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Apple Mac OS X Version 10.5.1 Leopard [5-User Family Pack]

Apple Mac OS X Version 10.5.1 Leopard [5-User Family Pack]
From: Apple Computer

List Price: $199.00
Buy New: $131.99
You Save: $67.01 (34%)



New (28) from $131.99

Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars 88 reviews
Sales Rank: 33

Format: Cd-rom
Platforms: Mac Os X Intel, Mac Os X
Media: DVD-ROM
Operating System: Mac OS X
Shipping Weight (lbs): 4
Dimensions (in): 19.7 x 19.7 x 19.7

MPN: MB428Z/A
Model: MB428Z/A
UPC: 718908999783
EAN: 0885909216635
ASIN: B000BR0NPO

Publication Date: October 31, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days

Features:
  • The Mac OS X Leopard Family Pack is a single-residence, five-user license
  • Introduces more than 300 new and enhanced features to OS X, including a new desktop and updated finder enabling easy browsing and sharing between multiple Macs
  • Preview files without opening an application using Quick Look
  • Easily and automatically back up and restore lost files or a complete Mac with Time Machine
  • Take advantage of the latest developments in processor hardware with full native 64-bit support, multi-core optimization, and new Core animation

Accessories:

  • Teach Yourself VISUALLY Mac OS X Leopard (Teach Yourself VISUALLY (Tech))
  • Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition (Missing Manual)
  • Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual
  • Mac OS X Leopard Pocket Guide (Pocket Reference)
  • Apple Wireless Pro Keyboard

Similar Items:

  • Apple iLife '08 Family Pack
  • Apple iWork '08 Family Pack
  • Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual
  • Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition
  • VMware Fusion

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Mac OS X v.10.5.1 Leopard is the newest release of Apple's innovative, stable and compatible operating system for Macintosh computers. This new release includes an elegant new interface and over 300 new innovations designed to help customers accomplish any task. Improvements have been included for all your favorite Mac programs like iChat and Mail, as well as all-new features such as Quick Look, which lets you peruse the contents of a multiple-page document or video without opening the whole file, and Time Machine, which can recover files in seconds. OS X 10.5 has all this, as well as the exceptional search technology, stunning graphics, rapid connectivity and solid stability you've come to expect from the OS X family of operating systems. This edition extends the license for use by up to five different users in the same home network. Time Machine lets you keep an up-to-date copy of all-important files, and since it can recall how the system looks every day, it can recover files in seconds. iChat now lets you present movies, presentations and virtually any document during your chats with iChat Theater. You can even save your audio and video chats for sharing or synching with an iPod to play on the go. Communicate with 30 professionally designed stationary templates, keep important notes and track to-do items in Mail You can now group applications into Spaces and move between each Space with keyboard shortcuts to organize your windows and reduce clutter The 10.5.1 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac. Software Update, located in the Apple menu, will automatically check for the latest Apple software using the Internet.

Amazon.com
Hello, tomorrow. The biggest Mac OS X upgrade ever, Leopard features 300+ innovations. Explore the Mac of the future today.



Create Stacks from anything to access quickly in one place.




Enjoy a gorgeous new look and organize your files in Stacks.

Desktop. A neat place to work.
From the menu bar to the stunning new Dock, the Leopard desktop isn't just about design. It's about enjoying the time you spend on your computer and getting more out of it.

An eye-opening experience.
Start from the top. The menu bar hovers transparently above your workspace, letting the desktop image--perhaps a favorite from your iPhoto library--take center stage. Dock icons rest on a reflective floor with a bright active application signal. And the look of Leopard extends to all applications: Every window has a consistent design theme, and active applications are even more distinct, casting deeper shadows.

Stacked in your favor.
Take a look at your desktop. Is it cluttered with files you downloaded or saved there (somewhat less than) temporarily? You're not alone. Everybody does it. Time to clean house with Stacks--a brand-new feature in Leopard. Create Stacks from anything you want to access quickly from one place: a handful of documents, a group of applications, an entire folder. Files you download in Safari or save from an email are automatically directed to a Stack in the Dock, and when the download is complete, the Stack signals that a new item has arrived. When you want to see the files in a Stack, all you have to do is click--Stacks spring open from the Dock in an elegant arc for a few items, or in an at-a-glance grid for more. Pretty neat.



Browse your files like you browse your music with Cover Flow.

