Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Apple Software Update saga, Episode II: The Continuing Menace

Just an update...

Apple Software Update woke me up this morning. I have a computer with three monitors in my bedroom (actually five, but two are usually powered off) and this morning when Apple Software Update popped up to inform me of an iTunes update (my guess is they added an extra comma or space to the license agreement somewhere, forcing yet another 70MB
half-a-gigabyte download) it awakened my sleeping monitors, in all of their blaring-white-light glory, awakening me as a result. Since I have been having an extremely hard time sleeping lately, this is extremely annoying. I only got 4 hours of sleep and I can't get back to sleep. My left ear is ringing (that's what happens when I'm sleep-deprived, go figure) and I'm getting a migraine because of it.

Why does it need to awaken my monitors? And better yet, why are they kept on as long as the ASU software is running? Is that really necessary? How much power is being wasted in the world because people's computer monitors are coming and staying on needlessly? And are other people are being awaken by ASU popping up to notify them of unnecessary Apple software updates?

And while I'm at it, why won't QuickTime keep monitors turned on when playing video? Every time I watch a video longer than 10 minutes (like television program episodes, say from iTunes?) in QuickTime I have to keep moving the mouse or pressing a key on the keyboard so the monitors don't shut off. But Apple Software Update [turns/] keeps them on. This seems backwards. (Most other media players are smart enough to handle monitor power properly, why won't QuickTime?)

And what's with putting the iTunes and QuickTime icons back on my desktop and Quick Launch bar with every update with nary an option to prevent this? I don't want them there, so I deleted them. And deleted them again. And again, and again, and again. And I've moved the iTunes/QuickTime Start Menu shortcuts into more appropriate subfolders. And new ones keep appearing, and appearing, and appearing. Apple, if you're doing an update, please don't create new shortcuts! Your users have already setup their computers the way they like, and they probably don't want to have that configuration mucked with. I don't know of any other "updaters" that do that. Very aggravating.

On a vaguely related note, my Mac won't turn off its monitor, despite the fact that the System Preference says to after 10 minutes. It just stays on all of the time. And it also just started dropping its WiFi network connection. Puzzling.

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