Tag: upgrade

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OK, I’m impressed. I’d always closed down whatever I was doing before, but I decided to just let Adobe Reader update itself while I had a manual open. It not only closed the application before installing the update, but it started itself up again, re-opened the document I was reading, and picked up right where I left off.

In general, I think that making every application re-invent the update wheel is kind of pointless when you have centralized update systems on every OS*…but I suppose sometimes re-inventing can lead to finding a better solution. Just last week I had to reboot Windows to uninstall Acrobat 6.

*Windows: Windows Update. Mac: Software Update. Linux: varies with distribution, but the most common are probably Apt, Yum, Up2date and YaST.

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Something that could help with the ever-shrinking window between turning on a new (Windows) computer and getting hacked by some automatic probe is to just make downloading security updates part of the setup process. I installed two Linux distributions this weekend, Mandrake 10.1 and SuSE 9.2, and both did this.

What I liked about the SuSE installer was the way the option was worded. The setup utility asks you if you want to “test your Internet connection.” It tests the connection by downloading the latest release notes and checking for updates! (Unfortunately, it somehow chose an old mirror of the SuSE site—not the one I used during the installation—and the process failed.)

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I’ve been thinking about adding memory to the PowerBook for a while now, and for various other reasons we ended up at Fry’s last night. I figured, we’re here anyway, why not at least price the RAM?

Well, here’s a big fragging “Why Not:” I couldn’t remember the exact specs required. There was, however, a chart listing various laptop models, and the employees could look up requirements by model in the computer. The problem there was that I knew it as “the new 12″ PowerBook G4,” not as “Model A1010,” so they ended up (as near as I can tell) pulling up the specs for last year’s PowerBook (the 1 GHz instead of the 1.33 GHz). Naturally, the two models use different kinds of RAM.

When we got home last night, I cracked open the manual to compare the specs. Tonight, I waded through the Fry’s return line, and this time I brought the manual along — as I’d intended to do in the first place.

Everything went smoothly except for one glitch. The memory slot is covered by a panel with four size #0 Phillips head screws. I do have a size #0 screwdriver, and three of the screws came out easily. One of them refused to move, and the head ended up getting stripped somewhat. Eventually I was able to get it.

So, now the laptop has gone from having the smallest amount of memory at 256 MB (barring the ancient Mac clone in the closet) to having the most memory of all our computers at 1.25 GB.

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This morning I upgraded the mail servers at work. They were down for maybe two seconds each. I doubt anyone even noticed.

If you’re used to installing software on Windows, you probably think I’m kidding. Didn’t I have to shut the service down before installing the upgrade? Didn’t I have to reboot when it was done? Nope!

The reason you have to go through all that trouble when you install something on Windows is that it won’t let you change files that are in use. So you can’t install the new Exchange without closing down the old one. And some files aren’t completely closed until you shut down Windows.

On Linux (and possibly all Unix-like systems), if you delete or replace an open file, the system hangs onto it until the program using it is done. So if you need to upgrade Sendmail, you can go through the entire process while the old Sendmail is still running, then tell it to restart the service once it’s ready.

It’s not quite zero, but it’s close!