Finder. Give your files the rock star treatment.
Imagine if browsing the files on your Mac was as easy as browsing music in iTunes. That's the idea behind the new Finder in Leopard. Now you can access everything on your system from an iTunes-style sidebar and flip through your files using Cover Flow.


Grouped sidebar items help you find what you need fast.

The sidebar steps up.
Leopard brings new power to your old friend, the sidebar. Now items are grouped into categories: places, devices, shared computers, and searches--just like the Source list in iTunes. So with a single click, you're on your way to finding what you need.

See what you seek.
Bring your files to life with Cover Flow in the Finder. Just as you use Cover Flow to flip through album art in iTunes, now you can use it to flip through your files. Cover Flow displays each file as a large preview of its first page. And you can page through multipage documents or play movies.

Search party.
Stop looking and start finding with Cover Flow and Spotlight. Click a prebuilt search like "yesterday" or "all images" in the sidebar and Cover Flow displays your search results in the perfect at-a-glance format. Leopard comes with a number of helpful prebuilt searches, but it's easy to create your own customized searches as well.

Closer connections.
With shared computers automatically displayed in the sidebar, it's far easier to find or access files on any computer in your house, whether Mac or PC. All it takes is a click. But here's where things get really interesting. By clicking on a connected Mac, you can see and control that computer (if authorized, of course) as if you were sitting in front of it. You can even search all the computers in the house to find what you're looking for.

And now, back to my Mac.
Ever need something on your Mac when you were thousands of miles from home? With Back to My Mac and a .Mac account, you can connect to any of your Macs at home from any Mac on the Internet. Your home computers will appear in the shared section of the sidebar just as they do when you're in the living room.


Improved spotlight searches.

Look deeper.
From the Finder or the menu bar, Spotlight in Leopard lets you search for more specific sets of things. Use Boolean logic to narrow search results by entering "AND," "OR," or "NOT" into a search request. You can also search for exact phrases (using quotation marks), dates, ranges (using greater than [>] and less than [<] symbols), absolute dates, and simple calculations.


View, play, and read files without even opening them.

Quick Look. Look before you launch.
Using Quick Look in Leopard, you can view the contents of a file without even opening it. Flip through multiple-page documents. Watch full-screen video. See entire Keynote presentations. With a single click.

Opening files is so 2006.
So you're flipping through files in the Finder. But you're looking for something specific and you don't have time to open lots of files to find it. Enter Quick Look. It gives you a sneak peek of entire files--even multiple-page documents and video--without opening them.

See everything.
Quick Look works with nearly every file on your system, including images, text files, PDFs, movies, Keynote presentations, and Microsoft Word and Excel files. Click the Quick Look icon or tap the Space bar to see a file in Quick Look. Then click the arrow icon to see the same file full screen--even video as it plays.

Time Machine. A giant leap backward.
More than a mere backup, Time Machine makes an up-to-date copy of everything on your Mac--digital photos, music, movies, TV shows, and documents--so you can go back in time to recover anything.

Set it, then forget it.
You can start using Time Machine in seconds. The first time you attach an external drive to your Mac, Time Machine asks if you'd like to use that drive as your backup. Say yes and Time Machine takes care of everything else. Automatically. In the background. You'll never have to worry about backing up again.

Back up everything.
Time Machine keeps an up-to-date copy of everything on your Mac. That includes system files, applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, and documents. But what makes Time Machine different from other backup applications is that it not only keeps a spare copy of every file, it remembers how your system looked on any given day--so you can revisit your Mac as it appeared in the past.



Go back in time to restore any file on your system.

Go back in time.
Enter the Time Machine browser in search of your long-lost files and you see exactly how your computer looked on the dates you're browsing. Select a specific date, let Time Machine find your most recent changes, or do a Spotlight search to find exactly what you're looking for. Once you do, click Restore and Time Machine brings it back to the present. Time Machine restores individual files, complete folders, or your entire computer--putting everything back the way it was and where it should be.

Preferential treatment.
Customize Time Machine by modifying the following behaviors in System Preferences:

  • Backup disk. Change the drive or volume you're backing up to. Or back up to a Mac OS X Server computer.
  • Do not back up. By default, Time Machine backs up your entire system. But you can also select items you'd rather not back up.
  • Encrypt backup data. Turn on encryption to store your backup securely.
  • Backup storage time limits. Manage older backups so your backup drive doesn't fill up.


Drag windows to different workspaces and unclutter your Mac.

