About a week and a half ago, Apple released the Golden Master version of Lion to Apple Developers. The final version is expected to hit the Mac App Store soon — perhaps in the next few days.

1. Mac App Guide: Help You Get Mac for Mac OS X Lion
Written by batteryfast.com
Monday, 11 July 2011 08:03 -
Mac App Guide: Help You Get Mac for Mac OS X Lion
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is right around the corner. Is your Mac ready?
About a week and a half ago, Apple released the Golden Master version of Lion to Apple
Developers. The final version is expected to hit the Mac App Store soon — perhaps in the next
few days.
Mac OS X Lion will bring lots of new features to the Mac operating system, including enhanced
multi-touch gesture support, the ability to swipe between fullscreen apps and a new auto-save
system.
Upgrading an operating system can be a time-consuming process — no matter how easy the
manufacturer tries to make it. To limit the potential headaches, we’ve put together this guide
that should help you get your Mac ready for Lion.
Step 1: Check for System and Application Updates
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2. Mac App Guide: Help You Get Mac for Mac OS X Lion
Written by batteryfast.com
Monday, 11 July 2011 08:03 -
Before upgrading to Lion, it’s important to check for any major software updates to both your
operating system and to the programs and devices you use frequently.
A few weeks ago, Apple released Mac OS X 10.6.8. This release was intended to help prepare
users for Mac OS X Lion; it’s a required update before you can download Lion from the Mac
App Store.
To update your system, click on the Apple menu and select “Software Update.” Go ahead and
install any of the updates for your system and official Apple applications.
Next, check for available updates in your frequently used programs. A nice feature of the Mac
App Store is that it makes it easy to find updates for programs you’ve purchased or installed.
Just click on the “Updates” button in Mac App Store’s toolbar.
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3. Mac App Guide: Help You Get Mac for Mac OS X Lion
Written by batteryfast.com
Monday, 11 July 2011 08:03 -
For other apps, lots of developers utilize various update frameworks within their applications
and can alert users, when launched, that an update is available.
One of my longtime favorite Mac utilities is AppFresh. AppFresh is a free tool that scours your
system for apps , compares them to the latest versions online and lets you install updates all in
one convenient place.
Certain apps and utilities will need to be updated to work with Lion, so it’s important to make
sure you are running the latest versions.
If you are using an older printer or scanner, you might want to determine if the manufacturer has
updated drivers or has a plan for Lion compatibility.
2. Clear Up Some Disk Space
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4. Mac App Guide: Help You Get Mac for Mac OS X Lion
Written by batteryfast.com
Monday, 11 July 2011 08:03 -
or to
folders about GB as Dropbox, or delete unused safe side, way
Using10 program of download,space. Youon the appsback it’s probably a good idea to and
least placestakinglike DaisyDisk or DiskWave is an efficientup some of those what files have at
Lion isaare12 a 4GB free disk space before can eitherthe update. to figure out files to other drives
– such up the most and to be installing or downloads.
3. Check App Compatibility
With Lion, Apple is making some changes to the way programs work and interact. As a result,
not all programs that run in Snow Leopard are going to work flawlessly in Lion.
Fortunately, most app developers are already preparing and releasing updates and many more
will have updates ready as soon as Lion ships. To get an idea of what apps will work, what apps
won’t and what apps might “mostly work,” check out the community wiki, RoardingApps.
RoaringApps is a database/compatibility wiki for apps and Mac OS X Lion . Users of the Lion
Developer Previews and the Golden Master can comment on how well (or how poorly) apps
work with Lion.
I’ve found this resource to be quite helpful, especially for workarounds and potential fixes for
apps that might not be fully Lion compatible.
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5. Mac App Guide: Help You Get Mac for Mac OS X Lion
Written by batteryfast.com
Monday, 11 July 2011 08:03 -
Step 4. Say Goodbye to PowerPC Apps
A larger issue for longtime Mac users is that with Lion, Apple is officially dropping support for
Rosetta. Rosetta was a technology that Apple developed to help users run older PowerPC apps
on Intel Macs. Over the last five years, most major Mac apps have been updated or rewritten to
work natively as Intel Mac apps or as universal binaries.
A handful of older applications (older versions of Adobe Creative Suite and Quicken 2007 are
two frequently cited examples) will not work with Mac OS X Lion. Users will need to find
replacement apps, upgrade to newer versions or keep a second-hard drive around to boot into
Snow Leopard when needed.
To find out if any of the apps you frequently use require Rosetta (and thus won’t work with Lion),
you can follow the instructions Christopher Breen wrote for Macworld. The key is to look for any
PowerPC apps. If you find them, prepare for them not to work in Lion and consider looking for
replacements.
Step 5. Backup, Backup, Backup
The last step in preparing your Mac for Lion is to do a serious backup of your system disk. While
operating system upgrades are less error-prone than in the past, there’s nothing worse than
doing an update and then having a problem with accessing files or folders or installing software.
If you don’t already have a hard drive dedicated to backup, pick one up before you upgrade to
Lion. Drive space is inexpensive these days. I was able to pick up a 1TB FireWire 800/USB 2.0
2.5″ hard drive for about $150 two weeks ago. My MacBook Pro only has a 250GB hard drive,
so I can partition that drive and use it as both a Time Machine backup and with Carbon Copy
Cloner to make a bootable backup, plus still have plenty of room for additional storage space.
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6. Mac App Guide: Help You Get Mac for Mac OS X Lion
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Monday, 11 July 2011 08:03 -
Time Machine
Fortunately, creating a backup of your system (something you should be doing regularly
anyway) is easy in Mac OS X. When Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard was released in 2007, one of the
flagship features was the debut of Time Machine. Time Machine makes it easy to make
continuous backups of your files, folders and applications.
To get started with Time Machine, just open up the app in your Applications folder or from its
panel in System Preferences. If you have never used Time Machine before, just plug in a hard
drive, and tell Time Machine that you want to use that drive (or a partition on that drive) for your
backups.
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7. Mac App Guide: Help You Get Mac for Mac OS X Lion
Written by batteryfast.com
Monday, 11 July 2011 08:03 -
Bootable Backup Disks
A Time Machine backup can be useful for restoring old files or applications after you upgrade to
Lion, especially if you choose to do a clean install (yes, you can do a clean install of Lion, it just
takes a tad more work. We’ll have a full guide ready as soon as Lion is available in the Mac App
Store.), but we recommend creating a bootable clone of your current hard drive too.
Using a program such as SuperDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner, you can quickly make a bootable
backup of your hard drive.
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8. Mac App Guide: Help You Get Mac for Mac OS X Lion
Written by batteryfast.com
Monday, 11 July 2011 08:03 -
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