Hello Fellow Technophiles,
Sometimes it seems like new operating systems appear more and more frequently. In reality, Apple has been on a pretty regular schedule of releasing a new OS once per year. Every time that they do, I get the same set of questions:
- Should I update my machine?
- Will my software/hardware be compatible?
- Is it going to look really different?
My answers are “maybe,” “maybe,” and “not really..but if you are on an old enough OS now…maybe?” There is no hard and fast rule for this. Of course, the decision may be made for you if your machine is not compatible with the newest OS. To complicate this whole thing, once you upgrade it can be very difficult to revert the machine. There is another way, though.
You can add a partition to your drive and install the new OS there. This allows you to take it for a test run without upgrading your normal startup disk and its associated user accounts. As with any time that you are going to install a new OS or change your partition scheme, it is essential that you back up first. But assuming nothing goes wrong, and you decide you don’t like the new OS, all you have to do is remove the partition and you are right back to where you were.
This week our techs bring you articles on using Terminal to locate files, an explanation of Apple’s designations of vintage and obsolete, and a way to get your computer to talk back to you.