'Free' applications can cost you a bundle

The pending release of Mac OS X 10.2.1 is well known now that Apple posted and then removed release notes from its Web site yesterday. Thanks go out to an attentive reader or to Ric Ford himself for catching the release notes on Apple's Web site yesterday and posting the notes on his Web site, Macintouch. Among those release notes, which I will put at the end of this article, is one troubling note among the "Networking and Mail Enhancements" in the update:

* Addresses a situation in which, if the connection fails when transferring email to your computer via your network or an Internet connection, all mail not transferred is lost.

So, here nearly two years into the development of Mail.app, Apple's favored email client for Mac OS X, the company has unleashed a program that makes the biggest mistake that an email application can make - losing your mail. Kudos to Apple for admiting the problem and fixing it in the update that should be offered soon, but shame on Apple for not letting users know up front that Mail.app was not ready for prime time use.

This is another example of how, if you choose to rely on "free" applications like Mail.app or iCal or any other free program, you may find that you pay for that free application with the loss of critical data. This is why when I consult other businesses I recommend that they pay for real email accounts, real email programs, and real and reliable programs for their other critical data. I know that I can't afford to lose email, and even if you don't use your Mac to run a business, I am willing to bet you don't want to lose email either.

Data loss can happen other ways, of course. I was yelling at Murphy (as in Murphy's Law) yesterday when I hotsynched my Palm Vx to my organizer program, Organizer from Chronos, and in the process half of the mileage data I have been tracking while doing research for our upcoming book Birding Washington was lost. I was able to recreate the data, thankfully, but the situation was a great reminder of how fragile computer data can be. In my case, there was a backup, and everyone should back up their data, but in the case of Mail.app, you will not even know that there was email lost when a transfer is stopped in mid-stream for some reason. My advice: Look at other more developed email solutions. Or, if you want to keep giving Mail a chance, set it to leave your email on the server so that you can use another email program to ensure that you get everything that is sent to you.

Mac OS X 10.2.1 release notes (as posted on Macintouch):

Disc Burning Enhancements

* Improves compatibility of burned CDs with Microsoft Windows.
* Addresses a situation that could result in a failure when burning a disc using iTunes 3 and a high burn speed.
* Addresses an issue in which Disk Utility could inaccurately report "problems" when scanning a disc that was burned with iTunes or in the Finder.
* Adds support for various third-party disc burners, including: TDK VeloCD 241032FP and 241040F, MCE Technologies Lucid-24 24x10x24x Portable FireWire CDRW Drive, LaCie PocketCDRW 24x10x24 U&I, EZQuest Boa CDR/w 48x12x48 FireWire, Formac cdrw 40x10x40 and cdrw 48x10x40.

Digital Hub and Peripheral Device Enhancements

* Decreases the amount of time Final Cut Pro takes to open, and improves iMovie compatibility when a Sony DVMC-DA1 media converter is connected to the computer.
* Improves iMovie compatibility with Canopus ADVC-100 media converter.
* Improves compatibility with certain (SCSI-based) scanners.
* Improves compatibility of Image Capture with Epson DS (TWAIN).
* Improves results when scanning in grayscale or black-and-white with Image Capture and Epson UI.
* Enhances reliability when hot-swapping a FireWire-based camera on certain iMacs using Final Cut Pro.
* Addresses a potential issue in which a USB keyboard or mouse is not recognized or able to wake the computer after having been connected to or disconnected from an external USB hub while the computer is in sleep.

Networking and Mail Enhancements

* Addresses a situation in which certain Internet service providers (ISPs) may not accept outgoing email (SMTP) from computers using NAT and a ".local" hostname (which may be assigned by Rendezvous).
* Addresses a situation in which, if the connection fails when transferring email to your computer via your network or an Internet connection, all mail not transferred is lost.
* Improves Mac OS X Server performance in heavy AFP client load situations.
* Improves Mac OS X Server reliability when a Mac OS 9 client attempts a scheduled AFP connection.
* Resolves a potential issue in which Mail could fail to import mail messages from Eudora as expected.

Printing Enhancements

* Addresses a potential situation in which Print Center would unexpectedly quit when using St. Claire Software's Default Folder X.
* Improves compatibility with HP LaserJet 4V and HP LaserJet 4MV printers.
* Reduces occurrences of a potential "busy; source EIO (ATALK)" alert message when printing using AppleTalk via CUPS.
* Addresses an issue when printing via CUPS in which the second queued print job would automatically start if the first print job was stopped.
* Addresses a potential "error -1" message in Print Center when adding a third-party USB printer.
* Includes various other CUPS-related printing enhancements.

Other Enhancements

* Improves potential situations in which a Web page's graphics could take an unexpectedly long time to appear in a browser window.
* Improves compatibility with Microsoft Entourage.
* Reduces likelihood of a potential "ticking hard drive" symptom that could be caused by IOAudio errors regularly being written to the system.log file.
* Addresses a potential issue in which Mac Help may not be available following an erase-installation.
* Improves compatibility of the Universal Access Zoom feature with some iBook computers.
* Addresses a potential situation in which no video may appear after waking certain iBook computers that are connected to an external display or presentation device.
* Addresses a situation in which a Classic application may fail to produce sound after waking from sleep.
* Addresses a potential situation in which AppleTalk may not be available in the Classic environment after waking from sleep.
* Addresses various potential kernel panic situations.

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