5 Ways to Prepare for OS X Mountain Lion

Apple issued a third preview of OS X Mountain Lion this week, bringing the operating system formerly known as Mac OS X 10.8 another step closer to landing on our own systems. Eager to install it as soon as it's released? Here are a few steps you can take to prepare for the next big cat to come down off the mountain later this summer.

OS X Mountain Lion will be roaring onto Macs this summer, bringing a bevy of new iPad-inspired features and building upon the work already done with Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 and OS X Lion 10.7 before it. While developers are currently behind closed doors playing with the preview build, the rest of us have to be content to sit on the sidelines and wait -- or do we?

Here are a handful of things users can do to prepare for the arrival of OS X Mountain Lion -- instead of continually refreshing the Updates button in the Mac App Store, that is.

Test Drive the Messages Beta

There's actually one component of OS X Mountain Lion that is available to current OS X Lion users: A free beta of the new Messages app, which replaces the former iChat and introduces unlimited messaging between the Mac and iOS devices. You'll need Mac OS X 10.7.3 (the latest version publicly available) to install Messages, so be sure to hit Software Update and get current before downloading.

In addition to iMessages between iOS devices and the ability to send photos, videos, attachments, contacts, locations and more, users can also initiate a FaceTime call from the Messages beta, as well as communicate through the more traditional AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk and Jabber platforms as well.

Keep in mind there's no easy way to return to iChat once you've installed Messages -- but given that OS X Mountain Lion will ultimately wind up replacing it anyway, there's no reason why you should worry about that.

Bone Up on New Features

Apple has posted a rare sneak peek into what's coming with OS X Mountain Lion, but with the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicking off on June 11 in San Francisco, you can bet there will be some last-minute additions that developers haven't had access to before now.

Presumably, developers will be receiving a close to final version of Mountain Lion at this year's WWDC, and even though they shouldn't be disclosing any of the new stuff that Apple doesn't publicly announce themselves, things have a way of finding their way onto the internet.

For example, this week's OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3 build has introduced a new "Do Not Disturb" setting to Notifications Center, allowing Mac users to hide alerts and banners when they want to stay focused on the task in front of them. There will certainly be more such discoveries yet to come, so it's good to stay current when new builds reach developers, so you'll know what to expect when OS X Mountain Lion comes to visit your Mac this summer.

Get Current

If you're still lounging about on Mac OS X Snow Leopard -- either from laziness or maybe you simply didn't like the changes introduced with OS X Lion -- the clock is ticking for you to make your peace with Mac OS X 10.7 and bite the bullet. While Apple hasn't expressly stated so yet, you'll likely need OS X Lion installed first before you make the trek to see the lion up on the mountain.

Should you still be hanging fast and loose with Mac OS X Leopard 10.5, you'll have even more work ahead of you -- especially if you're a MobileMe subscriber. That service is folding up on June 30, 2012, which means you'll be forced to transition over to iCloud in less than 60 days, whether you like it or not. Thankfully, Apple is easing the transition by offering a free installer DVD for Snow Leopard 10.6 to MobileMe members just by asking -- after installing, you can then purchase OS X Lion from the Mac App Store and be ready and waiting for Mountain Lion's arrival.

For existing OS X Lion users, the task is much simpler: Just run Software Update to make sure you're at the latest version, currently 10.7.3. (Developers are currently playing with a 10.7.4 beta that seems to be fairly complete, so a newer version could be available soon as well.)

Clean Up Your System

Now that Apple plans to step up major Mac OS X releases on an annual basis to keep parity with iOS, it's more important than ever to keep your Mac tidy and take care of any problems before it comes time to install a new operating system version.

The first step we recommend: Take inventory of your Applications folder and chuck anything that hasn't been used in a while. The free AppTrap System Preferences pane helps greatly with this task, digging up related files from your Preferences folder and offering to trash them at the same time as the app you've just moved to the Trash. While AppTrap has proven flawless in our use, be sure to double-check before committing to a deletion, just in case it's matched the wrong app to the wrong preference file(s).

While OS X Mountain Lion should install just fine over your existing software, it's never a bad idea to spend some of your time archiving files that are no longer needed, perhaps to an external hard drive or other media, and then deleting them from your system drive. While OS X Lion installed just fine for most Mac App Store customers, there were early reports of problems that required wiping a hard drive and starting from scratch, so it's better to have fewer files on your system drive should the worst occur.

Back That Stuff Up!

We really shouldn't have to write these words again, but it seems some of us just never seem to let them truly sink in: Back that stuff up! The transition to OS X Mountain Lion should be pretty seamless -- buy it from the Mac App Store and wait a bit as it installs -- but things can and frequently do go awry, so your best defense is a good offense.

Mac OS X's built-in Time Machine is the bare minimum level of backup you should be investing in, which requires nothing more than an external hard drive (or network-attached storage) at least equal in size to your internal hard drive or SSD -- and preferably twice as big, or more, to accommodate incremental backups over time.

While we recommend manually initiating a Time Machine backup right before purchasing OS X Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store later this summer (select "Back Up Now" from the menu bar), it's a good idea to create a separate, one-time backup using a tool such as Carbon Copy Cloner on a fresh external disk the night before. As the old saying goes, "Better safe than sorry…"

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Original Page: http://www.maclife.com/article/features/5_ways_prepare_os_x_mountain_lion

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Regards,

Derik Chan