Macbook Pro taking forever to shutdown

I’ve been struggling with this problem for a while now and I was trying Onyx to clean things up and other tips and tricks to no avail. As it turns out, there were the processes VMware Fusion Helper and Microsoft Database Deamon running in the background that was causing the problem. When I killed it using the activity monitor and shutdown the system, it shutdown very quickly. To fix the issue I had to modify my “login items” in my account settings. I removed them from the list so it wouldn’t automatically startup. All is well now.

How-To Open Visio Diagrams and Drawings in Separate Windows

Opening multiple Visio files and switching between them is a pain. I figured there had to be a way to make Visio to always open files in separate windows, so you can see the visio drawings seperately (eg: dual monitors).

The below “method B” worked for me for Visio 2010.

Visio has a Multiple Document Interface so open files all go into the same
instance of Visio. There’s really not an easy way around it, but here are
some options:

A) Launch a separate instance of Visio each time you want a separate window
in the Taskbar. A great “how-to” for doing this, can be found at:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visio/archive/2009/12/18/visio-2010-better-with-windows-7.aspx

Method A works okay, but I would like Visio to open in seperate Windows everytime, automatically. Method B below does that.

B) Check the Visio option in Tools/Options/Advacned > Put all settings in
Windows registry, exit Visio and change the registry setting
SingleInstanceFileOpen to 0 found in the following location:

Visio 2003
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice11.0VisioApplication

Visio 2007:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0VisioApplication

Visio 2010:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice14.0VisioApplication

If the above doesn’t make sense, here’s a helpful “How-to” showing how to do the above:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/how-to-open-visio-diagrams-in-multiple-program-windows/

That’s it!

Parallels Desktop for Mac v7 – Brief Overview

This is a brief overview of Parallels Desktop for Mac v7 and shows how the upgrade process worked on my MacBook Pro ’11, running OS X Lion 10.7.1.

What’s New

This version of Parallels Desktop for Mac (build 7.0.14920) includes the following new features and enhancements:

OS X Lion Compatibility
– Support for Full-Screen Apps introduced in OS X Lion.
– Launchpad integration: add Windows programs of your choice to Launchpad and use the Windows folder to access other Windows programs from Launchpad.
– OS X Lion-style animations when opening new Windows programs windows in Coherence.
– Support for Resume introduced in OS X Lion.
– Support for running OS X Lion in a virtual machine.
– Ability to create OS X Lion virtual machines using the recovery partition on Macs running OS X Lion.

Space Upgrade Takes

The install program shows the upgrade will take 554.5 MB of space.

Virtual Machines (VM’s) Still There!

Looks like it found my VM’s okay.

New VM Video RAM Setting

New Share Webcam Camera with Windows Feature

New VM CPU and RAM Options

Up to 8 CPU’s and 8GB RAM can be assigned to a virtual machine (VM).

Parallels Tools – Install Automatically Started

When I launched the virtual machine, the Parallels Tools automatically performed an upgrade.

Windows Apps in Coherence Mode – Lion "Full Screen" Mode Option

Under the "View" menu bar when running a Windows application in Coherence mode, there is a new option to "Enter Full Screen", which is using Lion’s Full Screen feature.

Hide "Status Bar"! Finally!

One thing that has always bugged me about running a VM in a Window with Parallels (and one minor thing that VMware Fusion did a lot better), is the "Status Bar" at the bottom of the VM window. There was never an option to remove this bar, which caused you to loose some screen realestate for your VM. Now, there is a "Hide Status Bar" feature under the "View" menu! Thanks Parallels!

The status bar is pointed to in the screenshot, which you can now hide.

Dock Icon Shows All Windows for that Program

If you press and hold the mouse on the Windows application icon on the Mac Dock, it will show you all of the windows for that application, which you can then easily select. This makes finding the right window when you have a lot open much easier.

Showing "Jump List" for Windows Program

Another option that I don’t remember being able to do in v6 was to "Show Jump List" when you press/hold the mouse on the Windows application from the Mac Dock.

This shows you the Windows "Tasks" options for that program.
This is allowing you to access the Windows 7 feature that you would do in Windows, by press/hold the mouse on the program icon in the "Quick Launch" bar and move the mouse "up".

That’s It So Far!

So far that’s the changes that have stood out to me. I’ll make another blog post if I find many more.