaround of some form. The problem with this issue was that I never could really figure out what the problem was, in order to possibly try to address the issue with a workaround.

You can not make all the people happy all the time, so we try to make as many people happy as possible. The above discussion was simply spiraling out of hand too fast, and taking away from the focus os the site and this post.

Hopefully as spare time opens up for me we will be able to get back to more regular posting, and also offer up a set of forums for all of our users that are useful and helpful.

There are a lot of Mac forums on the internet now, though I find none of them are catered to new users, and none of them take much time to explain things in the detail needed to be of real help.

I want more than just the answer. Telling someone to do steps 1, 2 and 3, to solve their problem is awesome. I think it is even better to explain why steps 1, 2, and 3 led to solving their problem. This is highly valuable, as it teaches core troubleshooting techniques that can be applied to a multitude of computing problems that will eventually happen to us all. If all you know is following the steps, you are at the mercy of waiting for someone to write down the steps. If, in the other hand, you have been given the steps with detail as to what those steps are doing and why, there is a good chance those steps can be applicable to many other common problems.

Hopefully, by setting the tone of the forums with the first 100 posts or so being being highly detailed and explanatory, the community will pick up on that and the entire tone of the forums will be of a highly detailed and helpful nature.

As soon as enough funds come in from the ads we run on the site, we will be able to set up these forums. I have looked at using some of the open source forums and “free” offerings (ie: phpBB et al), but none offer what I am looking for. Add to that the near weekly maintenance to the forum software, and it quickly becomes cheaper to lease a hosted forum solution where someone else worries about the security, load, and functionality of the forums, and Mac OS X Help can concentrate on the content within those forums.

As long as you are subscribed to our email newsletter or our RSS feed, when this happens, you will be notified.

Thank you for your comment, it is good to know I was not out of line in my actions.

I only just found this site and I love it but you seem to be gone. Am I right or am I missing something? Please come back. The floating dictionary tip was worth the price of admission all on its own.

@Jay, we are trying. I have some personal health issues that are preventing me from working on the site, or working much in general.

I hope to resolve these some day and get back into the swing of things again. Thank you for your support and kind words.

Thank you for your speedy reply, Scott. I love this site but your health comes first. You look after yourself and we’ll see you again when you’re better.