Spaces. Room for everything.
You do a lot on your Mac. So what happens when projects pile up? Easy. Use Spaces to group your windows and banish clutter completely. Leopard gives you a Space for everything and puts everything in its Space.

Rearrange the rooms.
Create a Space for work. Create a Space for play. Organize each Space the way you want it just by dragging in windows. Keep all your work projects in one Space and that fun flick you made in iMovie in another. Create a communication Space for iChat and Mail. You can even rearrange your Spaces with drag-and-drop ease--shift a Space and every window in it comes along for the ride.

Make yourself at home.
Moving from Space to Space is easy. Get a bird's-eye view and select the Space you want or toggle between Spaces using the arrow keys. Even the Dock is down with Spaces: When you click a Dock icon, Leopard whisks you to the Space (or Spaces) where you have that application open.

Pick your patterns.
Configure your Spaces by visiting the Expose Spaces pane in System Preferences. Add rows and columns until you have all the real estate you need. Arrange your Spaces as you see fit, then choose the function keys you want to control them. You can also assign applications to specific Spaces, so you'll always know where, say, Safari or Keynote is.



Email personalized stationery, write to-dos, and take notes.

Mail. Think outside the inbox.
Leopard transforms email into personalized stationery. Notes you can access anywhere. To-dos that change as your errands do. For everything you do with email--and some things you haven't thought of yet--there's Mail.

Sincerely yours.
Mail for Leopard features more than 30 professionally designed stationery templates that make a virtual keepsake out of every email you send. Mail Stationary From invitations to birthday greetings, stationery templates feature coordinated layouts, fonts, colors, and drag-and-drop photo placement--everything to help you get your point across. You can even create personalized templates. And messages created using stationery in Mail use standard HTML that can be read by every popular email program on the market--for both Mac and PC.



Notes and tasks help you stay organized.

Noteworthy indeed.
Ever email yourself a reminder that gets lost in your inbox? Mail lets you write handy notes you can access from anywhere. Brainstorm ideas, jot down meeting notes, scribble a phone number--notes can include graphics, colored text, and attachments. Group notes into folders or create Smart Mailboxes that group them for you. Since your notes folder acts like an email mailbox, you can retrieve notes from any Mac or PC.

Much ado about to-dos.
Forget manually entering a new item to your to-do list every time an email hits your inbox. Mail Tasks Simply highlight text in an email, then click the To-do icon to create a to-do from a message. Include a due date, set an alarm, or assign priorities. Every to-do you create includes a link to the original email or note, and to-dos automatically appear in iCal, complete with any edits or additions you make. And since to-dos are stored with your email, you can access them from Mail on any Mac.

Spotlight on Mail.
With smarter relevance ranking in Spotlight, you'll find the right email at the top of the search results list. And everything you create in Leopard Mail--to-dos, notes, and, of course, email messages--appears in a Spotlight search of your system.

Stop the presses.
Subscribe to an RSS feed in Mail and you'll know the moment an article or blog post hits the wire. Even better, you can choose to have new articles emailed to you. Sorting your news is easy, too. Use Smart Mailboxes to organize incoming news articles according to search terms that pique your interest. Mail shares its unread RSS feed count with Safari, so your reading list always stays in sync.

Data, detected.
Say you get an email invitation to dinner. What if Mail recognized the address of the restaurant and let you map directions on the web? Or let you click once to add the date to your iCal calendar? With Leopard, it does. Mail even recognizes combinations of data in phrases like "lunch tomorrow at 12 p.m. at 701 Baltic Ave, San Francisco, CA," making it easy to make plans.

Setup made simple.
Now you can set up a new Mail account in one easy step. Just enter your current email address and password and let Mail do the rest. Mail works with the most popular email providers to automatically configure all those cryptic server settings for you.



Add effects to video chats and make remote presentations.

iChat. Not being there is half the fun.
Filled with fun new features, iChat turns any video chat into an event. Video backdrops, Photo Booth effects, photo slideshows, Keynote presentations, even movies on your Mac--you can share it all using iChat.



Transform your video chats using Photo booth effects.


Share your files with friends using iChat Theater.

Chat for effect.
Transform your video chats using new Photo Booth effects. Choose an effect and your image changes instantly--iChat detects your background and adds the effect only to your image. And the reverse is true for iChat backdrops: Drag an Apple-designed backdrop or your own photo or video into the video preview window to create an effect that will fool your buddies into thinking you're chatting from your living room, the beach, or the moon.

