One of our members was still planning his upgrade from OS X Snow Leopard to OS X Yosemite. Since he was skipping a few releases (Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks) I suggested it would be a good idea to do a clean install rather than upgrade his existing Snow Leopard installation. A search on “OS X Yosemite clean install” will turn up a number of results, including this one: http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/18/clean-install-os-x-yosemite/. It warns that a clean install involves formatting your Mac’s hard drive so that all data is removed, so you will first want to make sure you have a backup. Time Machine is a good backup, but you will also find it convenient to have a bootable backup on another external hard drive, which can be created with programs like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!.
We also reviewed how to boot from an alternative boot drive by restarting your Mac and holding down the option key until a list of bootable drives is revealed. You can also use the Startup Disk system preference. After creating the bootable backup, if you boot from the backup copy of OS X on the external drive, you can format the Mac’s main drive. Then, if you have downloaded the OS X Yosemite installer from the Mac App Store, you can start the install. I recommended that the member migrate just his data, from the Time Machine backup or his bootable backup, but not to migrate his applications. He should install those from the original install media (download or disc).
Another member mentioned that he was going to buy an iPad mini for his mother. I suggested not getting the cheapest iPad mini, but to spend the extra $50 to get the iPad mini 2, which has a Retina display and a much faster processor. I did not recommend spending still another $100 for the iPad mini 3, which is identical (screen, processor, etc.) to the mini 2 except for the addition of Touch ID to the home button. Touch ID is convenient in allowing you to use your fingerprint to unlock the iPad, certain apps, and to make online purchases, but for most people this will not be worth $100.