This update addresses issues that, in extremely rare cases, could result in data loss when upgrading a library from an earlier version of iPhoto.

Data loss, eh? Sounds terrifying. On the surface, it is. A brief search through the Apple Support forum reveals users who, at first blush, apparently “lost” their entire iPhoto libraries after upgrading to version ’11 (which is actually version 9.0 of the product).

The most commonly reported problem is a frozen upgrade process. After installation, the first time a user launches iPhoto ’11, they must upgrade their existing library if they want to use it in iPhoto ’11. Sadly, for some users, the upgrade never completes. Instead, it never gets past a spinning progress indicator.

The problem isn’t all that common, nor is it irreparable, though for those affected, the fix is quite convoluted. Some have apparently even had to restore from Time Machine backups.

For the record, I haven’t had any problems myself, despite upgrading multiple libraries ranging in size from a few hundred megabytes to a 300GB. I have found that iPhoto slows down considerably as it churns through the Faces database.

Another reported problem with iPhoto 11 is missing help files. Once again – I couldn’t reproduce the problem on any of my Macs. But if you are having problems accessing Help in iPhoto 11, you can find a solution here.

iLife ’11 was, for me, something of a mixed bag. I expected more from Apple, and the few updates we got to some of the iLife titles didn’t set my world on fire. Even though I haven’t experienced any problems myself, seeing library upgrade problems like these cropping up only makes me even less enthusiastic about the suite.

Let us know if you’ve had problems with iPhoto 11… or whether you intend to upgrade at all.

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Zagg, the makers of the venerable Invisible Shield, have several film options that cover every single surface of your phone and allow you to choose the level of coverage you want. For $9.99, you can get the 4FIX Band/Antenna coverage, which is clear laminate for the metal edges (antennas) of your iPhone.

On Etsy, where creative individuals sell their ideas, you can get iPhone antenna-aids. They’re currently sold out, but they sell in a six-pack of different colored band aids. Clever.

Then there’s the most economical idea: the iPhone Patch. At only $1.50, you can get them in several different designs to suit your personality. Maybe they aren’t the snazziest of designs, but I can see teens buying off on this product for sure. All in all, not too bad for the equivalent of pocket change.

Of course, these options aren’t guaranteed to solve any antenna issues you may be having, but they should help remind you to avoid the dreaded “death grip.” And if you don’t care about looks at all, just use some duct tape; that stuff fixes everything!

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The high-end iMac is the machine of choice for many graphic and photo professionals, so screen color temperature issues is not a problem that can be treated lightly if you expect to maintain the loyalty of one of your core customer groups. Now, according to Gizmodo, Apple has acknowledged the problem, and is telling people to contact Apple Care to get it resolved.

In case you’re wondering about the specific symptoms of this problem or its the first time you’re hearing about it, a number of owners of the new iMacs are complaining that their screens have an unpleasant yellowish tinge as you move from top to bottom. Since the temperature is inconsistent across the display, the problem is even more noticeable.

Gizmodo managed to elicit a public statement regarding the problem by contacting Apple directly and by repeatedly publishing stories about the specific issue, since it affected multiple machines purchased by one of the tech site’s writers. The statement is brief, but it should be enough to allow customers to bring in their affected machines and receive no hassle from Apple store employees:

We’ve addressed the issues that caused display flickering and yellow tint. Customers concerned that their iMac is affected should contact AppleCare.

I still remember being told by an Apple Store employee that the same color tint issue which affected two of my replacement iPhones was a “cosmetic” issue and wouldn’t be addressed if it occurred more than twice, which it did. At least on the much larger screen Apple is admitting that it is, in fact, a problem, and not pretending it’s just something customers should get used to.

If you think your iMac may be affected, but you aren’t sure or you don’t have a reliable way to prove it once you actually do book your Genius appointment to have it looked at, try pointing your browser of choice at this link. The shades of gray are the same top and bottom, and it should pretty clearly show any yellowish tinge that may be affecting the bottom of your screen, even to dubious Apple Store employees.

Many users are also reporting issues with cracked screens and yellow tinting on the displays, with a gradient from cool to warm as you move from top to bottom down the monitor. I had the latter issue on two replacement iPhone 3GSes, too, so I can’t help but wonder if Apple’s increased ability to move product isn’t affecting quality control.

Apple’s also passing the buck in the description of what the new fix for the software-based flicker problem actually does. To wit:

The 27-inch iMac Graphics Firmware Update applies to the graphics firmware on ATI Radeon HD 4670 and 4850 graphics cards to address issues that may cause image corruption or the display to flicker.

Elsewhere, the company notes that the firmware update isn’t a cure-all:

If your screen remains black after applying the updater or if you continue to experience image corruption or display flickering after successfully completing this update, contact AppleCare or an Apple Authorized Service Provider.

So not only does Cupertino seem to be blaming ATI for the issue, it’s not actually promising to necessarily fix anything with this update, either. Whether Apple goes with ATI or NVIDIA, it just can’t seem to avoid graphics card-related issues. At least this time around it didn’t take two or three years for Apple to acknowledge the problem. Still, sales of the 27-inch iMac have been halted, which probably isn’t making consumers or Apple very happy.

Let us know if you’ve tried out the update, and whether your problems have been resolved following its installation. I’ve heard from at least one or two people that they haven’t noticed any improvements. One thing’s for sure: Apple has to nip iMac-gate in the bud before further damaging its quality and reliability reputation.

