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In part 3 of Exploring the Leopard 300, we will look at the Dashboard, Front Row, ICal & Quick Look.

DASHBOARD

I’m a huge fan of Mac OS X Dashboard app. Its a real time saver, I have many widgets running and they keep me all the information I need in a birds eye view. You always need to try out new releases and alternates to suit your needs.

• Web Clip: Clip any web page and make it a widget. When the page updates at source, your widget is also updated
• Dashboard Movies widget Movies Widget in Dashboard: Good app, not so good for my part of the world yet
• Sync Dashboard Widget Settings with .Mac: .Mac now MobileMe, sync your dashboard settings on all Macs

Its important to note with the release of Leopard, Dashcode – the code base for dashboard widget creation also got updated. I’ll just mention the important updates: Dashcode IDE, Code Snippets, Widget UI Layout Canvas, Instant-On JavaScript Debugger, Advanced Source Code Editor, Automatic Packaging and Deployment, Widget Templates

FRONT ROW

Front Row is a great entertainment application built in Mac OS X. It got revamped in the Leopard release with the following:

• Front Row: In their own words:
  Sit back and enjoy all of your digital media full screen on your Mac with Front Row. Now built in to Mac OS X Leopard.
• AppleTV like interface: Leopard brings the sleek and smart AppleTV interface in Front Row
• DVD Playback in Front Row: Its a great experience to Full Screen DVD playback directly from Front Row
• Streaming iTunes Content: Itunes Streaming content too directly in Front Row
• Movie Previews: No need to go via web to watch new trailers, enjoy them in the comfort off Front Row

ICAL

When I switched to Apple from windows, initially I selected the familiar Microsoft Entourage environment. Later on during sync issues, I would come across ICal and started to like the soft, simple and inviting interface. Once I decided to use Mail, Address Book & ICal combination, I really enjoyed the ICal Experience. With the Leopard release, ICal became a very stable platform. UPDATE: Currentlt my ICal is synced with Goolge Calenders like a charm, where Google handles all syncing between my Mac, Google Calendar and my Blackberry Curve. And that too all on the net. No cables, no bluetooth connections.

• Improved iCal Interface: Great Interface, actually the best Calendering UI yet
• Inline Editing in iCal: Make changes and additions directly on the event via the Inline Editor
• Event Dropbox: Share all the information about the event through the dropbox
• CalDAV Group Scheduling: ICal works on CalDAV support servers making sure data portability
• Auto Pick: Once everyone is talking, it becomes necessary to select a time when everyone can meet
• Availability Window: Before you send an invite, check participants availability
• Delegation: If you are busy, assign management of your calender to a collegue
• Offline Calendaring: ICal lets you make the changes when you are offilne, once connected it syncs the necessary info
• Office Hours: Define your working hours even for a given week
• iCal Reserve Rooms image Reserve Rooms and Equipment: The name says it all
• Default Alarms: ICal creates an alarm for all events you create
• Turn Off All Alarms: You can disable alarms for select events

QUICK LOOK

One of the best features of the Leopard release. Quick Look has saved me countless hours of opening documents and closing them instantly as they were not the ones I intended. The whole Cover Flow and Quick Look experience combines together to present User the ability to indentify the document/information they are looking for easily.

• Quick Look: In their own words:
  Look inside any document without launching an application. Use Quick Look with documents, images, songs, and movies and get a large-size preview of the file. Flip through multipage documents, preview movies, even add images to Photo. You can use Quick Look in Finder, Mail, and Time Machine.
• Full Screen Preview: Preview files full screen
• Multi-select: Quickly preview multiple files at once in a light table view or individually with slideshow controls.

Apple, Mac OS 300, Apple, Dashboard, Features, Front Row, Google Calendar, ICal, Mac OS X, Mac OS X Leopard, MobileMe, movie, Play, Quick Look, sync

In the first installment of “Exploring the Leopard 300″, we explored what was new in Address Book, Fonts, Imaging and Finder. In Part 2, we will be exploring what new was release in Boot Camp, Desktop, Graphics, Spaces.

