Help! Upgrade to Mavericks??

Post by **Kate** » Mon 05 May 2014 16:43

My computer (Mac) is suggesting I upgrade to Mavericks. Should I? Not quite sure what I'm upgrading to. Have researched a bit, but there seem to be more questions than answers on this subject. Thanks for any help or advice.

martyn94 · Post by **martyn94** » Mon 05 May 2014 18:34

Kate wrote:My computer (Mac) is suggesting I upgrade to Mavericks. Should I? Not quite sure what I'm upgrading to. Have researched a bit, but there seem to be more questions than answers on this subject. Thanks for any help or advice.

Why on earth not? What do you think you are researching? It's just the latest (and free) version of your operating system: nothing very exciting, as I recall, but nothing to disorientate you either.

Post by **Kate** » Mon 05 May 2014 18:55

There are a few comments about lost data etc that caught my eye. Is it quite simply the PC 'critical updates' équivalent? Why have I never had this notification before when I 've had my Mac for around three years? As for research Martyn.....I research EVERYTHING....that's why I never have time to actually DO anything.

Pearsonb · Post by **Pearsonb** » Mon 05 May 2014 22:11

You used to need to buy updates. Now they give it for free, the paranoid among us get suspicious

martyn94 · Post by **martyn94** » Tue 06 May 2014 09:21

Kate wrote:There are a few comments about lost data etc that caught my eye. Is it quite simply the PC 'critical updates' équivalent? Why have I never had this notification before when I 've had my Mac for around three years? As for research Martyn.....I research EVERYTHING....that's why I never have time to actually DO anything.

It's a little more like the change from say Wondows7 to Windows8, except that Apple do them more often, and (therefore) with less dramatic changes to the "look and feel". And as Pearsonb says, they are free nowadays. I'm afraid that I'm not paranoid enough to help you more: I upgraded without a second thought, and have had no issues.

Post by **Kate** » Tue 06 May 2014 09:54

My computer is the most critical part of my production of POL (apart from my brain which could do with a few critical updates of its own) so it's priority for me to be very careful and yes, paranoid, if it can save me making a silly mistake. Having said that, you are quite right, and I used to update my PC without a thought. Suppose it's just because there is a new word that I havent come across!! Fear of the unknown!!! Thanks for help and advice.

russell · Post by **russell** » Tue 06 May 2014 09:57

Just remember to do a backup before upgrading - just in case.

Russell.

Post by **Kate** » Tue 06 May 2014 10:02

Is there any easy way to do that Russell without going through each section? What's the best way to back up? To an external drive or can I do it just as efficiantly to DropBox or similar?

russell · Post by **russell** » Tue 06 May 2014 10:14

Sorry, I'm not too familiar with Macs but:

Dropbox is good but very slow if you have much to backup.

It is best to backup your entire Home directory to an external hard drive. That way all your data and things like bookmarks and cookies will be saved. (I'm assuming the data structure is similar to Linux)

I use a program called Luckybackup which is available for Mac as well as Linux which can be set up to do daily backups automatically.

Russell.

Post by **Kate** » Tue 06 May 2014 10:23

Merci

martyn94 · Post by **martyn94** » Tue 06 May 2014 11:25

Kate wrote:Is there any easy way to do that Russell without going through each section? What's the best way to back up? To an external drive or can I do it just as efficiantly to DropBox or similar?

Any recent version of the Mac operating system has a good (and quite easy, as these things go) built-in back-up facility called Time Machine: if you do not already have this set up and running, that really is worth researching.

Post by **Kate** » Tue 06 May 2014 11:27

Thanks Martyn. Sounds like just what I need.

patricko · Post by **patricko** » Wed 07 May 2014 22:12

Kate wrote:There are a few comments about lost data etc that caught my eye. Is it quite simply the PC 'critical updates' équivalent? Why have I never had this notification before when I 've had my Mac for around three years? As for research Martyn.....I research EVERYTHING....that's why I never have time to actually DO anything.

If you make backups, you don't have to worry about lost data.

Jesus saves, but he also makes frequent backups.

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