Show off (without showing up).
Why wait for a darkened room and a projector to present vacation photos or Keynote slides? Now you can do it all remotely, right in iChat. Put on an entire photo slideshow, click through a Keynote presentation, or play a movie--in full screen, accompanied by a video feed of you hosting--while your buddy looks on. In fact, you can show any file on your system that works with Quick Look.

Chatting for the record.
Now you can save your audio and video chats for posterity with iChat recording. Before recording starts, iChat notifies your buddies and asks for their permission to record. When you're done chatting, iChat stores your audio chats as AAC files and video chats as MPEG-4 files so you can play them in iTunes or QuickTime. Share them with colleagues, friends, and family or sync them to your iPod and play on the go.

Crystal-clear audio.
iChat uses the AAC-LD audio codec to deliver the clearest possible sound during audio chats. A wideband codec that samples a full range of vocal frequencies, AAC-LD sounds great with any voice.

Still the best for text.
Sure, iChat has a lot to offer for video and audio chats, but text messaging also gets a boost in Leopard, thanks to these additions:

  • Tabbed chats
  • Multiple logins
  • Invisibility
  • Animated buddy icons
  • SMS forwarding
  • Custom buddy list order
  • File transfer manager
  • Space-efficient views

AIM to please.
iChat works with AIM, the largest instant messaging community in the U.S. You and your buddies can be either AIM or .Mac users. Text, audio, and video chat whether your buddies use a Mac or PC. Sign in with your AIM account and all your buddies appear in your iChat buddy list.

iCal. Your schedule is clear.
Leopard introduces a new look to iCal, along with an easier-to-use interface that makes scheduling and rescheduling a breeze. Add new group calendaring features, and iCal works better for business or pleasure.
Photo Booth. Say cheese.
Come on. You know you want to. Your built-in iSight or USB camera just begs to take your snapshot. Open Photo Booth--now built into Leopard--and have a little fun.
Dashboard. Where there's a will, there's a widget.
Leopard lets you create your very own Dashboard widget from any website. And new .Mac syncing keeps all of your widgets on all of your Macs.
Front Row. Put on a show.
Looking for a great way to enjoy all the cool stuff on your Mac? Front Row in Leopard works like Apple TV to play digital music, movies, TV shows, and photos on your Mac using the ultra-simple Apple Remote.
Safari. Still the world's best web browser.
Now your favorite web browser is also the fastest on the planet. With page load speeds to rival every other major browser, Safari for Leopard also introduces a few new features to the mix.
DVD Player. Very entertaining.
DVD Player in Leopard probably boasts more features than the DVD player in your home entertainment system. And you don't have to leave your Mac to enjoy it.
Parental Controls
Give your kids a safer, happier Mac experience.
Accessibility. More user friendly.
Leopard offers new features destined to make it the most accessible Mac OS yet. New voice technology in VoiceOver, along with Braille support, Breakthrough Browsing, and extended keyboard capability, give users with visual disabilities more control over the Mac than ever.
Boot Camp. Run Windows on your Mac.
Leopard is the world's most advanced operating system. So advanced, it even lets you run Windows if there's a PC application you need to use. Just get a copy of Windows and start up Boot Camp, now included with Leopard. Setup is simple and straightforward--just as you'd expect with a Mac.
Automator. Your personal automation assistant.
Automator brings remarkable speed to any task that's often repeated on your computer. Leopard adds even more muscle to Automator, making it easy to automate more kinds of tasks.

A host of new features that make life easier for every developer.

Rock-solid foundations.
Explore the core technologies that power Leaopard.

64-Bit. Advanced precision in one OS.
Leopard delivers 64-bit power in one, universal OS. Now the Cocoa application frameworks, as well as graphics, scripting, and the UNIX foundations of the Mac, are all 64-bit. And since you get full performance and compatibility for your 32-bit applications and drivers, you don't need to update everything on your system just to run a single 64-bit application.

Multicore. Fire on all cylinders.
Today's Mac computers offer astounding performance with up to eight cores of processing power. So how do you take full advantage? Simple. With Leopard. A rearchitected system, finely tuned key applications, and powerful new tools for developers make Leopard the perfect OS for your multicore Mac.

Security. Safer by design.
Every Mac is secure--right out of the box--thanks to the proven foundation of Mac OS X. Apple engineers have designed Leopard with more security to protect your personal data and make your online life safer.

