I wanted to pass on some ramblings on Lion. First it has been the hardest upgrade to load and get functioning. Since it's pure 64 bit most everything brought over from Snow Leopard will not work without an upgrade so many of the programs, all the drivers have to be installed new. I have several printers and scanners so it's been long and arduous as well as some of the firms STILL don't have a good drivers for the Lion OS. This has been the hardest.
Moving mail has also been difficult, so much so I made an appointment with the Genius bar to ask them what files I needed to move so all my email accounts and contents would move with me. The Genius guys hadn't had this question before, at least not the two I was working with. They told me to dump the entire contents of the Mail program from Snow Leopard into the Mail folder on Lion. Let me digress, Apple has hidden the "Library" folder in Lion, so the easiest way to find it is to highlight the "GO" word at the header bar of your screen then hold down the Option key and in that dialogue box "Library" will appear. Anyway I did as they said and it didn't help a bit, only the MobileMe account was showing so all my emails will need to be worked through on a machine that still has Snow Leopard, unless someone in the group knows more about this than the Genius guys. Another negative is Digital Rights. I don't abuse this, never have and never will but as an example I am in charge of my high school's 50 year class reunion and there is a video I purchased from iTunes about the Cruise industry and in there is a 5 to 10 second view of a ship that I wanted to use in the video for the class. In Snow Leopard I could use SnapZPro to capture this small clip, NOT in Lion, you have checkerboard squares everywhere, I tried it using several ways, including trying to get it with Quicktime. Unless SnapZPro brings out a new version now we are dead in the water. I'll have to keep one machine Snow Leopard until this reunion is over. Other than that I am blown away by Lion. It's like dealing with a 5 Star Hotel's Concierge. This is the most elegant operating system I have ever seen, there are so many refinements that are "stunning", elegant, and so organized. Using the new Mail is unbelievable, the organization of your emails, the most recent email on top in your link of similar emails, with previous emails truncated below the most recent, clicking on the truncated has a smooth opening of the remainder of the email as if it was coming out of an envelope. Downloads are now shown in a small window at the top of Safari, touching it pops open a larger window showing you the current progress in numerical data rather than just the progress line, it also shows the previous downloads that you haven't cleared. Getting use to the gestures on the Magic Trackpad is a little daunting but as I learn them I am finding I am becoming much quicker at navigation. One MAJOR feature that Apple did away with in Lion is Spaces. This was my favorite item in Snow Leopard, I had several virtual desktops that kept me organized, learning that #1 was Safari and Mail, #2 was Aperture and FinalCut, #3 was......etc. etc. I was furious that Apple had done away with this, and it turns out if you Google the subject there are folks everywhere that are screaming over the loss of Spaces. Last night I accidentally discovered it. If you put your cursor close to the top right of your monitor a faint object pokes out from the corner, I hadn't had my mouse in that area of screen real estate before and I kept wondering what was this strange thing. Has a + on it so I clicked on it and HERE was another Virtual Desktop, doing it again, now I had 3, again now I had 4!! Then with a swipe of your hand all your open programs appear and at the very top your various virtual desktops all appear! Since I normally moved from one desktop to another by using the Apple/Tab key to quickly move to the program I wanted this will still be the way I move from one desktop after another. Also, Lion will restart any program you have open when it is rebooted, so if there were 10 programs open doing a restart all 10 will reappear as before so I am thinking this may work with the virtual desktops as well. I'll feel much better when I get all the drivers completely updated and I get into the new routine of using the Magic Trackpad but I can tell that this is THE operating system for the 21st Century, it is fantastic. John _______________________________________________ MacGroup mailing list [email protected] http://www.math.louisville.edu/mailman/listinfo/macgroup
