Even if you’re not using Dropbox yet here is information to read and bookmark. The Macworld staff received 250 suggestions, and pruned them down to the sixty favorites, adding two of their own. At the end of the article they outline 3 things NOT to do with Dropbox.
Our Prez Art Gorski says, "I read this article when it came out in Macworld magazine and I use many of these tips myself. Dropbox currently has some minor problems in Lion that they are working on to fix."
And, here it is! Art informs us now: "Dropbox has released a new version compatible with Lion. Tips: Use the Dropbox menu to quit Dropbox before attempting to install the new version, otherwise you will be told the file is busy. Don't forget to relaunch Dropbox after installation." Here's that link; note you can view a video to learn about it.
Previous Prez Allen Laudenslager writes,"I hadn’t even heard of Dropbox . . ."
Jim Hamm tells us, “A good article that I'll keep and read and try out the different uses. I use DropBox all the time, but basically I use it just to transfer files between my old MacBook Pro and my new MacBook Air. My MBP doesn't have AirDrop like my new Air does, otherwise I'd use AirDrop to transfer files. Other people use DropBox as a storage device, but I don't. As I experiment with the different uses if I come up with some useful comments I'll let you know.”
Dual Boot, VMWare, Parallels, or Crossover?
Here's more about applications for Lion sent from John Carter. He explains, "I’ve heard people say that they will have to have two versions of OS X in order to run some applications that are no longer supported in OS X 10.7 (Lion). Any dual boot configuration really hampers your quality up-time and turns it into down-time while waiting for your system to reboot into the other OS. Enter VMWare. Reports have it that VMWare is better than Parallels for installing multiple versions of Mac OS X. I can’t say. But this solution should only apply for those PowerPC applications that no longer run in Lion such as MS Office for Mac and Quicken.
"I’ve gotten around the need for a dual boot configuration. One method is by installing Crossover. With Crossover, I can install a number of Windows applications without having to install the complete Windows OS. For now, I have Framemaker 6, Quicken 2010, eFax Messenger 4.4, and LibreOffice 3.4 installed under Crossover - and will most likely be installing other apps in the near future, specifically MS Office 2010.
"Similarly, Parallels for Mac 6.0 will install the complete Windows OS whatever version you like - on a Mac. All the Windows applications that you install will run on a Mac without a dual boot configuration. I am currently running Windows XP and Windows 7 as guest operating systems on my Mac without any problems of compatibility that sometimes beleaguer Crossover."
Here's John's conclusion for the dilemma: "So, for any of those Windows apps that people like to have, either Parallels or Crossover should be considered as opposed to any dual boot configuration. But if you're a gamer and want things to run native, then I guess you have to dual boot."
Progress in Rosetta and Snow Leopard for Lion
From this article it sounds like some progress is being made for Rosetta and Snow Leopard for Lion. John Carter sends these comments, "I’ve seen talk on the Internet somewhere that VMWare Fusion does the best job of installing any version of OS X as a guest OS using any other version of OS X as the host. And this by more than just one very serious and credible poster. They ranted me on my preference of Parallels for Mac for that purpose, so I bow to them."
Lion? Yes? No?
After reading an article about getting Lion for $70 on a thumb drive, Allen Laudenslager sent it on to us with the comment, "The way this guy wrote the article is a hoot."
My question back to him was, "Got Lion? Why or why not?" Here's Allen's reply.
"My son upgraded just because he is a technogeek and need to have the latest and 'greatest.' He hasn't found any real new features, but I did learn that if I were to upgrade my old version of MS Word for Mac would not run under Lion. Since MS changed the tool bar I much prefer the older version, and I don't want to have to switch to the newer, less efficient (from my point of view) version.
"I do tech manuals and that means a lot of formatting, with the older version the tool bar can be set up with access to the formatting tools right on the tool bar. With the new version I have to click through at least one menu, usually two or three, to get to the same control. Great for home users who don't do a lot of formatting but a pain for me.
"I want a Macbook Air so I will automatically have to upgrade an replace MS Word then. I have to run a version of Word that is one-to-one compatible with my customers or I'm out of business, so I will end up having to have a dual boot system to let me run both Lion and Snow Leopard so I can still run my old MS Word version."
