Has your experience with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard been interrupted by odd behaviors or obscure bugs? There's a chance that the just-released Mac OS X 10.6.3 Update [1] may address them. The latest version of Mac OS X rolls in fixes for a host of bugs. Apple has detailed the major fixes, of which some stand out.

• Performance is improved when running Logic Pro 9 and MainStage 2 in 64-bit mode.
• Reliability is improved in many areas: photo screen savers, printing, some third-party USB devices, wireless connections, QuickTime X, sleeping and waking when connected to 2.4 GHz wireless networks, iDisk Sync and syncing calendars via MobileMe, and more.
• A problem with Time Machine backups using an AirPort connection has been fixed.
• Time Machine backups to a Time Capsule, including multiple computers, are more reliable.
• A few problems when saving or handling files with an SMB server volume have been resolved.
• A new crash-reporting option [2] has been added. The preferences in the Console application now offer an option to "Automatically send anonymous diagnostic and usage data to Apple." In previous versions of Mac OS X, if a crash happened, the system would prompt you to send that data.
• The Apple Events bug that Matt Neuburg described in "Tracking Down Snow Leopard's Apple Events Bug [3]" (13 October 2009) is now fixed. However, another bug that Matt identified in "A Finder-Copying Bug in Snow Leopard [4]" (10 November 2009) has not been addressed.
• The annoying Preview bug Adam wrote about in "Two-Line URLs Broken in Snow Leopard's Preview [5]" (10 September 2009) is finally fixed.

The update also includes dozens of security fixes [6] that tackle problems with maliciously crafted files, messages, and Web sites, as well as updating MySQL to 5.0.88, PHP to 5.3.1 (or 5.2.12 under Mac OS X 10.5.8), Ruby on Rails to version 2.3.5, and various other components to newer versions.

Mac OS X 10.6.3 Update is available via Software Update, with file sizes varying depending on machine and configuration; my MacBook Pro's update, for example, is 414.4 MB. Standalone downloads are also available: Mac OS X 10.6.3 [7] (719.23 MB); Mac OS X 10.6.3 (Combo) [8] (784 MB); Mac OS X Server 10.6.3 [9] (831.31 MB); and Mac OS X Server 10.6.3 (Combo) [10] (897.32 MB).

[1]: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4014
[2]: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4063
[3]: http://db.tidbits.com/article/10643
[4]: http://db.tidbits.com/article/10743
[5]: http://db.tidbits.com/article/10519
[6]: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4077
[7]: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1018
[8]: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1017
[9]: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1020
[10]: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1019

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