Tag Archives: upgrading

Getting Ready for Mountain Lion

Apple, Information,

According to Apple, Mountain Lion is going to be released within the next ten days. So if you are thinking of upgrading it is time to get ready. The first thing you will want to do is to check to see if your machine is eligible for Mountain Lion. To do this take the following steps:

  1. Click on the Apple logo in the upper left hand corner of your screen
  2. Then About this Mac.
  3. Then click on More Info and copy the year and time of year your mac was produced, for example mine was mid 2011.
  4. Then go to the Apple Mountain Lion Spec Page and see if it is on the list.

If it isn’t on the list you cannot upgrade, Not all Macs that run Lion will be eligible for Mountain Lion. For example my early 2008 Macbook runs Lion fine, however it is not eligible for the Mountain Lion upgrade. If your machine is on the list, congratulation you are eligible for the upgrade. Now make sure you have at least 4GB of memory, although 8GB is recommended by most experts, also make sure you have at least 8 GB of space available. Do a backup, in case something goes wrong. This is also a good time to do some tidying up, clear out your download folder, empty the trash and perhaps get rid of those applications you downloaded but never use. A good application that can help you do this is Disk Doctor available through the Mac app store for $1.99. It will clear out your trash, cache, download folder and languages you don’t use. As always, if you are not sure-don’t delete. Now you are ready for Mountain Lion, which according to all rumors should come out on Wednesday in the Mac App store for $20.00.

Just because you are ready to upgrade to Mountain Lion doesn’t mean you should.  Mountain Lion is an evolutionary not revolutionary upgrade. There are some cool things that are being added such as Dictation, Reminders, Messages, and Notes to name a few. However there is nothing that is a must have for most people. So before you upgrade check to see if your favorite applications can run under Mountain Lion. You can check the app compatibility table at RoaringApp. If the app has a question mark next to it, doesn’t mean it will not run under Mountain Lion, it just means it hasn’t been tested and you should proceed with caution. This is especial true if you are running a small business.

If you decide that you want to take the leap, remember that everyone else is taking the leap at the same time and the download may take some time, so be patient, make some tea or have a beer and relax. Getting frustrate will not make the download and install go any faster.

Are You Ready For OS X Lion

Apple, Information, ,

Are you ready for Lion OS X coming in July, if not there are a couple of things you can do to get ready.

  • First check to make sure your computer support Lion. You need to have at least a Core 2 Duo Processor and 2 GB or more of memory and be on Snow Leopard. You can find all this information by click on About this Mac under the Apple icon in the top left corner.
  • Are any of your must have applications legacy Power PC apps. If you don’t know, you can find out by clicking on the Apple icon, then About this Mac, then more information. Scroll down to where you see Applications under Software. If they say Intel or Universal you are fine. If the say Power PC, you need to find a replacement, not up grade or set your computer to dual-boot.
  • If you have printer drivers, video card driver or any other peripherals that don’t use OS X provided drivers, you will want to check with the manufacture’s website to make sure that they will run on Lion.
  • Do a full backup. You can do this using Time Machine or a program like Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner. This is also a great time to remove any apps you don’t use and clean out caches, logs, unnecessary files and folders. Think of it as moving to a new house, you don’t take junk when you move to a new home, so why take junk to a new OS.
  • If you have a desk top mac, this might be a good time to look into getting a Magic Trackpad, so you can take advantage of all the multi-gesture features that OS X Lions will offer. If you rather stick with a mouse and keyboard, that’s fine also.
  • Finally, there is no need to rush into Lion OS X. It is ok to wait and let other people be the pioneers.

While going over this list I have decided its time to do some memory upgrade. I have 2 GB of memory, which is the minimum for Lion OS X, but it will probably run better with more memory. Do you have anything that you need upgrade or change before going to Lion OS X. Do you plan to go to Lion as soon as its available or do you plan to wait?