Tag Archives: os x 10.6

Make Old Java Applications Fully Snow Leopard Compatible

Posted on by Mahmoud Al-Qudsi
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If you have a bunch of old Java applications lying around in your Mac’s /Applications folder, chances are, you’ll come across this message box when you attempt to run them on Snow Leopard:

To open JavaApplicationStub, you need to install Rosetta. Would you like to install it now?

To open JavaApplicationStub, you need to install Rosetta. Would you like to install it now?

Personally, I try my best to avoid legacy Mac OS apps and haven’t found the need to install Rosetta on OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard as of yet. Whether you have need of Rosetta for your other applications or not, there’s no reason you should be running your Java-based applications through the Rosetta environment — they’ll run just fine on native Intel Java on OS X… with just a little bit of a prod in the right direction.

Java applications are CPU agnostic (hence the “write once, run everywhere” Java motto). The Java applets you download and use can theoretically be run on any PC machine that supports Java; be it Intel, PPC, ARM, SPARC, or more. The native Java virtual machine will translate the “Java bytecode” into the equivalent machine assembly that your PC uses and understands, and therefore, Java code written for legacy Mac OS should run just fine on Snow Leopard

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OS X Snow Leopard to Use ULE Scheduler?

Posted on by NeoSmart Technologies
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snow-leopard

Ever since Steve Jobs first unveiled the next version of OS X, dubbed “Snow Leopard,” the internet has been abuzz with excitement and wondering about the supposed “evolutionary” qualities of OS X 10.6. One of the most-hyped improvements is the promised revamp of the SMP capabilities of OS X, with a “breakthrough” in SMP performance.

The codename for the technology behind the SMP improvements in OS X Snow Leopard has been named “Grand Central,” which Apple describes best:

“Grand Central,” a new set of technologies built into Snow Leopard, brings unrivaled support for multicore systems to Mac OS X. More cores, not faster clock speeds, drive performance increases in today’s processors. Grand Central takes full advantage by making all of Mac OS X multicore aware and optimizing it for allocating tasks across multiple cores and processors. Grand Central also makes it much easier for developers to create programs that squeeze every last drop of power from multicore systems.

Our guess is that these SMP “breakthroughs” are going to be delivered in two blows:

  1. Improvements to the OS X kernel intended to boost multi-threading & multi-tasking performance and better-distribute the loads across multiple CPU cores more intelligently.
  2. Provide an SDK (perhaps as improvements to XCode) that allows developers to more-easily write multi-threaded code, handle forking, and provide load-balancing features on a per-core basis.

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