Apple recently released a 10.5.6 update to OS X. While I was downloading the new stuff using Software Update, my internet connection was interrupted. I relaunched Software Update and assumed it would continue downloading. It appeared to finish and then asked to reboot to complete the update process.

Unfortunately, the update process got stuck on Configuring Install and just sat there indefinitely. After an unhealthy hard power reset, I tried again with no luck. It seems the interrupted download led to some incomplete files and was hanging the update process.

I was able to solve the problem by deleting the partially downloaded files, then re-downloading using Software Update. This time around, the update applied successfully, upgrading and patching my OS X installation.

Hopefully this post will help others experiencing the same problem. My initial Google search returned a lot of outdated results.

In summary: if you keep getting stuck on Configuring Install during an update, try deleting the files in /Library/Updates/ and restarting the update process.

UPDATE: YouTube now allows you to select dimensions when customizing embed code. Simply click the Customize icon next to the embed code, and select the size you want- the embed code will be updated to match!

YouTube recently announced a change that modifies their video player to a widescreen format. Unfortunately, the default code provided for embedding videos still defaults to a 4:3 size (450×355). It’s easy to modify the dimensions to match the player on YouTube.

In the embed code provided, change the the width parameters to 640, and height parameters to 385.

<object width="640" height="385">
 <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rs-jAImScms&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"></param>
 <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
 <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>
 <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rs-jAImScms&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed>
</object>

Make sure to change the dimensions in both places. Hopefully YouTube will update the options for customizing their embed code to do this automatically. For now, it’s easy enough to edit by hand.

Note: For those that wish to keep the original width of the YouTube player with a widescreen format, use a width of 450 and a height of 271. This might be useful for sites that were designed around the original player width.