Obsolete Software
Heads up, here. We all need to keep aware of obsolescence of computer programs we may have come to rely upon. David Passell sends this article, and comments, "Here's an article on companies abandoning old software or creating systems that won't run it.
"This one kind of bashes Apple, but I am not sure which old programs I have that may need Rosetta. Here is one suggestion for anyone who expects to have compatibility problems with Lion. (As one article pointed our "Lion may be Apple's Vista.")
1. Don't throw away that older Apple. If it has USB, Firewire, and Ethernet ports it can still be useful. Even more so if it can run old OS 9 programs.
"For example: I have a very old blue-bubble iMac. I keep it because I have 'journaled' since 1993 or so and a lot of my files arepassword-protected Word Perfect. If I want to check something out in the past I can go to the time frame and open it up. Of course, if I unprotect the file, I can copy it to a USB drive and then open it with OpenOffice on the latest machine (assuming Lion runs OpenOffice). BUT I need the old program to open Password protected files."
A Few Shortcomings of Lion
Some of Lion's features are causing discontent with early adopters. Jim Hamm sends along this article, a critique of AutoSave, Automatic Termination, and Recovery HD. The author opines that Apple might address some of these concerns when the first update to Lion is released. The forty comments following offer other discussion of several of Lion's shortcomings.
How to Create a Lion Recovery Disk Assistant
To Lion or Not To Lion?
Still pondering the question shall I upgrade to Lion, or not? David Passell shares this information from MacLife. The writer ventures between serious and humorous, and the comments are sensible. I found the best advice from someone named Fabulo writing under Comments who advises to partition your hard drive and install Snow Leopard on one partition and upgrade to Lion on the other partition. You can continue to work with a familiar system while learning the new OS at a comfortable pace.
Lion Review: Mac Mail
Here's John Carter's instructions on using Mail in Lion. "First off, the download of Lion is about 3.7GB, and with a 7 Mbps Internet connection (which only provides about a 5 Mbps download rate) it will take a calculated 93 minutes to download. The install itself takes a little over 30 minutes, but then you have to do a software update and that may take another hour depending on what has to be updated (like iTunes, iPhoto, etc.)
"After the download is complete, you will see a new application called 'Install Mac OS X Lion' come up automatically and prompting you to click Next to start the installation. To be on the safe side, you should insert a blank DVD (standard 4.7GB capacity) and burn that application to the DVD before you click Next. (You’ll find the application in the Application folder, but if you don’t burn the DVD at this point in time, that application will be deleted during the installation of Lion. You will want to have that DVD around for safety and security reasons.)
"I’m only going to cover the new Mail application at this time, and I’m using it to create this report.
"The new appearance of Mail can be a bit disconcerting. First, you really need to view Mail in full screen to take advantage of all that it has to offer. Clicking the double-headed arrow in the upper right corner of the Mail application switches to full screen mode. To get out of full screen mode, simply press the ESC key.
"Some people will be put off by the new Mail application GUI. The default is to not show the mailboxes and to show two columns - one for the Inbox message list, which contains two lines of the message body (in Preferences you can select to show only one line), and one for the actual message that is selected from the message list (if that column is blank then no message in the left column has yet been selected). This threw me for a loop at first, and I admit that I panicked, wondering how I was supposed to see all the accounts and mailboxes I created.
"In the image that follows, the right hand column shows two messages sent by the same person with the same subject line (I'm looking at a message in my Inbox mailbox). The bottom message has the number 1 in the upper right corner and the top message has the number 2 in the upper right corner - this shows the sequence of the incoming messages.
"But, you can switch back to the classic view in Preferences:
"I think I’ll stay with the new look, for a while anyway. In the following image, the column on the far left (showing all the mailboxes) is only visible if you click on the tiny button just above it.
"If you have more than one e-mail account or if you want to see all the mailboxes you created, without that column displayed, you have to select which e-mail account Inbox you want to see by clicking on the Inbox button (yep, I have a lot of email accounts):
"Clicking on one item in the message list highlights all other messages in that list by that same sender where the subject line is also the same, hence making up a conversation. The blue highlighted message is the message being looked at and the orange highlighted messages are the related conversations.
"Overall, the text is extremely small on my 20” iMac. I tried to increase the font size of the message headers to no avail. But it does work if you don’t use the column format for the message list - use the classic (Snow Leopard) mode.