BOOT CAMP

For the uninitatiated, as Apple moved to Intel processer architecture from PowerPC chips. People started to ask for installing Windows on their Macs natively, as virtualization products like Parallels were already out their. Boot Camp was available for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger slightly before Leopard release. The following group of 7 features together form the complete product Boot Camp. The group includes:

• Boot Camp: Run Windows XP or Vista natively i.e. to switch from Mac OS X to Windows, you need to restart
• Boot Camp Assistant: Setup assistant to install Windows for the first time
• Copy Files Between Mac OS X and Windows: Great feature, what would be the fun without this
• Restore to Mac-Only Partition: If you finally realize that you don’t need windows and which will surely do sooner or later, the tool to use to recover those much scarce hard disk resources
• Microsoft WHCL-Certified Windows Drivers: No need to hunt for drivers, they come in the package
• Automatic PC Key Remapping: The windows PC keys
• Convenient Boot Camp Task Bar Shortcut: We want to you to start using Mac OS X:)

DESKTOP

• New Look: The Leopard Desktop was a great refresh to most prime element in an OS. Great pixel utilization.
• Stacks: Revolutionary concept in file management. In their own words:
  Organise files in a neat stack on the Dock. One click and the stack springs open, revealing items in an elegant arc or an at-a-glance grid.
• Downloads Stack: Downloads have their own unique stack
• Sorting Stacks: Organize your stacks by by filename, date added, date modified, date created, or file type
• .Mac Sync for Dock Items: Make changes on one Mac and through .Mac (now MobileMe) it gets reflected everywhere
• Spring-Loaded Dock: I’ll use the official word on it
  Items in the Dock are spring-loaded. Just drag a file, hover over any application in the Dock, and press the Space bar — the application opens instantly. For example, to add a picture to your iPhoto library, just drag the image file and hover over the iPhoto icon in the Dock. Press the Space bar, and once iPhoto opens, you can drag the image into your iPhoto library. If you drag a file and hover over a stack, pressing the Space bar opens a Finder window showing the contents of the stack.

GRAPHICS

Mac always have been great with graphics and usually the first choice in the creative industry. Since birth Mac has been a step ahead with graphics. The Leopard release brought in the following updates:

• Core Animation: Create incredible animated user experiences in your applications, combining 2D graphics, OpenGL rendering, and video.
• Updated OpenGL: Run even the most up-to-date OpenGL-based applications that take advantage of the latest technologies and GLSL v1.2 support in Leopard.
• New Core Image Filters: Take advantage of over 20 new Core Image filters built right into Leopard, including Disc Blur, Linear Bump, Comic Effect, Hexagonal Pixellate, Spot Color, and more.
• Multicore Enhanced: Get optimum performance from Core Image, Core Animation, and OpenGL, all tuned to take advantage of your Mac’s multicore processor.
• EXIF Color Space Support: Enjoy improved color reproduction of digital photos, as ColorSync automatically takes advantage of the EXIF sRGB information embedded in image files by many popular digital cameras.

SPACES

One of the most amazing desktop management enhancements available to the Unix/Linux crowd for some time. Spaces provides users the availability to have virtually N number of desktops and dedicate a specific Space for a specific applications. Like I have set Space 1 for nothing, use it as desktop, Space 2 for Firefox, Space 3 for Apple Mail and Space 4 for coding/terminal etc. The Leopard release brought in the following:

• Spaces: In their own words:
  Organise your activities into separate spaces and easily switch from one to another. Make a space for work or play. Choose from a number of convenient options that make moving from space to space fast and easy.
  
• Bird’s-Eye View: View all of your spaces onscreen at the same time.
• Add and Remove Spaces: Easily add or remove spaces in the Spaces pane of System Preferences.
• Application Binding: Assign an application to a specific space. Anytime you run that application, it will open in its assigned space.
• Bump Over to Adjacent Space: Move a window to another space by dragging it to the edge of your screen. Spaces will switch to the new space and take your window with it.

Apple, Mac OS 300, Apple, Boot Camp, Core Animation, Desktop, Dual OS, Features, Graphics, Leopard, Mac OS X, microsoft, Microsoft Windows, Spaces, Spring, Stack, virtualization, Windows XP

Very soon, more precisely in September ‘09 we all will spend time reading the N amount of not so appearant features in Apples latest Mac OS X release Snow Leopard . I thought it would be a good idea to go down the memory lane and have a look at the famous 300 new features announced with the release of Mac OS X Leopard, as honestly I’m not sure if we have fully utilized our powerhouse Mac OS X.

On Leopard release the 300 features had a very prominent page, which will now re-route you to What is Mac OS X page, part of the Snow Leopard release pages. Googling for that specific 300 feature page, I was lucky to find one on Apple’s Asia site, unfortunately without pictures. (if anyone knows of a better link, please share).
Read more…

Apple, Mac OS 300, Address Book, Apple, Features, Finder, Font Book, Fonts, Google, Google Maps, Imaging, Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, Yahoo

I wrote the first version of this article on Shophive Blog back in September 2007. Principally all the recommendations are still valid. But in light of Snow Leopard release coming out in September 2009 and me having spent about 2 years on Mac now, there are few things which I would like to add.

Apple Laptops and Desktops were once considered creative industries standard choice in computers are gradually becoming a mainstream choice. While selecting next Laptop buy, the most common question consumers ask is about Switching to Apple environment. In this post I would list down key points to address the “Switch” concerns. Apple has done a tremendous job in putting up Switch support sites.

