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Before you install Mac OS X Lion, take a moment to check if all applications on your computer are compatible with the new OS. The reason why you need to do so is because Lion no longer supports Rosetta. Rosetta is the underlying technology built into Mac OS X that allowed older Mac applications written for the PowerPC platform to run seamlessly on Mac OS X -- in fact Rosetta worked so seamlessly that many of us did not even realize it was running behind the scenes.

With Lion, Apple now no longer supports PowerPC applications -- you must first check if you have any PowerPC applications on your computer -- follow these steps:

1. Click the Apple icon on the left of your Mac's title bar, and choose the About This Mac option, as shown in Figure 1, below.
   
   
   Figure 1: About This Mac
   
   
2. This will bring up a window of the same name as shown in Figure 2. Click the More Info... button.
   
   
   Figure 2: More Info button
   
   
3. You will now see the System Profiler window that provides detailed information about almost everything about your Mac. Scroll down the sidebar on the left until you see the Software category. Once you click the triangle to its left, you will see several other options. Click the Applications option, as shown in Figure 3.
   
   
   Figure 3: System Profiler
   
   
4. Now the window shows all the applications installed on your computer -- note that there are columns in this window -- click the Kind column header to sort all your installed applications based upon what kind they are, such as PowerPC, Intel, Universal, etc. Scroll down to where you can see a list of all your PowerPC applications, as shown in Figure 4.
   
   
   Figure 4: PowerPC applications
   
   Note that all the PowerPC apps highlighted in Figure 4 are actually small applets that are part of Microsoft Office for Mac. In my case, these are Query and OpenXML apps that will not hinder the use of Office 2008 and 2011, so I am just going to let them be and wait for Microsoft to provide an upgrade -- fortunately, Microsoft has put up a post to show their commitment in resolving these issues.
   
   If you have older apps that provide no such options, you will no longer be able to use them when you upgrade to Lion. One option for you in that case is to create a dual boot system that lets you decide whether you want to boot to Lion or an older version of OS X - CNET has a great article that discusses this approach.
   

Note that System Profiler only lets you see which programs are PowerPC specific -- it does not let you uninstall them. You can retain these applications when you upgrade to Lion, but the programs themselves will not be able to run within the Mac OS X Lion environment.

Labels: apple, mac_os_x

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Once you click the Start Installation button within Boot Camp Assistant, it is assumed that your Windows install disc is in your optical drive -- either a drive on your system or an external drive. Thereafter your Mac will reboot, and start off the Windows install disc to begin installing Microsoft Windows to your newly created Boot Camp partition.

If all goes fine, then that's great. But if you see an error -- maybe there is an error reading your disc or some communication error. First ascertain that you are indeed stuck and cannot proceed -- then hold the Power button on your Mac to shut down the computer. Thereafter, hold the Option (Alt) key while you restart your computer. Most probably you will see a menu with a single option that lets you boot to your Mac OS -- choose this option and boot into your Mac OS X partition.

Make sure you have an alternative installation disc or another optical drive -- maybe you can attach an external optical drive. Then ascertain that the Windows install disc is now accessible.

You can next start Boot Camp Assistant. The first two screens will be similar to what you see when running Boot Camp Assistant for the time -- but the third screen will differ. Since your Boot Camp partition has already been created, you won't be asked to carve a new partition at this point of time. Rather you will be presented with the two options you can see in Figure 1.


Figure 1: Relaunch Boot Camp Assistant

These options are:

To launch the Windows installation again, please choose the second option and click Continue. This will reboot your computer and start the Windows installation again.

Labels: boot_camp, mac_os_x, windows_7

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Once you have launched Boot Camp Assistant and made sure you have the additional software you need (such as Windows drivers for your Mac hardware), you will get to the screen that asks you to partition your Mac hard disk to carve out a Windows partition, as shown in Figure 1 below.


Figure 1: Carve a Windows partition with Boot Camp Assistant

By default, you may be asked to create a partition as small as 20 GB -- that's far too less for any practical use. Use as much space as you can spare -- yet do not get tempted to use the Divide Equally option if you have a very large hard disk. As you can see in Figure 2 below, I decided to carve a 200GB Windows partition. Click the Partition button to proceed.


Figure 2: Carve a Windows partition with Boot Camp Assistant

Boot Camp Assistant will now partition your hard disk, as shown in Figure 3 below.


Figure 3: Partition being created

Once the partitioning is done, note that your Mac OS X desktop will show a new hard disk partition called BOOTCAMP, as shown in Figure 4.


Figure 4: New partition displayed

Boot Camp Assistant will prompt you to insert your Windows installation disc, as shown in Figure 5.


Figure 5: Insert your Windows install disc

Insert your Windows install disc, and click the Start Installation button. In the next post in this series, you will learn what happens next.

Labels: boot_camp, mac_os_x, windows_7

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If you have fulfilled all requirements for installing Microsoft Windows 7 on your Mac using Boot Camp, then spare an hour or two and get started:

In the next post in this series, I'll show you what you need to do next to get Windows 7 installed on your Mac using Boot Camp.

Labels: boot_camp, mac_os_x, windows_7

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If you want to install Microsoft Windows 7 on a Mac running Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Lion, using Boot Camp -- you will need to fulfill the following requirements:

Labels: boot_camp, mac_os_x, windows_7

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Boot Camp is a technology built within Intel chip based Macs that allows you to create a separate partition in your Mac OS hard disk that can run Microsoft Windows. This separate partition is created from within the existing Mac OS hard disk without deleting any of your existing Mac data -- it goes without saying that you need plenty of hard disk space to create a Boot Camp partition.

Boot Camp is probably the only technology that lets you run Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows on the same hardware without any virtual machines -- this means no emulation is required and you are running Windows on a normal computer -- the Apple hardware is functioning like just any hardware from HP, Dell, Lenovo, Sony, or Toshiba -- or any other vendor.

Earlier versions of Boot Camp let you run Windows XP and Windows Vista -- but Mac OS X Lion only lets you run Windows 7. After you install Boot Camp, you can hold the Option (Alt) key on your Mac's keyboard to bring up the screen that you see in the Figure below -- here you can choose to boot into either the Mac OS X or Windows 7.



You can also set either Mac OS X or Windows 7 as the default boot -- you will learn about this process in a future blog post. In future blog posts, you will also learn more about what you need to install Windows using Boot Camp, and how you actually complete the process.

Meanwhile, you can learn more about Boot Camp on the Apple site.

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Typically all sites that I end up visiting are created by geeks for geeks -- I tried in this post to make things very simple -- simple enough for a 10 year old to understand and yet relevant to you even if you are a geek -- if you want to share some feedback, do get in touch through this feedback form -- have a great day!

Labels: boot_camp, mac_os_x, windows_7

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This is a really cool idea -- you can create your own quick picture of Albert Einstein teaching a class and writing something with chalk on a blackboard. You just type in your text, and pronto -- the picture gets created -- and it does look quite authentic -- not authentic enough to stand witness but good enough to bring a few laughs!



To get your own Einstein picture, go to Hetemeel.com -- they have several other image generators including one of George Bush and also Microsoft Clippy!

You can probably use these pictures in your next PowerPoint presentation?

Labels: free, fun, images, pictures

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  © 2010- 2011, Geetesh Bajaj. All rights reserved.

since July 14 2009