Mac OS 10.7 Lion is coming very soon and with it will bring over 250 new features. Are you excited about this release? Will you be one of the first to download and install? With marquee features like multi-touch gestures, full screen apps, Mission Control, Launch Pad, Apps that Resume where you left off, auto save, file versioning, air drop and so much more, it’s hard not be excited. Yet, before you make the move you need to prepare. If you don’t, the early days of your upgrade may be met with drudgery instead of excitement.

Many of these are hard learned lessons for this writer and many others.  There are 5 steps to getting ready for any OS upgrade, do them all or pick and choose; it is truly up to you. Those steps are:

1. Don’t Be Afraid To Wait
2. Check the Mac OS Lion System Requirements
3. Check App Compatibility with Mac OS Lion
4. Clean House on your computer – Deleting Files you don’t need and Apps you don’t use anymore
5. Backup All of your Data to a Bootable Disk

Don’t Be Afraid to Wait: For a diehard Mac user the hardest thing to do is to wait to upgrade. They will throw caution to the wind and install the upgrade as fast as possible. All could go fantastic, or disaster could strike. Taking a “wait and see” approach may not be as thrilling, but sees far safer results. If you have a special project for work or school, then definitely wait until the project is done or you are at a safe stopping point. When you are ready to upgrade, schedule it for a weekend to give you plenty of time, although you most likely won’t need but a few hours to download and install.

Lion Requirements: Mac OS Lion won’t run on any Mac. Be sure to verify that your Mac meets the minimum system requirements as well as a few other requirements:

1. You must have Mac OS 10.6 installed
2. Your Mac must have one of these processors: Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon
3. You must have a Mac App Store account (same as iTunes)
4. You will need a fast internet connection. Mac OS Lion is nearly 4 gigs, or about the size of an iTunes HD movie

Check Compatibility: Your Mac may run Mac OS Lion, but once installed, your Mac may not run some of your favorite apps. Before you upgrade, check to see if all your apps will play friendly with Mac OS Lion by checking a great new site called Roaring Apps.

Clean House: Computers can become like junk drawers. Go through all your folders asking two questions to ask: 1) Can you delete, 2) if you need to keep, do you need it on your computer? For those files considering buying an external hard drive.  Move any files you no longer need daily access to freeing up valuable space. You might also considering putting those files on your iDisk (soon to be iCloud) or a service like DropBox. Not only will they be safe, but you can access them from anywhere in case you need them in a hurry; a pack-rat’s dream.

Backup Data: Many of you probably use Time Machine, which is an excellent tool. There is one glaring drawback to Time Machine, it’s not bootable. What that means is should your Mac OS Lion install fail, you must still install 10.6 or 10.7 before you can work. With a bootable backup, if you have a problem your external backup has your entire system and all your files. With that insurance policy you can continue to work until you install Lion on your Mac. SuperDuper is perfect for this chore and like Time Machine it too can work in the background. SuperDuper! $27.95 

Preparing is less about what will happen, and more about what could happen. In the end you are going to love Mac OS Lion. If this is your first upgrade you will be awed by the simplicity of the process. If you are a long time Mac user, then you already know. The one thing long term Mac users will tell you is this, as soon as you upgrade to 10.7, you will start wondering what Apple will do with 10.8.

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Kelly Spore - Moxie Mo Show Blog Contributor, Follow on Twitter – @kspore

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