As Apple's newest operating system release, Snow Leoppard carries the banner of the latest and greatest to come out of Cupertino. The new OS is supposedly faster, more stable, and packed to the brim with additional features.

Unfortunately it also has one minor flaw... once in a while it completely wipes out your system.

Apple has recently acknowledged a flaw which in limited cases has resulted in Snow Leopard completely resetting all settings and wiping out saved documents. The issue is said to arise when users log on as a guest account and then attempt to log back in to their systems using another user account. Leopard then has a bit of what the techies would call "a freakout" and wipes all application data, stored accounts and user documents.

According to the company line, fewer than 100 cases of this sort of error have been reported, but no doubt Apple engineers are working long and hard on an update.

People often talk about the "early adopter tax" which causes people to pay a premium in cash to get a hot new technology, but those who want the latest and greatest can also cost you dearly in terms of lost time and data while all the kinks in a new system get worked out. If you are going to get an OS release before the first major update, be it Mac, Windows or Linux, it's always a good idea to back up regularly.

13 Oct 2009