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Apple doesn’t point any fingers regarding the source of the problem, which seemed to be the NVIDIA GeForce 9600M card that handles dedicated graphics processing. Let’s hope this fix does finally resolve the issue once and for all, because otherwise Apple might have to move on to hardware replacement and even a general recall. Let us know whether or not the fix works if you were experiencing problems.

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If you have Safari, on either Windows or OS X, you could be open to malicious attacks whereby users can gain unauthorized access to files on your hard drive.

That’s according to a new tech note from developer Brian Mastenbrook, who has taken matters into his own hands while we wait for an official fix from Apple. And good thing, too, since this vulnerability is apparently nothing to sneeze at, as attackers can easily get their hands on sensitive information stored in cookies, emails, etc.

Even if you don’t use Safari as your primary browser, you could still be at risk, if you haven’t selected  a different default feed reading application. That means you, OS X users. If you’re a Windows user and you don’t use Safari as your default browser, you should be in the clear.

Here’s the fix for OS X users:

1. Open Safari and select Preferences… from the Safari menu.
2. Choose the RSS tab from the top of the Preferences window.
3. Click on the Default RSS reader pop-up and select an application other than Safari.

There’s currently no indication of when Apple will issue a fix, but they are aware of the problem, so keep an out for a Software Update coming soon.

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Now there’s a special place for all you disgruntled folk who want a little more from your iPhone, there’s even a chance that Jobs (or one of his minions) might be listening. The site is called Please Fix The iPhone, it’s open for business right now and optimized for iPhone too (naturally).

The idea is that you visit the site, look through a big list of iPhone problems and vote for whatever you want to be fixed. There’s no registration and voting up a problem takes a single click. Furthermore, you can add your own iPhone fix requests too. Top of the list at the moment seems to be, “Copy and paste,” closely followed by, “Ability to view Flash content in Safari.”

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• AIM for Mac – Beta 1 – Much to the surprise of many, AOL decided to release a new beta of their instant messenger for OS X. The big question, as a result, is “Why?”. After testing it out, I can find no compelling reason to switch from iChat or Adium and no features that would make this a “must-have” application, but I welcome your thoughts in the comments. [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free!
• Gimp.app – 2.6.0 – Hot on the heels of the official Gimp release comes the OS X native (non-X11) release, complete with enhanced toolbars/docks, full panning beyond the image border, much-improved free-select tool and snazzy improvements to brushes. Much of the enhancements were under-the-covers and provided a foundation for future crunchy-goodness by integrating GCEL (Generic Graphics Library), a powerful graph-based image processing framework (think “undo”) and support for a wider range of color models and pixel storage formats when reading or saving images. The developers also improved plug-in support.
  
  The interface is not exactly perfectly Mac-like and feels awkward and clunky at times, but it is definitely usable and has a good feature set. Would you use it over Photoshop or even some of the newer Flash-based online editors? Let me know your thoughts! [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free!
• ReceiptWallet – 2.0.8 – This minor update will make folks in Switzerland happy (fixes an issue with that locale), but also fixes a couple of other annoyances (a “Cancel” button one that was – on occasion – catching me) and a few bugs. [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] US$39.95
• Apple iTunes – 8.0.1 & Apple TV – 2.2 – As you saw on TAB, iTunes and Apple TV received updates this past week. The former improves music playback during Genius playlist creation (along with other improvements), and the latter provides support for HD TV shows and tosses a Genius into the tiny box for good measure. [10.3.9 (Apple TV update)/10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free!
• Editra – 0.3.80 – Entering a candidate into the text editor fray on OS X takes guts. You are competing with the likes of BBEdit, TextMate, TextWrangler and many others, each of them having a loyal and vocal user-base. Editra is aimed squarely at the developers out there as it has most of the goodies you’ve come to expect (line numbering, commenting, indenting, syntax highlighting, etc.). The interface is straightforward enough, but it is obvious that the “0.x” version numbering is accurate since there is much room for many refinements. It already supports plug-ins (written in Python) and has the benefit of being cross-platform (it is written with the wxWidgets library), so you can use slide between platforms without losing your editing mojo. This application is definitely something to keep on your radar and in your RSS feeds. [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free!
• Perian – 1.1.1 – The self-dubbed “Swiss-Army knife for QuickTime” releases a two-dot update that I would have missed since the “update” button in the PrefPane did not work (and I just happened to hit their site from the other button in the PrefPane). This minor update fixes a problem with H.264 in AVI files, corrects a frame skipping issue, adds some codecs and incorporates a few additional bug fixes and feature tweaks. [10.4/10.5; Intel/PPC] Free!
• Schnippselchen Pro – 2.0.1 – I’ve been slowly getting back into software development (that may or may not be obvious from my posts) and came across this code-snippet saver which allows you to store, track and fully manage your bits of useful source with full support for syntax highlighting and drag-and-drop to Xcode or TextMate. The Mail-like interface should be quite accessible to everyone and the builtin search makes it pretty simple to find what you are looking for (especially if you’ve commented the snippets well). You can add a custom icon to each snippet and backup, export or share your library. The manual states that the app “will only store the data as long as [it] is running” but all my test snippets have been available across multiple launches. [10.5; Intel/PPC] Free?

Remember, drop me a note on Twitter (@hrbrmstr) or in the comments if there is something you’d like me to try!

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