Apple macOS Sierra is due to hit the streets tomorrow. Before you upgrade, you should make sure that your Mac is ready for the upgrade. Assuming you meet the system requirements, here’s what you need to do to get ready:
- Update your Mac: Make sure that your Mac has all the up to date patches and system updates not only for the OS, but for applications too. In terms of the latter, this website can help you with that, as well as let you know if the application will work with macOS Sierra.
- Run a disk checking utility: For most Mac users, this means Disk Utility. But you can also use Diskwarrior which is my utility of choice. This way, you ensure that your disk is healthy prior to the upgrade.
- Back up your Mac: System updates should work 100% of the time. But sometimes they can go sideways. Thus having a backup is vital. You can use Time Machine with an external hard drive, or you can use a third party application such as the ones from this article that I wrote a few years ago. Another reason to backup is that if you hate macOS Sierra, you have a fall back strategy.
It sounds simple and it is. If you do these three things, you can feel free to upgrade via the Apple App Store sometime after 1PM on September 20th which is when macOS Sierra will be available. After you upgrade, take some time to run all your applications to confirm that everything works. Sometimes, you’ll trip over an application that you need which doesn’t work. At that point, you may need to see if there’s an update for the app or do a reinstall.
Are there any other tips that you’d suggest? If so, post a comment and share your tips.
Lero Director Mike Hinchey Takes Over as President of IFIP
Posted in Commentary with tags IFIP on September 19, 2016 by itnerdProfessor Mike Hinchey has taken over as President of IFIP, the global professional association for the ICT industry. Professor Hinchey is a Director of Lero, the Irish software research centre, Professor of Software Engineering at the University of Limerick, Ireland and a consultant to NASA’s Space Program.
Professor Hinchey was elected last October during IFIP’s 2015 General Assembly after the World Computer Congress (WCC 2015) in South Korea and has served as President-elect since then. He succeeds Mr Leon Strous, who completed his second consecutive term as President at the 2016 General Assembly held over the weekend, after last week’s World IT Forum (WITFOR) 2016 in Costa Rica.
Professor Hinchey said he intends to build on Mr Strous’s efforts to raise the profile of IFIP and its many achievements by developing closer relationships with other industry bodies, governments and international agencies such as the United Nations.
Professor Hinchey pointed to the successful WITFOR 2016 conference held last week in Costa Rica as just one example of how IFIP works to make a positive contribution. WITFOR 2016 brought together ICT professionals and researchers, government ministers, policy makers and other stakeholders to explore ways in which technology can help to progress the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Prior to his current professional roles, Professor Hinchey was Director of the Software Engineering Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, where his work helped make NASA missions self-managing and better able handle challenging terrains. Mike also helped develop significant advances in survivability, reducing the likelihood of mission failure, and continues to consult on various space projects.
Professor Hinchey holds a B.Sc in Computer Science from the University of Limerick, an M.Sc in Computation from the University of Oxford and a Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge and has engaged in visiting professorships all over the world.
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