AirDrop Tip for unsupported Macs:

"I decided to show some love to my MacPro(2,1) 8 core 3.0Ghz prior to upgrading to Lion. I installed a 128GB Crucial M4 SSD with a clean 10.6.8. This has now been upgraded to 10.7 and i am very pleased with the results. The SSD has added a nice edge to things and makes me think that there are a few more years in the old MacPro yet!

One things that did disappoint though was the lack of AirDrop on the MacPro2,1. The normal card for this MacPro is the Broadcom BCM94321MC. AirDrop does not like this card and won't play. However, i am happy to report that the Broadcom BCM94322MC is AirDrop compatible and also works perfectly in my MacPro.
So, swapping your non-AirDrop WiFi card with a BCM94322MC will add AirDrop compatibility.
Regards, Kevan G
www.fixmymac.co.uk"

Here's Apple's official list of supported macs (as usual no specifics on wifi card model)

• MacBook Pro (Late 2008 or newer)
• MacBook Air (Late 2010 or newer)
• MacBook (Late 2008 or newer)
• iMac (Early 2009 or newer)
• Mac mini (Mid 2010 or newer)
• Mac Pro (Early 2009 w/AirPort Extreme card, or Mid 2010)

IIRC there was some apple forum discussion on this - noting the problem is a lack of a Personal Area Network (PAN) function in some older card models.

(The following is from a reader mail over the weekend)

" Hi Mike... I thought I report some tips dealing with OS X Lion.
One of the new features I wasn't that thrilled about was the inclusion of the special recovery partition... I wanted to install Lion without the recovery partition as I use an SSD as my main drive, and didn't want to give up the space. So I made a bootable copy of the Lion installer and loaded a bare drive with the new OS. I then used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy Lion back on to my SSD. I used a back up to restore my files. Since CCC only copies the files on the disk you select, it doesn't touch (and doesn't see) the files on the recovery partition. Since I have the Lion installer on a bootable drive, I no longer need a recovery partition anyway. This is kind of a pain to do, but if you want to "banish" Apple's recovery partition, this is way to do it.
(FYI: Assuming Disk Utility in Lion still has it - I've used the Restore tab for years to make complete/bootable clones of OS X volumes. No 3rd party software reqd, but it has no option for omitting any folders/files from the clone - complete volume clone only.

And while on the subject of saving space on SSD's - Unless Lion is different than earlier OS's in this regard, some notebook/SSD users also disable hibernation/delete the sleepimage file - saves GBs (= total ram installed) of space. Notes on that in a summer 2009 post on SSD tips for OS X users-Mike)

One of the other tips deals with the new Clam Shell functionality in Lion. This has been discussed over on Apple's message boards in length. I figured you may want to share with your readers a solution to stay in Clam Shell mode with the lid open. You can use a magnet to trick the notebook into thinking the lid is closed. The location where you place the magnet differs between models of MacBook, but on a Late 2008/Early 2009 model, it's on the right side near the bottom of the speaker. I've included a picture to show the magnet placement.

I think this is a neat solution until Apple address this in future update.
(reminded me of an old tip from years ago on disabling the latch sensor (LidWake) via the terminal to prevent accidently waking from sleep during transport. (Some older models were prone to the lid button getting released inadvertently in bags, etc.)

This last one is more of a complaint, but I have found a solution until Apple provide's one of their own. The new shut down dialogs now have the "Re-open windows when logged back in" selected as the default, and there is no way to change this as far as I know. I dislike this new "feature" in Lion. When I shut down the computer, I don't want the same applications I was working with previously to all open back up again. (Personally I'd like that feature, but I'm surprised there's really no way to change that option (?) but I know some will say why not just quit all apps/close windows before shutting down/restarting? (Just a few keystrokes, and no 3rd party software reqd as a workaround.) Or create a macro to quit all apps before shutting down/restarting.)
I have found a solution using the ControlerMate program. I've been using this for years to custom configure my keyboards and game controllers. ControlerMate has the ability to move the mouse cursor to anywhere on the screen. I was able to link my keyboard's power button to a cursor placement routine. I had the cursor placed on the checkbox in the shut down dialog and added a mouse click to the routine. The result, when I press the power button, the cursor is automatically placed on the checkbox and it is unchecked. This can also be done to the "eject" button if your keyboard doesn't have a power button (most don't seem to have them these days).

Hope these tips can be helpful to others.
-Chris M."