October 26th, 2007 By Justin Williams

Happy Leopard Day!

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I’ve been a Mac user since early 2001 when the first revision of Mac OS X was released. I saw Windows as a sinking ship in terms of innovation and the allure of the Mac’s glossy new operating system was too much to resist. Almost 7 years later, and I don’t have a single regret about switching to the 8% side of the market.

Apple today is releasing their sixth revision of Mac OS X, 10.5 Leopard. In the same time, Microsoft has released a single update: Vista. Apple touts over 300 new features, but some stick out more than others:

• Time Machine: Apple’s built-in backup solution, which incrementally backs up the contents of your hard drive, so you can jump back in time and recover files and folders.
• Spaces: Multiple monitors are nice but take up a lot of space. Spaces let’s you create virtual monitors, so you can segregate the various activities you perform on your Mac to different desktops.
• Quick Look: This is my favorite major feature. You no longer need to open Word and Excel just to see what’s inside a file. Quick Look lets you browse the contents of various types of files to see what’s contained inside it instantly.
• Boot Camp: Apple’s offered Boot Camp in beta form for Mac OS X Tiger users, but Leopard introduces the final version of their technology to dual boot both Mac OS X and Windows.

I’ve been using the OS exclusively for the past few months as I finished writing my new book, Getting StartED with Mac OS X Leopard. I’ll have my full review of the new OS in next Friday’s Courier & Press.