Get a Mac – The popular Switch to Mac ads homepage.
Switch 101 – Almost all your concerns answered by Apple Inc.

Difference between a regular Laptop (Acer, HP etc.) and Apple Macbooks & Macbook Pro?
The Latest Macbooks and Pro’s have the same architecture as like their siblings from Sony & HP etc. In fact, Intel usually announces its latest chips with Apple and leaving others to follow. Mac’s have some patent technologies like Magsafe adapters etc. The latest models have an irremovable battery promising longer hours of battry less usage. Check out Macbook page on apple site for more details

Can I run Windows on Macbook?
Yes! There are multiple solutions available to run Windows on Macs. Initially, it might be a real requirement, but with usage it wouldn’t be of that much importance.

Boot Camp – Apple Inc solution. You will be able to run Windows by switching and selecting which OS to run on start-up. This is the best solution as it gives you a complete Windows machine under your control. Mac OS X Tiger/Leopard requires a reboot. New Mac OS X version Leopard will have added features.

Then, we have Virtualization products in the market namely, Parallels, Fusion etc. which allow you to install a virtual copy of Windows to run within the Mac OS X environment, giving you the ability to run windows software’s side-by-side. Another option is Crossover, which allows you to directly install software’s which are tested by the authors of Crossover.

As I have stated above, initially everyone is fixated about the dual boot option. But later on with usage, no one wishes to open windows.

What about my Excel, Powerpoint & word files?
Microsoft has its very own Office 2008 version available for Mac environment, with an update Office 2008 arriving in Jan ‘08. It would be interesting to note here that Microsoft Office started off on Macs. You can do about everything in Office 2008 for Mac OS X as you would do on Windows environment. Updates regularly come out of Redmond. Apple has its own competitive products in productivity area namely Keynote, Numbers and Pages in its Iwork ‘09 suite. Third party and Open source apps are also available.

Will I be able to work with Windows PC’s on the network?
Without any issue. Usually Macs, will pick up most of the shared printers for which drivers were written in the Mac environment. We have used some HP’s. For Domain based Windows environment, the administrator might need to install Services for Macs available with the server OS.

Wifi & Bluetooth?
Absolutely! Actually its so simple to get them up and running on Mac OS X, it really kills the pain you have to go through Windows XP and Vista environment.

My Data, will I be able to move it to Macbook?
Without a sweat! Mac OS X can read all windows files. For some specific files like WMV you might need to install programs like Windows Media Player or VNC Player. A good starting point will be to look at Apple Downloads.

USB and Firewire have native support in Mac OS X, hence your portable media can be attached and used easily.

Will I be able to use my custom developed Apps like Accounting, GL, CRM etc. on Mac’s?
Not under Mac OS X if the apps were developed for Microsoft only. You can use them in Wndows as discussed above.

Hence!
After 2 years of some serious usage I can safely say:

• I have spent 0 hours on fixing viruses or malware
• Whenever I switch on the mac, there is no fuss in the registary or some corner of the OS. Its just ready for work
• The updates keep on coming steadily but never give you the nightmare. I have made a policy, always download the full combo version of the OS patch. Backup and then install the update…….very safe!
• My battery died and claiming a new one was just a breeze. Ofcourse you need to be covered in the warranty period.

…. the list goes on. The following are some more:

Pro’s:

• 0 viruses till date. No need to install memory hogs still with no protection
• Unix under control. Mac OS X is the most amazingly simple, yet one of the most powerful Unix system available.
• Graphics. The most amazing GUI and easy to use environment
• Design. Stunning detail in design. Its one of the best Hardware/software combo in the market
• Work! You actually work not worrying about DLL’s, blue screen of death and those annoying Windows alerts

Con’s:

• Though these are by no means Cons, but some users might find them on the downside.
• No Modem in both Macbook and Macbook pro’s
• No native memory card reader. Though it can be added through Express 34 card. Newer Pro versions are having SD card readers now
• No Finger print reader, if that is the security of your choice

Snow Leopard:
Snow Leopard, a refinement to the 10.5 Mac OS Leopard release brings in more Windows connectivity such as Microsoft Exchange etc. There are host of other enhancements, which will surely result in more safe, productive and response work output.

Concusion:

I have been a windows user since forever and have used various IBM, Sony, HP, Fujitsu Siemens laptops during the coure of time. Back in early 2007, a virus attack disrupted my working pattern immensely allowing me to think about other safe options and Macbook & Mac OS X are the best combination I came across. I’m very happy with my decision and besides an initial Switch time, I haven’t yet faced any obstacle in my work pattern.

Please visit Apple for more details of the products available.

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