I'm not sure whether it's anything to do with the vast amounts of turkey consumed in the US over Thanksgiving, but it's been a relatively quiet week in the Mac universe.

Photo credit bcmom (CC)

There have been no software updates from Apple - though that's a good thing after the previous week's deluge. But issues arising from some of those releases are still getting an airing, notably some complaints that the Mac OS X 10.4.11 update has caused serious (as in "you need to reformat the drive and reinstall everything") problems for some people that previously used Boot Camp to set up a dual-boot Mac OS X/Windows system.

Another is the loss of administrator privileges issue that affects some users after an upgrade installation of Mac OS X 10.5 - there are now reports that it may strike after updating to 10.5.1, even if the original Leopard installation went smoothly.

There are also mixed reports about changes in battery life (ie, how long the Mac will run on a single charge) under Leopard. Some say it's about the same, a few claim it's better, but the largest number of reports seem to be coming from those noticing diminished battery life. Another, possibly related symptom is that the warning about the battery becoming depleted may appear immediately before it runs out of juice.

It's hard to be sure at this stage, but I suspect all this is another example of a minority that are having problems drowning out those that have had a smooth upgrade experience.

I've lost count of the number of Mac OS updates and upgrades I've been through over the years, but since switching to Mac OS X I can only recall one bad experience, and that involved a genuine bug that was specific to the model I was using at the time. Basic hygiene precautions such as checking the integrity of the hard drive with Disk Utility and restarting immediately before installing updates seem to go a long way towards staving off problems. Removing any external storage devices seems to be a good idea.

And whatever you do, make sure any irreplaceable files are backed up before updating or upgrading the operating system.

I'm not denying the reality of the problems being reported, or suggesting that the users are to blame. But just because you should be able to run Software Update without taking any particular precautions, that doesn't mean it is a good idea.

PS: Apple is running a one-day pre-Christmas sale tomorrow (Friday November 30) at its online store in Australia. I believe the sale is also running in the US and the UK, and possibly other countries. How good the deals will be remains to be seen, but it might be worth a look if you're planning a purchase.

PPS: Is it just coincidence that I keep reading references to leopard (as in the animal skin) in newspapers' fashion pages?