Mac question.

[robin]

Knowing Pete it is entirely plausible that the inevitable catastrophe that will be his upgrade experience might, eventually, involve a railway

[pete]

I thought this was going to be about railways

Sorry Mac although I am just reading a book about the Lancashire Union Railway* so if that raises any questions I'll be back

pete

*I know. Middle age comes to us all. I've turned into my father (it's his book). Look there was a railway that used to run through our back garden, the Winstanley and Highfield Colliery line, and the interest kind of came from there.

[mac]

Pete,

As co-incidence would have it, that's my current "patch"

[pete]

http://store.apple.com/uk/product/MD256Z/A

The Snow-Leopard upgrade is not the optimal way to go IMO. It works flawlessly and keeps all your settings, apps etc, but I love an excuse for a clean-out. A fresh install felt faster (I didn't measure anything, just subjective).

Also, it's a huge download which takes time and I like things now.

If you do go down the SL->upgrade route then purchase Lion in the AppStore, wait for it to download and then BEFORE you run the Lion setup, COPY the setup file somewhere. Once you run setup, the huuuge Lion installer is deleted. So, if you decide to install again, you have to download again. PITA.

Just buy it online on a USB key. To heck with the legal upgrade path, the USB Lion is a full working version, and you've paid for it. If Apple don't feel guilty charging £30 for a 8GB USB key, then you shouldn't worry about the proper upgrade path when you have no need for the interim Snow Leopard step.

Thanks for the advice, installed it. Very straightforward. Actually quite nice, I mean it's not Windows 7 but it's OK!

Any suggestions for cool stuff to put on it for a non-techy wife (I mean she's technically literate just not particularly interested).

pete