Preparing for OS X Leopard
By Triston McIntyre
With the release of Apple’s new OS just a mere matter of weeks away, the internet and blogosphere is buzzing with anticipation. If you’re counting down the days to the release of the next greatest OS in the world, here are a few steps you might want to take to make sure you’re fully prepared for Leopard.
1. Check or update your hardware - though most systems currently running Tiger will be capable of running Leopard, there are a few things to keep in mind: if you are running an older G4 processor, Apple will not recommend using that machine to run Leopard. The perk of not being able to run Leopard on that older G4 is you might now have an opportunity to convince yourself or your significant other that you MUST purchase a shiny new machine to perform all those lovely Leopard-only tasks like Time Machine.
Something else to consider is adding RAM to your machine if you’re only running 1 Gig. If you have a Core 2 Duo processor and plan on not using virtualization to run some Windows iteration at the same time as Leopard, you probably don’t need to sweat; however, it might be a decent idea to upgrade to 2 Gigs if you really know you’ll be using virtualization in some way, just to keep everything running smoothly.
2. Get a second external hard drive - though you might have an external to store your excess videos, music, documents and such, running Time Machine will require a second drive to completely back-up your main drive in case you need to recover anything. Go purchase an external the same size as your main drive, and you’ll be ready for Time Machine.
3. Back-up your current system - this should be fairly standard information, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t know that installing a new OS will, truly, erase everything on the old one. Back up your critical documents and other files.
That’s about all I have; sure, you could paint yourself with Leopard print, camp out in front of the Apple store in a tent, and create a shrine in your living room to Steve Jobs…but I can’t condone that publicly.
Related:
Stumble It!
Entry was posted
on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 8:38 am
under 
Print This Post
Read more entries by Triston McIntyre.
October 9th, 2007
[…] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerpt have an external to store your excess videos, music, documents and such, running Time Machine […]
October 9th, 2007
you’d be surprised how many people don’t know that installing a new OS will, truly, erase everything on the old one. Back up your critical documents and other files.
Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!, Are you saying my APERTURE, FINAL CUT EXPRESS HD, ADOBE LIGHTROOM, BRIDGE CS 3, ETC… will ALL be ERASE when I upgrade to LEOPARD? Never hear of this! Would you let me know if this is “really true”?
Thanks,
Catulo
October 9th, 2007
I remember that I didn’t have any problems upgrading to Tiger - that is, all my files and applications stayed intact and in the right places. I know this to be true because I don’t own a backup drive!
Leopard might be different, of course, though I doubt it.
October 9th, 2007
[…] Preparing for OS X Leopard […]
October 10th, 2007
[…] Triston McIntyre wrote a fantastic post today on “Preparing for OS X Leopard”Here’s ONLY a quick extractIf you’re counting down the days to the release of the next greatest OS in the world, here are a few steps you might want to take to make sure you’re fully prepared for Leopard. 1. Check or update your hardware - though most systems … […]
October 25th, 2007
Upgrading OS X to Leopard will not erase the data on your hard drive unless you tell the installation program to do so. Even still, it’s a good idea to back up your entire system, just in case something goes wrong and you need to put things back the way you had them.