At MacFixit they have determined that many of the problems like yours can be resolved by running the latest "Combo" OS update over the latest one you did. So, if you did your 10.2.4 update with the smaller package (40 something Megs) you should obtain the file "MacOSX10.2.4CombinedUpd.dmg" and run it. It is huge - 76 Meg (It took me 7 hours to download with my dialup connection) but worth the trouble. For some reason, updating with the Combo seems to do a lot of little things that go untouched with the incremental updater. My update went so smoothly not one permission needed repair (a first). jg