Will OSX Lion stay on line and keep downloading things when I shut the top of my mac book? I hate the fact that it goes into sleep mode every time you close it with no option to change that.

 

^No, it goes into sleep mode and stops network usage. It is a bit annoying, but it's a sacrifice for longer battery life.

 

Ordered the new 13" Air as my new work laptop from the IT group, got the new 13" Pro instead. No Lion, they haven't had time to vet it completely with all the apps we use, mainly Cisco soft phone and meeting stuff. Should be good to update in 30 days or so.

The little Pro kind of rocks. Much smaller than my older 15" but the keyboard feels the same. I like it.

 

I like the mail box on the left and the message on the right. Lets me see more of the message without having to double click it. Is there another way to do it?

 

i think that the keyboard is actually the same. on the 15 on the left and right part of the keyboard are the speakers... and the 13 there arnt... they are placed somewhere else...

 

I was told there's a free program on the App Store called insomniax that keeps the macbook running even when you close the screen. Haven't tried it yet but it won't hurt to give it a go.

 

OS X Lion is phenomenal..my 2011 MBP came w/ OS X SL and for preparation to Lion, I made a move into buying more RAM, I took my 4GB up to 8GB and decided to pair it with my SSD (OCZ vertex 2) Absolutely love how this OS flows so nicely, zero complaints across the board.

 

that does really work when you spend more time away than at home

 

The sane workflow tends to be accounts on the left, message list on the top right, message content on the bottom right. That's the way Mail has worked since it existed. The new "conversation" view BS is evidently there to help transition the outlook double-click crowd or something-- it's about as intuitive as string theory.

To get the old view back:

View -> Uncheck "Organize by Conversation"
Preferences -> Viewing -> Check "Use classic layout"

 

The only thing that is really different is the orientation of the content and the titles. They are now side by side instead of on top of each other. That just means there is more viewable content in the same size mail window, which IMO is never a negative.

I find it much easier to use, the way messages are grouped into conversations makes much more sense than having them splayed out all over the place. Now I'm not left hoping that the response I got has my message quoted in it, and I don't have to go scroll through a ton more messages to find my sent message, etc etc.

You can also still have the mailboxes/accounts on the left side (obviously), so I see no real negative to the layout. It has definitely made my workflow a bit nicer.