Hello Fellow Technophiles,

Today’s big tech news from the Mac world is the release of the latest operating system: Sierra. Its numerical name is 10.12 and this is the first release to use the new name for the Mac OS which is, appropriately enough, macOS. This keeps it in line with the other operating systems in the Apple family: iOS, watchOS, and tvOS.

I wish that they had stuck with big cat names (such as former operating systems Tiger, Lion, Leopard, etc.) because as a person who was born in the hospital at and graduated from the University of Vermont I was looking forward to OS X Catamount. Now there are people out there that say that a mountain lion (the friendly name for OS X 10.8) IS a catamount, but I say that a catamount must live in Vermont to be a catamount. I also believe that we have catamounts in Vermont despite the official story that the last one was shot on Thanksgiving Day 1881 But I may not be credible as I also believe in Champ.

Putting all of that silliness aside for a moment, the big question we always get when a new OS is released is: Should I update? The answer is, unfortunately, not always a simple one. In general, my advice is to wait for the first .1 update which usually cures most of the major issues with the initial release. And, as always, BACK UP BEFORE UPDATING. Your specific computer, the programs on it, or your peripherals (printers, scanners, etc.) may not be compatible with the new release and a backup allows you to roll back if necessary. Also, in some cases, this installation can fail in the middle rendering your computer inoperable and your data inaccessible.

If you prefer to have the experts handle this, we offer data backup and OS upgrade services at all retail locations.

Thanks for reading!

-Mike
michaeld@smalldog.com