"Attempting to adjust the message font is also useless — only the header gets adjusted and not the body.
"The old Mail app had a Save button in the toolbar when writing a new message. There is no save button in the toolbar and there is no save button in the customize offerings for the toolbar. I guess Apple is trying to do us a favor by eliminating useless operations and made that function automatic when needed. But you can still click on File —> Save to save the current message as a draft. If you quit the message before sending it (red dot), you are given the option to discard the message or save it as a draft. If Mail unexpectedly quits or the computer shuts down while writing a new message, the message is saved in the Drafts folder."
In conclusion John closes with, "In other words, there’s a lot about Mail that needs a little getting used to - except for those who are new to the Mac."
Lion: Aggravations?
Reporting on his latest finds with Lion, we hear now from Jim Hamm. "Here's an interesting article on a new 'feature' in Lion: it automatically determines when to turn off an app that you've opened and left running, but haven't used recently. Per the article, apparently Lion does this when more RAM is needed, and you're using about all the RAM available. I can see the logic behind this, but I think it might have been better for Lion to send a warning that more RAM is needed, so some apps need to be closed by the user. This gives the user the decision on which app to close -- not Lion.
"I think this may only be a 'problem' if you have many apps open and need more RAM for Lion to function properly. So far I've not experienced this shutdown feature -- but I normally don't have a bunch of apps open at one time.
"Another aspect of Lion that I've commented on previously: the 'Resume' feature in Safari is aggravating to me. When I close Safari and reopen, I want it to open only with my Home page -- not all ten or so tabs I had open when I closed it. There's three ways to get around this 'feature:' turn off Restore for all apps in System Preferences; use a Terminal command; hold the shift key when clicking and opening Safari -- or another app.
Now Jim closes with a grin, "I had to laugh at the following statement the author made: 'Moreover, there’s a larger question at stake: Who, precisely, is in charge? I think it should be me, but Lion disagrees — and not in this respect alone.' An interesting question. Who knows best: you or the big Apple?"
Lion's Restore Feature in Safari
Jim Hamm delves deeper into Lion's Restore feature in Safari. After research on several forums he states, "I found there is no way in Safari settings to turn off Restore. It's all or nothing unless one does a Terminal command — which I don't like to do. For now I went ahead and turned off Restore for all apps. I just didn't like Safari to open all tabs from the previous session. You can click here for more information on Restore."
Character Viewer
"If you tried to use the Character Viewer in Lion to insert symbols, emoticons, etc., into email, letters and documents, you may have trouble figuring out how to do it -- I did," states Jim Hamm.
He explains the frustration. "In Snow Leopard all you had to do was click 'insert.' This feature is missing in Lion. In Lion there's two choices: double click the symbol or drag and drop. Is this simpler than in Snow Leopard? No. Another example of where, seemingly, Apple designers stuck their fingers in Character Viewer, stirred the pot to make things a bit different but not better.
"Here's how to get Character Viewer to appear in the Menu Bar: System Preferences > Language & Text > Input Sources > check Keyboard and Character Viewer. I use it frequently, for example, to put a bullet point • in front of a new paragraph. Or maybe this ☛.
"Perhaps now you'll be pleased to use the Character Viewer...☺. . . Jim"
Benefits of the New AutoSave in Lion
Is it a bug? Jim Hamm says he'll test it out. He's passing along this info about the"Resume" feature in Lion. In tests the resume feature didn't seem to activate until he had done a manual save once, then the feature worked after that.
Did You Make a Backup DVD?
"If someone has downloaded Lion and didn't make a backup DVD or thumb drive of the installer, here's a blog on how to re-download Lion and then make the install backup," says Jim Hamm. He goes on to suggest, "Peruse the Reader Comments for more tips on how to be successful in this process."
Known Bugs in Lion
Those who have already upgraded to Lion have found some problems. John Carter comments, "One thing to note, is that Picasa can no longer access iPhoto library. We’ll have to wait for an update to Picasa for that fix. There are other bumps, in particular with Parallels. If you’re using Parallels with Windows (any version) be sure to only open the guest OS in the Coherence mode. You’ll go crazy trying to figure out where the guest OS window is otherwise. And don’t even bother trying to bring up Ubuntu on the iMac under Parallels on the iMac, but it does work on the MacBook Pro. Isn’t it strange how the supposedly the same operating system works different on the different hardware? Not really."
