Heads up, here. We all need to keep aware of obsolescence of computer programs we may have come to rely upon. David Passell sends this article, and comments, "Here's an article on companies abandoning old software or creating systems that won't run it.
"This one kind of bashes Apple, but I am not sure which old programs I have that may need Rosetta. Here is one suggestion for anyone who expects to have compatibility problems with Lion. (As one article pointed our "Lion may be Apple's Vista.")
1. Don't throw away that older Apple. If it has USB, Firewire, and Ethernet ports it can still be useful. Even more so if it can run old OS 9 programs.
"For example: I have a very old blue-bubble iMac. I keep it because I have 'journaled' since 1993 or so and a lot of my files arepassword-protected Word Perfect. If I want to check something out in the past I can go to the time frame and open it up. Of course, if I unprotect the file, I can copy it to a USB drive and then open it with OpenOffice on the latest machine (assuming Lion runs OpenOffice). BUT I need the old program to open Password protected files."
Converting Documents, etc.
"Are you using NeoOffice or Office for Mac and have you found that you can't open a .docx formatted document?" asks John Carter. He has an answer for that. "One solution is to download Open XML Converter to get a .doc formatted file. Get it here. So what's the real difference between .docx and .doc? The .docx file is an XML formatted file and tends to be smaller than .doc.
"Open XML Converter can convert Word documents, Excel workbooks, and PowerPoint presentations that are in the Open XML Format so that you can open and edit the files in Office 2004 for Mac and Office v. X for Mac. (And NeoOffice or OpenOffice.)"