How it used to be: retrograding, emulators, etc.

Hey all. I just got new mac book (my second one) and while of course it is amazing I also find some frustrations in things I can't figure out how to do with my new that I could do with my old. I have always had a hard time finding questions to these sorts of questions in forums. Hopefully this can be centralized place to go ask and answer such questions.

I am running 10.7.2 after running snow leopard on my old one.

To start with:

1. (and most frustrating) Every time I download something it goes to the downloads file. On my old computer I was always asked where I wanted it to go and given the opportunity to name it. On this one my only option seems to be changing my default download folder which isn't helpful because different downloads need to go different places.

2. I had "powerPC" applications that I am no longer allowed to use on lion. The ones that have updated are pay versions now and my info is tied up in my old files which so far haven't sync up easily with the demos of the newer versions. I really would just like to make my mac get over itself and run powerPc or an emulator or something.

3. I am using word. Please don't moan at me for not using pages. Even from my old mac I really miss the Alt commands that would drop down menus. For example, Alt-I would drop down the insert menu, and N, B used to inset a page break as fast as you could type it. Now I have to mouse through everything and click. Much less quick and more clumsy. Plus you could look at menu items and and a letter would be underline that would activate it so not only was it generally much quicker you also didn't have to have everything memorized to use it. I don't know if this is a mac thing (who likes everything simple even sometimes at the cost of efficiency) or a windows thing (who likes to progressively make everything less useful in general) but I would love to have a fix for it.

4. What's the best way these days to run windows programs? I have a lot of engineering programs that simply don't have mac counterparts. Parallels never cut it on my old mac and I had to Boot Camp to get an efficient smoothly running program. I am willing to do that still but if there is a way I can run it easily and it doesn't suck up the memory and energy of running two computers (which often makes my programs unusable) I would love to know it.

Very glad though that hitting + on a window finally makes it go to full screen though.

Thanks much to the community in advance.

refuserefuse said:

Hey all. I just got new mac book (my second one) and while of course it is amazing I also find some frustrations in things I can't figure out how to do with my new that I could do with my old. I have always had a hard time finding questions to these sorts of questions in forums. Hopefully this can be centralized place to go ask and answer such questions.

I am running 10.7.2 after running snow leopard on my old one.

Click to expand...

10.7.3 is out. Make sure you get your updates.

To start with:

1. (and most frustrating) Every time I download something it goes to the downloads file. On my old computer I was always asked where I wanted it to go and given the opportunity to name it. On this one my only option seems to be changing my default download folder which isn't helpful because different downloads need to go different places.

Click to expand...

Safari always defaults downloads to the Downloads folders, no matter what. If you don't like this behavior, I'd recommend looking at other browsers like Chrome, Firefox, etc.

2. I had "powerPC" applications that I am no longer allowed to use on lion. The ones that have updated are pay versions now and my info is tied up in my old files which so far haven't sync up easily with the demos of the newer versions. I really would just like to make my mac get over itself and run powerPc or an emulator or something.

Click to expand...

Older versions of Mac OS X had an emulator called Rosetta that enabled running PPC apps. Apple abandoned Rosetta and therefore it's not possible to run those apps on 10.7 (Lion).

3. I am using word. Please don't moan at me for not using pages. Even from my old mac I really miss the Alt commands that would drop down menus. For example, Alt-I would drop down the insert menu, and N, B used to inset a page break as fast as you could type it. Now I have to mouse through everything and click. Much less quick and more clumsy. Plus you could look at menu items and and a letter would be underline that would activate it so not only was it generally much quicker you also didn't have to have everything memorized to use it. I don't know if this is a mac thing (who likes everything simple even sometimes at the cost of efficiency) or a windows thing (who likes to progressively make everything less useful in general) but I would love to have a fix for it.

Click to expand...

Control+f2 shifts focus to the menu bar and from there you can use your cursor keys to navigate it as you would in Windows. And of course, your keyboard shortcuts work the same, providing that you remember them. If you have your function keys defaulted, you may need to do Fn+Control+F2 to activate that function (by default function keys are set to control things like brightness, Mission Control and volume - you can toggle this setting in the keyboard options).

4. What's the best way these days to run windows programs? I have a lot of engineering programs that simply don't have mac counterparts. Parallels never cut it on my old mac and I had to Boot Camp to get an efficient smoothly running program. I am willing to do that still but if there is a way I can run it easily and it doesn't suck up the memory and energy of running two computers (which often makes my programs unusable) I would love to know it.

Very glad though that hitting + on a window finally makes it go to full screen though.

Thanks much to the community in advance.

Click to expand...

It depends on what kind of programs you intend to run. Parallels/VMWare, etc are great for just about everything except games. If you want to run games or anything that needs heavy 3D acceleration, then Parallels isn't the right solution.

Now, it could also be that you simply didn't allocate enough resources to the VM. But that's easily rectified.

In my view, VMWare is the better product, but your mileage may vary. More information is available here:

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/ru...4239-running-windows-mac-switchers-guide.html

Progress...

That’s some help. Thanks. I am up to date now and the switchers guide was a big help. VMware seems to be working pretty slick with only minor lagging.

However...

I use Firefox exclusively and am still having the download problem.

The Fn+F2 helps but is a little strange. For example, no letter will take you straight to tools but hitting T takes you to Table and then O will take you to Tools. Most of menu bar is like that and then the dropdowns are the same way. It’s a guessing game as to what letter goes with what option and then it seems contextual. Sometimes where I am on the dropdown affects what where a given letter typed in will take me. Maybe there is a rhyme or reason to it that you know but randomness of it makes everything take longer even than mousing around.

I was hoping that out there somewhere someone had figured a way to patch Rosetta back into osx but I am beginning to gather this is much more challenging that I would have guessed.

In Firefox, go to Firefox > Preferences > general tab, and select "always ask me where to save files". This is a firefox specific setting, nothing to do with your OS