Lion Too Tough for Newbies?
This looks long, but it's worth your time. John Carter gives a lot of info on Lion. He starts out, "Jim Hamm brought an article to my attention wherein the author thinks that Lion might be too much for his senior parents to make the switch to from Snow Leopard.
"Yes, and no. There are features that have change dramatically from 10.6 to 10.7. Spaces and Expose for one (or rather two into one). When I discovered that you needed either a Magic Mouse or a Magic Trackpad on an iMac to use all those complicated finger motions, I rushed right out and bought the trackpad. I was doing just fine without it.
"In fact, for a two-finger, mouse-pushing geezer like me, a standard two-button mouse with scroll wheel is all I really need. I had trouble with the Magic Mouse when I had it, because my fingers like to tap and wiggle on the surface of things when I’m thinking about what to do next, and lo and behold if those taps and wiggles don’t mean something on a Magic Mouse - and a trackpad!
"Okay, so now my iMac has both a standard mouse right next to my keyboard and a trackpad up above it. So far, there are very few things I’ve needed the trackpad for. Let’s see if I manage to keep the trackpad past the 30-day return period.
"And my MacBook Pro? It also sports a two-button mouse with scroll wheel. That’s one gadget I can’t do without on any computer.
There's more coming as John goes on, "Anyway, back to the other features of Lion.
"If you don’t like the way Mail looks, you can switch back to the classic view.
"If you don’t like scrolling down in order to scroll up (depending on your point of view), you can change the direction of the scroll based on the direction of the scroll wheel or the direction of the fingers on the trackpad.
"If you don’t like swirling around on the trackpad to get from one Desktop to another looking for your apps, just ignore the fact that you have more than one Desktop and don’t bother trying to figure out which Desktop you’re in - it doesn’t matter as long as you know how to use CMD-Tab to switch between applications and CMD-Space to bring up Spotlight to then key in the name of an application you want to launch.
"And what does it matter that you no longer need to exit from an application when all that is needed is to close the window of an app? If the window is gone, do you really care if the app is still active or not? Well, in one way it does matter. Each app that is launched uses some memory, even if there is no window open. But, if no window is open (and that means not even hidden from view), there is virtually no processor resource used - so who cares?
"One real problem for anyone is figuring out how to get out of full screen mode so you can see that old familiar menu bar across the top of the display. Well, just press the ESC key.
"In other words, the only thing that’s changed for me so far is that I really do like the facelift in Mail.
And, wrapping it up John states, "And what about the author’s article? How did the readers take to it? You’ll have to read them to see what I mean by it doesn’t make any difference whether you upgrade to Lion or not. What you use and how you use it is all up to you. Don’t be afraid to venture into the unknown, because if you start out with fear, it will only lead to anger."
Lion Vulnerability Discussed
This Cult of Mac article declares Mac with a firewire port running OS Lion can be hacked within minutes. It goes on to say, "It's easy to secure your Mac by turning off 'automatic login' setting and shutting down the computer totally instead of putting it to sleep." Read the details.
Why NOT to go to Lion
Now, it's time for a smile! Here's David Passell's take on why he will not be going to Lion until --
1. Others have torn their hair out (I've already lost mine) and stomped on the bugs.
2. I get another high capacity HD to totally backup my system. All the ones I have including the one in my Mini are much under the 10% free recommendation. I have lots of space on my Time Machine backup drive, but I am told I can't use it.
3. I learn more about why I should want this Latest and Greatest System. I don't buy iTunes Movies or Tunes.
4. I decide to be patient and keep all instruments like axes, clubs, and large mallets out of reach. I don't think it is true that older people become more patient :)
5. It might also help if Apple would sell install DVDs in addition to forcing people to download gigabytes. They aren't that costly.
How to Download Lion on a Thumb Drive
Interested in downloading Lion (your new feline friend) and creating an install disc or bootable thumb drive, then look at this from MacLife, sent to us from David Passell.
Listen About Lion
"If your eyes are growing weary of reading all about the tips, tricks and nuances of OS X Lion, how about listening to them. Pull up a chair, put your headphones on, and take a listen to this podcast." This is Jim Hamm's voice you hear just now in your imagination. Try this from MacObserver.