New Technology Reviews!.: aunttuaw

Dear Aunt TUAW: Should I buy a Windows laptop?

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<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">Dear Aunt TUAW,</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
I am considering selling my beloved MacBook Pro (15" unibody") and replacing it with, gasp!, a Windows laptop. Please try to convince me otherwise. Or else list me a number of laptops that I may find suitable and not too dissimilar from the 'MacBook look". My budget is</div>
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Dear Aunt TUAW: Should I buy a Windows laptop?

Dear Aunt TUAW, I am considering selling my beloved MacBook Pro (15" unibody") and replacing it with, gasp!, a Windows lap...

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me agitate for Lion Rosetta

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<img align="right" alt="" border="0" class="aligncenter" height="298" hspace="8" mce_src="http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/3742/auntietuawmed1299609372.jpg" mce_style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;" src="http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/3742/auntietuawmed1299609372.jpg" style="border-width: 0px; clear: both; color: #444444; display: block; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 8px auto; max-width: 640px;" vspace="8" width="225" /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">Dear Aunt TUAW,</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
Apple should SELL Rosetta in the App store. Please remind folks that they can complain about Lion most effectively by writing to Apple's feedback page.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">Your loving nephew,</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">Dave Y.</span></div>
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<img alt="" mce_src="http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/8518/screenshot20110310at532.jpg" src="http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/8518/screenshot20110310at532.jpg" style="border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; max-width: 640px;" /></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">Dear Dave,</span></div>
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Unfortunately, it's not quite as simple as that. Rosetta represents far more than a simple app. Auntie is not an expert on these matters so she turned to Uncle Mike for clarification. Here's how he explained things.</div>
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The Power PC (PPC) backwards-compatibility provided by Rosetta was created by an entire OS of "fat" frameworks, combining support for PPC as well as Intel. Apple described it this way:</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">New applications bearing the Universal symbol will run natively on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Mac computers. What about the applications you already own? Enter Rosetta. You'll never see it, you'll never configure it, you'll never have to think about it. It's built into Mac OS X to ensure that most of your existing applications live a long and fruitful life.</span></div>
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Rosetta was pretty awesome. It invisibly translated and executed code so old apps could continue to run on new hardware.</div>
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Here's what the QuickLook framework looks like under Snow Leopard</div>
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<tt style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">% file QuickLook<br style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; line-height: 1.5;" />QuickLook: Mach-O universal binary with 3 architectures<br style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; line-height: 1.5;" />QuickLook (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library x86_64<br style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; line-height: 1.5;" />QuickLook (for architecture i386): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library i386<br style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; line-height: 1.5;" />QuickLook (for architecture ppc7400): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library ppc</tt></div>
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And under Lion</div>
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<tt style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">% file QuickLook<br style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; line-height: 1.5;" />QuickLook: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures<br style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; line-height: 1.5;" />QuickLook (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit dynamically linked shared library x86_64<br style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; line-height: 1.5;" />QuickLook (for architecture i386): Mach-O dynamically linked shared library i386</tt></div>
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Notice how the new frameworks don't have any PPC architecture? Even though Snow Leopard wouldn't run on PPC hardware, it still provided this backwards compatibility for PPC-compiled apps to link to, which was in turn translated in real time to the native instruction set.</div>
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Apple can be pretty brutal when it comes to policy decisions. From the floppy drive to Rosetta, it has a vision of the future that it moves forward to meet. It never hesitates to cut away the anchors of the past.</div>
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Lion has dropped support for all PPC applications, creating a leaner meaner cleaner operating system that isn't tied back to archaic processors. But that means Apple can't just sell Rosetta in App Store.</div>
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Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me agitate for Lion Rosetta

Dear Aunt TUAW, Apple should SELL Rosetta in the App store. Please remind folks that they can complain about Lion most effectively by...

Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me fine-tune session window restores

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<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">Dear Aunt TUAW,</span></div>
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So far I love the Lion with one exception. Users should be able to toggle "resume" on and off per app. Love it when I'm reopening Pages but hate it when I'm reopening Safari.</div>
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I tried to send feedback directly to Apple by utilizing my Apple Customer Pulse invitation, except that since getting my invite to participate the service has been completely silent and the website shows a blank default page with no log-in. Curious.</div>
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Can you help, Auntie?</div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">Your loving nephew,</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">Jeff</span></div>
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<img alt="" mce_src="http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/7214/screenshot20110310at532k.jpg" src="http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/7214/screenshot20110310at532k.jpg" style="border-width: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px; max-width: 640px;" /></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">Dear Jeff,</span></div>
<div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
Auntie will certainly<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;">try.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The store-windows-on-suspend behavior is normally controlled in System Preferences > Settings using the Restore windows when quitting and re-opening apps preference.</div>
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This pref translates into a global preference called NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows. When enabled, Lion attempts to restore windows to their previous positions and their most recent contents. The preference is stored into .GlobalPreferences.plist. (Notice that first period? It makes it invisible.)</div>
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What's interesting is that Lion does respect this preference on a per-app basis even though there's no such functionality built into preferences or into apps. The NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows preference can be used in application user defaults files, which are found in your home Library/Preferences folder.</div>
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Auntie put together an application (the "Resuminator"; windows<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; line-height: 1.5;">won't</span><span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia,'Bitstream Charter',serif; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.5;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>be back</span>) to help you with this, which you can download here. When run, you can select an application and override resume for just that application.</div>
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Dear Aunt TUAW: Help me fine-tune session window restores

Dear Aunt TUAW, So far I love the Lion with one exception. Users should be able to toggle "resume" on and off per app. Love...