New KB articles: Sound Delay explained; more

106766: Mac OS X: Sound is Delayed, Accompanied by a Spinning Disc Pointer notes that after installing Mac OS X 10.1.2 or later, you may encounter a delay before hearing sounds on certain computers. The delays average three to four seconds. If no sounds are produced for 30 seconds, the delay reoccurs. You may avoid this issue by using external USB speakers. Apple says the rationale for this is to preserve battery life.

Margin Note: We found this to be a nuisance when playing a PowerPoint show in which we had timed sound to run with the slides. Because of the delay in the start of the sound for the first slide, the synching of the sound to the slides was "off" for the whole show. The work-around is to "make a sound" (such as an alert sound) before starting the show.

Update: A utility called KeepSoundAwake sits in the background and plays a "silent sound" every 20 seconds, thereby preventing the audio hardware from sleeping. (Thanks, Sonya Chang and David Sallak.)

106765: Mac OS X: Effective Password Length of Eight Characters finally confirms something that has been posted around the Web, including on MacFixIt: "The effective password length for Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server is eight characters. You may type more characters, but they are ignored."

106767: Mac OS X Server 10.1.3: Automatic Update Will Not Install if 10.0 Was Previously Installed states: "If you have updated Mac OS X Server version 10.0.3 or 10.0.4 to version 10.1 or later without erasing the disk, then you must apply the Mac OS X Server 10.1.3 Update with a standalone installer (not with Automatic Software Update)."