What You Might Want to Think About Before Installing Yosemite

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Apples-OS-X-Yosemite

Yosemite, the new Mac OS that replaced Mavericks this year, was released to much fanfare. And for the most part it has been a very solid operating system. You can install this OS for free from Apple’s AppStore (for anyone running Snow Leopard or later), so what’s not to love?

For me, I was very excited about Yosemite, and even wrote a blog post about its release. However, after a few months, I have decided not to install Yosemite for a few reasons (and by the way, these reasons should be taken into consideration, even if you have a Windows PC and are thinking about upgrading your OS).

  1. The biggest reason for me is the functionality of applications. Many applications I use have not been written to work for Yosemite at the moment — and if you have critical applications, you should NOT go to a new OS until you have tested all of your applications.
  2. Bugs. Every OS starts off with a few bugs, and while they quickly figure out the kinks, I am not interested in going through the motions until these are worked out. I would prefer to give the OS a few months to let others work through those until I am on-board.

There are a few other reasons, such as you own an old Mac that might not be able to handle Yosemite, or you don’t know your Apple ID username or password, but the two reasons above are the biggest reasons I have chosen not to move to Yosemite… yet.

I suppose a third reason could be that I am lazy. Because there are options, so I could move forward…, but I have yet to act on them.

When you decide to move to a new OS, you MUST make a backup of your machine. There are many instances where the OS installation will go bad, leaving you with a corrupt OS. If you don’t have a backup of your system, you are stuck. I also ensure I have a backup to which I can restore my old OS, in case something goes wrong (such as Yosemite not being able to open my apps).

You actually have a built in tool for handling backups, called Time Machine. Taking a backup with Time Machine is easy. Launch Time Machine from Spotlight in the upper right hand corner, and point to the backup disk you would like to take the backup to. I do this manually and connect an external drive to my Mac in order to take a proper backup.

tm_sys_prefs Once you have a successful backup, you can actually restore your OS, using that backup. To do that, you need to boot into the OS X Recovery system. When booting your Mac, hold down command+R until the Apple logo appears.

One of the options should be ‘Restore from Time Machine Backup. You can then choose that, and the location of the backup you just took, and restore your system. It is as simple as that.

Doing this should give you the peace of mind that if you need to go back to Mavericks, you have the ability to do so. You also have some other options out there for creating backups and restores, and I discussed one of these options in another blog recently as well. Carbon Copy Cloner gives you a great user interface and easy-to-use tools for doing the exact same thing as Apple’s Time Machine.

With options such as these, you don’t have an excuse not to try out Yosemite (unless you are lazy, like me). :) I will get around to it eventually, and when I do, I promise to write a full review! In the meantime, remember: if you need help either backing up or restoring your systems for your business, we are always here for you, 24/7, at Everon: 888-244-1748.

Apple Time Machine - Your new incredible backup system

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We all know that backup is essential.  Many of us have learned that the hard way:  DISASTER!

Apple OS X has given you the answer to your backup prayers:  Time Machine.  Never again worry about your digital files, Time Machine automatically saves up to date copies of everything on your Mac, to a completely restorable state.  Whether you use an external USB/Firewire hard drive, or a wireless Apple Time Capsule, you will be able to restore files, music, photos, mail, virtually anything at all on your Mac by the hour, or by the day.

What’s Required For Time Machine To Work?

If you want to run Time Machine, you’ll need two things:

1. The Apple OS X 10.5 or 10.6
2. An external hard drive. (or Apple Time Capsule)

Plug In Your Hard Drive (USB or Firewire)

Plug in your hard drive
Change the name of your hard drive:

 To change the name:

1. Select the drive on your desktop
2. Single click the name of your hard drive while it is selected.
3. You should be able to edit the name in the field that opens.
4. Type a new name in the Name & Extension field

Open Time Machine

Open Time Machine
Open Time Machine

The Time Machine icon should be in your Dock. It is also located in System Preferences.

Set Up Time Machine Storage Location

Setup your Time Storage Location
Setup your Time Storage Location

Time Machine needs you to tell it which drive you’re using for the backup and then you have to set some options. Click Set Up Time Machine


Choose Your Backup Disk

Choose Your Hard Drive
Choose Your Hard Drive

Now you need to select the hard drive you’ll use as the back up for Time Machine. Click on Choose Backup Disk…


Select Your Hard Drive

Time Machine Select a Drive
Select a Drive

If you have more than one hard drive connected to your Mac, you’ll see them all here.

1. Click on the drive that you’ll use with Time Machine.
2. Click Use for Backup to continue

Time Machine Settings

Time Machine Settings
Time Machine Settings

Time Machine has found your hard drive and is ready to start the magic!

1. The Time Machine On / Off slider is now set to ON.
2. The counter has started for your Next Backup. When the counter reaches zero, Time Machine will begin copying files from your Mac to your new, external hard drive.

NOTE: You can move the slider to OFF and shut down Time Machine before the backup starts. Also, if you let the counter reach zero, the backup will begin – It will backup while you work.

Backup Started

The Next Backup counter reached zero and the Time Machine Backup started automatically.

1. The Backup progress bar is shown in a small pop up window
2. The Backup progress is also shown in the main Time Machine preferences window

NOTE: This process will take some time, all pending on how much data you have.

Optional Time Machine Settings

1. (Optional) Click the check box next to “Click the lock to prevent further changes” to make sure nobody can edit the Time Machine Preferences. After it’s locked, you’ll need a password to unlock it and make changes. Make sure you know the password before locking the settings!

2. (Optional) Click the check box next to Show Time Machine Status in the menu bar and guess what it does? It shows the Time Machine status in the menu bar!

3. Click the Question Mark to open up the Time Machine help files.

Time Machine Is Ready And Backing you up!


Requirements For Time Machine

1) A hard drive or Time Capsule big enough to backup all your data, I recommend at least 2 x’s your internal drive or larger.  Drives are cheap these days, so don’t skimp out on your backup storage!

2)  Apple OS X 10.5 or 10.6.  10.6 is the latest and runs only on Intel Macs, so if you have an older Mac that runs on a PPC processor, pick up a copy of 10.5 at Amazon or similar.

ENJOY!