Updating Questions

Question

Hi.....I just updated from 10.3.7 to 10.3.9. It was my first update on the Mini. When I opened the "Update" Window, I found 10 updates checked off, and although having the opportunity to update them all at once, I chose to update only the OS and removed the Xs in the other boxes.
During the update process, I began to wonder if I was supposed to update all at once; esp if some turned out to be prerequisites of others.
Also, seeing how slowly it was proceeding, I became concerned that something might be amiss in the updating process because if it was proceeding so slowly for one update, it would take forever for multiple updates. By the way, I use dial-up for my internet connection. The update took 10 hours.
My questions:
1) Is it normal for the above update(10.3.7 to 10.3.9) to take so long?
2) Is it important that I do updates for everything that is checked off? After I was updated to 10.3.9, 15 other items that needed updating appeared.
3)Keeping in mind the length of time it would take, is it advisable to do multiple updates at one time? ("wear & tear" on the computer)
Thanks for any input.

Answer 1

Disconnect problems could stem from two areas.
1.) The telephone line. Quality of the line is not guaranteed. The phone company does not tell the consumer this. When you connect with a modem your connect speed is the best that can be accomplished "at the time of the call"--establishing a path through a circuit-switched network. As the minutes tick by, the quality and levels of noise and interference can shrink and grow resulting in the equivalent of a narrowing and swelling tunnel through which you are trying to push the data. Eventually quality fails at a point whereby the modem hardware on both ends are no longer able to keep open effective communications and the data integrity lost and the call is terminated by one end.
Also keep in mind that telephone lines have degraded considerably over the years. Most telecom companies don't release the statistics showing what the years of fully mindful non-reinvenstment (billions of dollars) in the upkeep of the lines has done to the state of the network. We are on our way towards a full 20% of all lines worldwide with fault. New employee training is dropped and the old employees with the skills and knowledge on how to maintain and repair the networks are retiring or being forced out. Most of the telco's I have had experience with are now run by management educated on the philosophy of the bottom line at all costs. This is possible because you are consumers and you have so much going on in your life you aren't looking to what the corporations are doing.
2.) The software modem. The modem you are using, if using the internal one is only half a modem. In an effort to look at the bottom line at all costs, the management, this time at Apple have opted for implementing a much cheaper solution. The CPU inside these Macs is called upon to do processing once handled by the now missing hardware in the included modems. This is why you will see a jump in CPU usage percentage when using the internal modems. Any fault in the operating system, any application, just about any piece of code running on this central CPU has the potential to effect, even if indirectly through an unexpected means (bug) the internal modem and therefore any dial-up sessions you have established over it, be it a fax or internet connection.
It is not normal for a modem to lock-up all the lines inside your house but I feel what you are experiencing is related to the software modem and some issue or bug that has locked it up or told it not to take the line "off hook" after a corrupted or lost attempt at using the phone line.
That said, you may do well to upgrade to a full external hardware modem to take away this weak spot you are exposing yourself to, especially if you live and die by dial-up. Software modems work great for infrequent use and for cutting costs down to bare minimum if you are a retail manufacturer trying to extract the most out of your customer market while keeping an eye on the bottom line.
As a heads up to the OS X Tiger users out there, the latest build of version 10.4.3 of Tiger has been in the hands of developers. There are more than 400, you read right! software bug fixes told to be in the patch and the file size has said to be over 90+ Megabytes in size. This will make for one <word omitted about the homeland of the devil--don't want to trigger the forum filters!>-of-a-download over modem!
If you have a problem with maintaining connection, select one small update at a time and do that over your connection session. Then next connect try the next one. Pathetic, I know.
That is why I went broadband. It was about $30/month with government taxes, line fees just to get a dedicated phone line running for my computer at the time and I was paying $20/month at that time for internet dial-up access. At $50/month savings by telling the telephone company to bug off along with the dial-up provider, I found the $39/month for broadband cable internet worth it.