OK, the new release of Mountain Lion is downloaded and a safe copy made, I have a current backup of my startup drive, and the new ML-compatible versions of Xcode and Pages are installed.

Every time I upgrade Mac OS I get a little nervous, expecting problems; I think too much experience with early versions of computer operating systems traumatized me for life. The truth is that since I installed the very first version of OS X, I’ve never had a single serious problem when upgrading. But I still take elaborate precautions.

By the way, I recommend making a copy of the Mountain Lion installer app before finishing the installation, because the installer app wipes itself out when finished. To do this, wait for the ML installer to finish downloading and launch itself, then right-click on the installer icon in your dock and choose Options->Show In Finder. That will open your Applications folder, with the ML installer highlighted. I just dragged it to another drive to make a copy in another location; you can make a copy in the same location with the File menu’s Duplicate option, or by Option-dragging the file to another folder or the desktop. Then you can proceed with the installation.

Anyway, I’m going in. Cover me.

Update completed, and aside from a couple of incompatible programs (Snapz Pro and Little Snitch) everything’s fine. Already coming across nice new features, like Safari’s cool Tab View mode.