Home Forums Hardware Mac Desktops & Notebooks MBP trackpad becomes very sensitive & unresponsive

1. Let's see. I was going to say, No, I rarely run Software Update; it's set to run automatically once a week, but when I see its icon bouncing in the Dock on Sunday evenings, I usually open it and study the list it makes of what it thinks I need. Is this what you mean by "running it"?

Then I usually skip updating anything -- I close the app by closing its little window -- but sometimes I'll uncheck all but one or two items in the list and click the blue button, which by this time may say, "Install two items," and pretty soon, having restarted as needed, I go back to what I was doing when SU's icon started bouncing.

Last Sunday, the 15th, I don't remember exactly what I did, but I'm pretty sure I didn't bother to update iPhoto or iTunes because I rarely make even slight use of them, and the updates looked like big, time-consuming downloads, especially iTunes 9? So I think I skipped at least some, or all. (I'm not saying "ignore" now because I've learned, thanks to dkmarsh in Post #11491 above, that has specific other meaning.)

SU wasn't due to check for updates automatically until tomorrow, Sunday, and I didn't run it manually before I went to the Apple store.

So imagine my surprise when, on Tuesday evening, the 17th, after returning home from the Apple store and seeing this had come up in Post #11491, I "ran" SU manually, and it said my software was up to date. No list of recommended updates in SU, but I thought maybe I could "work one up" somehow, for the benefit of our discussion. (I'm not sure at the moment whether Time Machine archives that, never having actually retrieved anything from my backup disc.)

What happened? Did my Genius leave my computer to update my software while he went to the back of the store to get a fresh battery for me? I don't remember at what point he asked me to enter my password, but I do remember that he did, and that I did it.

Do you need to do that to replace a battery? I didn't think so. But it's required for software installation, right? So I think that's what happened. Wouldn't that explain why mine is still completely updated today? (I "ran" SU manually again just two hours ago, by clicking on its name in the Apple menu.)

2. I think I'll have to wait for another update to be issued to try practicing making more skillful use of the Update menu.

Meanwhile I've just used Chris Breen's method (the first one of the three he presents) to reset the time of week SU does its automatic checking. I think. We'll see, as time goes by.

I think you've just provided the missing pieces of the puzzle; the whole sequence of events makes complete sense, with the possible exception of the Genius updating your software without first asking if that was okay with you. (What if you were using some third-party software which was incompatible with the latest version of iTunes, for example?)

> Do you need to do that to replace a battery? I didn't think so. But it's required for software installation, right? So I think that's what happened. Wouldn't that explain why mine is still completely updated today? (I "ran" SU manually again just two hours ago, by clicking on its name in the Apple menu.)

Correct, depends on the update, and sounds like it.

Sounds like that, combined with a coupl'a breakdowns in communication, explains what happened.

Is it fair to say that one way to work with an application is to run it and use its menus etc. and another is to examine and set its preferences, though it has been quit? I don't always remember both these alternative ways to finding out how an application has been customized.

With Software Update, it was easy enough to confirm our inferences about what happened on 8/17 when my MacBook Pro was in the hands of the Genius in the Apple store, when I used the "Installed Updates" button in the S.U. Preferences pane. There were six nearly-simultaneous updates done that afternoon. (Although the clock time for the updates looked more like Pacific Time than Central Time, where I am...) I'm sorry I didn't think of this before, as it's much simpler than dealing with the Reset Ignored Updates item in S.U.'s menus.

I did get some experience with that though, after applying Chris Breen's tip to reset the time S.U. checks for updates each week, by waiting about ten days for an update to be released and then "Ignoring" it - in the specific sense of selecting Ignore Update on S.U.'s Update menu, rather than just closing the application without installing the update. Later I could actually Reset that Ignored Update and install it; but before then, not having told Mac to Ignore anything, I couldn't, consistent with the discussion here.

Ignoring and Resetting Updates seems less intuitive to me than most Apple procedures, so I plan to practice it some more as updates appear.

> Ignoring and Resetting Updates seems less intuitive to me than most Apple procedures, so I plan to practice it some more as updates appear.

I think the intended purpose of "ignoring" updates differs from the way you're looking at it...

I ignore updates, QuickTime comes to mind, in your leaving them visible but not installing them sense when I do not want to install them at the moment.

I "ignore" updates such as Apple Remote Desktop and iTunes when I've no intention of ever installing them and have no interest in seeing them or their successors.

Given that Apple seems driven to produce procedures that "just work," we might wonder why the awkward concept of ignoring and de-ignoring things is there at all? It seems unlikely to me that the purpose behind this concept is to make it easy for the discriminating user to fine-tune the look of his or her list of available updates. Rather, I think the point is to make it easy for the technically unsophisticated user to keep his or her software up to date without paying much attention at all to the whole process.

By formally Ignoring updates which are continually irrelevant, a user can, in general, just click the "Install n Updates" button whenever it pops up, without further ado: out of sight, out of mind. The use of Software Update simply to monitor the available updates seems fairly widespread among knowledgeable users, but I doubt such users are the target of the app's interface designers (a surmise underscored by the removal of the Download Only option in Snow Leopard).

I personally use Software Update primarily as a monitoring mechanism, and I don't Ignore anything, preferring to see everything that's available listed, whether or not I have any intention of installing it.

> [....] Rather, I think the point is to make it easy for the technically unsophisticated user to keep his or her software up to date without paying much attention at all to the whole process.

By formally Ignoring updates which are continually irrelevant, a user can, in general, just click the "Install n Updates" button whenever it pops up, without further ado: out of sight, out of mind. [....]

Having read any number of "I click on 'Install' whenever Software Update offers me anything" posts and not remembering (which is no assurance of anything ) any that qualified that with "Ignore" I'm not convinced that your scenario is either commonplace or one that was envisioned by Apple's engineers; I think there's an interesting poll here. (I also think there's a trip to the lounge in our future.)

One thing's for sure, though... "Ignore" is likely to deter all manner of do-gooders from installing unwanted (even if only "yet") software.