Virtualization products have been out there for Macs allowing you to run Windows and other operating systems from within Mac OS X. It was only when Apple introduced Boot Camp, which allows you to natively install Microsoft Windows on your Mac, the real attraction started for Macs. People who were reluctant switching to Mac earlier, were now more appreciative of their purchases.

Boot Camp

Right from Apple’s site:

Have a Windows application you need to use once in a while? No problem. Every new Mac lets you install Windows XP and Vista and run them at native speeds, using a built-in utility called Boot Camp.

Setup is simple and safe for your Mac files. After you’ve completed the installation, you can boot up your Mac using either Mac OS X or Windows. (That’s why it’s called Boot Camp.)

People involved with high performance applications such as 3D and appreciative of Mac hardware usually use Boot Camp to run Windows as native. But if you want to enjoy both the worlds and hate rebooting to switch back to Mac OS, you better try one of the following apps.

Wine Bottler

Wine Bottler, a free application which lets you run Windows applications in such a way that they run right in the native OS X environment. Its based on the famous Wine project on nix platform. Its not click and run ideally, requires a bit of getting things done but nothing unachievable. There is an excellent article on Mac.Appstorm on using Wine Bottler.

CrossOver Mac

Similar in functionality like Wine Bottler but with more intuitive usage and support, CrossOver Mac allows you to install many popular Windows applications and games on your Intel Mac. Once installed, your application integrates seamlessly in OS X. Just click and run your application directly from the OS X Finder. Not all applications are available for installation, but the current available list is pretty decent. The pro version costs $57 ($12 discount).

VMware Fusion 3

Moving on, if you want a more realistic experience where you are not bound to run a select list of applications, then look beyond Wine Bottler and CrossOver. VMware Fusion is a very decent application rightfully providing the juice to run your most demanding windows applications. This is what VMware has to say:

Run the most demanding Mac and Windows applications side-by-side at maximum speeds without rebooting. With more than 80 new features in VMware Fusion 3, including 5X better 3D graphics performance and 35% faster end-to-end performance in version 3.1, it’s never been easier to run Windows on your Mac.

At a discounted price of $61.99, its a very good purchase to fulfill your needs.

Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac

If you want to really enjoy the best of both worlds keeping your Mac running at best, look no further. Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac is the best option out there. This is what they have to say about their products:

Mac OS or Windows? Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac lets you seamlessly run Windows and Mac OS X side-by-side, drag-and-drop your files between operating systems, and run Windows software on your Apple computer without rebooting.

Faster
•    Run Windows 7 with Aero
•    Enjoy Snow Leopard
•    Use 1000s of Windows applications

Smarter
•    Share files between Mac and Windows
•    Use Windows apps like Mac apps
•    Connect your favorite USB devices

More Powerful
•    DirectX 9.0c/9Ex with Shader Model 3
•    All the security you need for Windows
•    No compromise on performance or speed

Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac is available at a discounted price of $59.99 ($20 off).

Recommendation:

I would recommend trying out 30 day trials of the app you like before going for the purchase. I have tested all of them and would recommend Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac as it beats the competition with so much to offer. Now, I can run Visio instead of look a likes.

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.

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.

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).
The 300 odd features are grouped under different categories:

• Address Book (2)
• AppleScript (8)
• Automator (7)
• Boot Camp (7)
• Dashboard (3)
• Dashcode (7)
• Desktop (6)
• Dictionary (5)
• DVD Player (10)
• Finder (8)
• Fonts (6)
• Front Row (5)
• Graphics & Media(5)
• iCal (12)
• iChat (24)
• Imaging (3)
• Instruments (4)
• International (11)
• Mail (15)
• Networking (2)
• Parental Controls (7)
• Photo Booth (8)
• Preview (14)
• Printing (8)
• Quick Look (3)
• Safari (13)
• Screen Savers (6)
• Security (11)
• Spaces (5)
• Spotlight (8)
• System (9)
• System Preferences (7)
• Terminal (9)
• TextEdit (7)
• Time Machine (12)
• Universal Access (17)
• UNIX (12)
• Xcode 3 (10)

I will surely not be able to explore & detail all the 316 or so features. In this Intro post I will look into the few easy ones.

