Get Your Mac Ready to Pounce on Lion

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During its quarterly financial results conference call today, Apple confirmed that OS X Lion will be on the Mac App Store tomorrow, 20 July. So, if you are planning to upgrade tomorrow, like I am, it would be a good idea to prep your Mac tonight.

Here's a good summary of how to approach a major upgrade from Chairman Gruber:

  1. Do a complete backup clone to an external FireWire drive.
  2. Test that the backup is indeed bootable and up to date.
  3. Unplug the backup drive.
  4. Pop in the installer DVD and launch the “Install Mac OS X” app.

Step 4 has been obviated by the App Store, of course, but steps 1-3 still stand. Do not assume that going from 10.6 to 10.7 will be an easy or seamless transition.

In all likelihood, the upgrade to Lion should go smoothly, but it is always better to be prepared for the worst. I highly recommend SuperDuper! for your cloning needs.