#106 - the leopard lies in wait

I've done a lot of complaining about the new Windows Vista. I'll be taking a closer look at the 4 flavors of Vista and what components they have later this week. Today I want to talk about the new Apple operating system - Leopard, due out October 26.

Apple's Leopard comes out this week and although most of my customer don't have Apples, I thought it might be fun to talk about what Apple thought was important in its new operating system versus what Microsoft was important. Microsoft had security first and foremost in mind when it designed Vista. Yes, they throw in some graphic tid bits (that slow things down nicely!), but by and large the only POSITIVE aspects of Vista are its security features. Just to let you know how that is going, Microsoft has had an update to Vista EVERY Tuesday since its launch to fix security issues...

Leopard on the other hand has over 300 changes that really don't point to any one feature as a major update. It does add the "Time Machine" that lets you recover files or folders that have disappeared. The Desktop has a 3D dock that holds your most used programs. It also adds the "Stack" feature that vertically shows you the files you recently have used in each docked application. The ever popular Finder now looks like iTunes (Finder is the Mac version of My Computer). You can set up "Spaces" that hold applications, folders and files that you are using on a project. Networking is a bit more simple (it wasn't at all hard in the old Tiger OS). There are strong Parental Controls that let you place limits on Internet access for kids. Lastly, if you have one of the new Intel based MACs, the Boot Camp program that allows you to run Windows on a Mac is included in Leopard. You still have to get a Windows CD with key to make it work.
Requirements for Leopard are:

Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or PowerPC G4 (867MHz or faster) processor

512MB of memory

DVD drive for installation

9GB of available disk space

It looks like my 2 year old Mac Mini will take the update. I'm not sure that I will get it at this time. I only have a 60GB hard drive and I have 23GB of music on it so this may be a bit much size wise. Actually what I would like to see out of an Operating system is Quick on, Quick off, and fast Internet browsing. I'll check out Leopard and see if it can do those things.