ADDRESS BOOK

1. Google Map Addresses
   View a detailed map of any address in Address Book. Just hold down the Control key while clicking any address and select “Map of” and Safari will show you its location in Google Maps.Awesome feature, just love the easy flow and execution. The only down part is, addresses should be mapped by Google.
2. Synchronize with Yahoo!
   Synchronize Address Book on your Mac with your Yahoo! address book. Just enter your Yahoo! account information in Address Book preferences to get started.
   
   UPDATE! Address Book Syncs with MobileMe, Exchange, Yahoo and Google. For Google, you need to download the Contact Sync application. Here is the link to support and how to install for Google.

IMAGING

1. Improved Tethered Camera Support
   Control your camera directly from Image Capture, allowing you to take pictures and download them in a single, convenient step. More camera models from Canon and Nikon are now supported.

   WOW! I used this feature and it works like charm.

2. Enhanced Wireless Capture
   Wirelessly import images from many 802.11-enabled digital cameras and Bluetooth devices.
   
   Yet to get my hands on a 802.11 enabled camera. But just a little googling reveals that the feature works like a charm.
3. Network Scanning Support
   Take advantage of new Bonjour-based network scanners, Leopard leads the way with the technology required to allow scanning over a network.
   
   It sure does for sure!

FONTS

1. Printable Font Book
   Print out comprehensive previews of your fonts, including sample text in varying sizes or all available glyphs. Just select fonts in Font Book, choose Print from the File menu, and select any of the three built-in report types.

   A very important feature for Graphics professional to have a print reference available of installed fonts. Other entries in the FONT groups are:

   - Language Collection: Fonts grouped by Languages
   - System Font Protection: Your Mac will alert you while deleting a system font
   - New Fonts: Apple welcomes Arial Unicode, Microsoft Sans Serif, Tahoma, Papyrus Condensed, and Wingdings fonts
   - Font Auto-Activation: If a font is deactivated but used by a specific application, that font will become active for the life of that application (until its quitted)
   - Braille Support: Addition of Apple Braille Regular, Apple Braille Outline, and Apple Braille Pinpoint fonts

FINDER

1. New Sidebar

   Don’t you just love the New Sidebar. People who are not familiar with previous OS X releases, it was unlike the iTunes interface we are so familiar with now. The grouping and placement of elements makes it a breeze to select the right action item.

2. Cover Flow

   Either you are looking at documents or images, Cover Flow allows you to quickly and visually identify the right document. Other entries are:
   - Back to My Mac: You can share with other other Macs you own.
   - Screen Sharing image Instant Screen Sharing from the Finder: Welcome Remote control of fellow macs (if authorized)
   - Icon Preview: The name says it all
   - Path Bar: Very long awaited feature for Windows Explorer/Run command fans
   - New Folder of Options: Folder viewing options
   - Folder Sharing: Now you can share any folder

I’ll wrap this post up till here. And will continue writing about the same topic in continued posts

PHP

Impact: Multiple vulnerabilities in PHP 5.2.6

Description: PHP is updated to version 5.2.8 to address multiple vulnerabilities, the most serious of which may lead to arbitrary code execution. Get details on whats changed in 5.2.8 by clicking here.

At the time of writing this post 5.3.0 is released. And the old problem of missing GD2 library still persists. Apple must have a great reason behind it for sure

Ruby

Impact: Multiple vulnerabilities in Ruby 1.8.6

Description: Multiple vulnerabilities exist in Ruby 1.8.6. This update addresses the issues by updating Ruby to version 1.8.6-p287. Get details about the changes here.