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Getting ready for OS X Lion
So Apple OS X Lion is due any day now and your going to buy it on the day its released?
You have backed up haven't you …….
As lion is just around the corner I thought it would be a good time to discuss what to do before you click that oh so tempting install button.
Here are four points to consider before you click light the blue touch paper and install Lion.
1. Compatilbilty
2. Backup
3. Run onyx.
3. Other options.
1. Check all your critical apps work with lion, look on the vendors site for more info or try this excellent site Roaring Apps for more information. As a guide anything that runs on rosetta will not work, that includes older versions of MS Office and Quicken. This might be a great time to trash any old applications you don't use anymore, an easy bit of housekeeping before you start.
2. Backup your system and not just a time machine backup. Take a bootable cloned copy of your system drive, which is really easy thanks to carbon copy cloner (CCC) from bombitch software.
A cloned copy of your drive is just that a mirror image of your snow leopard install. CCC copies the whole drive to a suitably sized external USB hard disk. In the event of lion borking your computer its a simple job to boot from the cloned drive and be back where you started. You can then use CCC to restore Snow leopard back to your system drive and be backup and running.
If you don't have a USB hard disk get one - lets face it USB hard disks commodity cheap now - i've just seen an e-mailshot for a 750GB 2.5" USB device for under £50! there's no excuse.
3. Run onyX if you've not come across this before its a maintenance tool for OS X, and you can get it here Just download and drag into your applications folder. Run the repair your permissons and clean out the caches routines to clean up your system ready for the install.
4. Hard drives are cheap as we've said before consider replacing your system drive and starting clean on a new disk. If you've a older mac this might be a nice welcome upgrade. Use your carbon copy backup or your time machine backup to restore your files and applications to a fresh clean install.
Note :This is presuming you can create an install media (CD or USB Key) from the downloaded lion installer file (The GM and preview releases have this feature).
So in summary check to see if your apps are compatible with Lion, and make a good backup just in case it all goes wrong, and run some housekeeping on your install before you start.
TTFN enjoy Lion.
Ian Grant
Ian can be found on twitter @tioaboa and soon on his blog.... Ian is a system administrator with 15 years experience in the IT industry, and is self confessed Geek and OS tinkerer.
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Ian Grant