Core Animation. Drag-and-drop-dead gorgeous.
Welcome to the next level in computer animation. No, it's not a feature film--it's your desktop. Core Animation is an API that makes it simple for Mac developers to add visually stunning graphics and animations to applications. Without any esoteric graphics and math techniques, you can create fluid, stutter-free effects and experiences as groundbreaking as Spaces and Time Machine.

UNIX. The UNIX you know. The Mac you love.
What can the fully UNIX-compliant Leopard do? It can run any POSIX-compliant source code. Help you make the most of multicore systems. Put a new, tabbed-interface Terminal at your fingertips. Introduce a whole host of new features that make life easier for every developer. So, really, what can't it do?

Create stunning Mac applications more quickly.

Ready. Set. Code.
Discover developer tools you can build on.

Xcode. Build fast. Work smart.
Xcode 3.0 delivers better performance, as well as innovations that let you create stunning Mac applications more quickly. Enjoy a graphical IDE in which form focuses your functions. Delight in a debugger so groundbreaking, you'll make mistakes just to see it in action.

Xray. Apps, the developer will see you now.
When you need help debugging, Xcode 3.0 offers an extraordinary new program: Xray. Taking interface cues from timeline editors such as GarageBand, Xray lets you visualize application performance like never before.

Dashcode. Widgets without the wait.
Ever wish you could make your very own Dashboard widget? A handy RSS feed of your favorite blog, maybe. Or a miniature photocast of your iPhoto library. Something uniquely useful, uniquely you. Say hello to Dashcode. Now you can get a widget up and running in minutes, even if you've never written a line of code in your life.


Customer Reviews:   Read 83 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars Worth it for Time Machine alone... but there's lots more reasons to buy   October 26, 2007
Kate and Mike (Madbury, NH)
52 out of 57 found this review helpful

The OS comes in a very small package with a little manual. Install took 45 minutes to confirm that the CD was in good condition, 45 more to install. This review is not going to be full of technical jargon... instead a brief first impression from a long time Mac user (circa 1984 Mac 512Ke vintage). For the technicals, go to Apple, read geeky blogs. For the rest of us, I'll try to keep it more straight-forward. They claim 300 changes... here are what I think are some of the more interesting ones... apologies for the length of the review, relative to the number of changes claimed, a moderate length to this review. Updated December 09, 2007 to reflect new experiences.

Pro:
-Time machine! OK, back up programs are available, but how many of them are sold versus the number of macs out there? This program is native, created by Apple for Apple. All I did was plug in a hard drive and Leopard asked if I wanted to make this my back-up drive for Leopard. I clicked yes, and that was it, all set up. It begins back up once the computer is left on and idle. The first takes a very long time, hours, subsequent back ups are hourly, however only files that have changed are saved, preserving storage space and computing power. Time machine looks like any open folder window when it gets down to it... like you went back in time and browsed around (hence the name). Similar to "snapshot" for those Windows XP users out there.
-Install was very easy. Boot machine, insert CD, restart with CD. The computer verified that the CD is in good condition (a lengthy process of about 45 minutes that you can skip but which is recommended). The rest of the install takes about 45 more minutes, but it is basically all automated. It's a Mac, it's so clever that it's easy. Apple does what computers promised to do... automate smartly.
-Price is very reasonable relative to other operating systems (e.g. Vista)
-This OS includes the release version of Boot Camp. I've not used it yet as I have Parallels, but I like how Apple has included this feature... sometimes it's just best to get along as even programs offered on both platforms are just different enough to be annoying. So if you are using PowerPoint at work on a PC, you can use it at home on your Mac acting like a PC... thank you Apple.
-The new "you can see the content of folders in the dock bar" feature is handy, especially if you have many projects going and you dump a lot of picture files into them. They call this new feature "stacks" and it works really well.
-I find that movies too now give you a preview icon which is great.
-New OS did not trash my preferences, such as my Son's photo on the desktop... very plug and play
-Safari web browser is appears somewhat faster, perhaps 1x faster to load a page but I didn't really notice that much difference as I was using another browser up to this point
-The widget-maker is really interesting... I made my first widget of a stock I follow, in about 30 seconds. This was really great. I expect future versions of the feature to add more punch (e.g. the ability to add a title bar to your new widget, improved ability to make very small widgets, ability to use arrow keys to get the widget just right, ability to resize the widget once made instead of deleting and starting all over, etc.), but is still great as is.
-When I have multiple windows open I notice a slight shadow to help me identify which one is active, or on top. Apple continues to impress with their ability to tune into subtle usability features that are so obvious that they have been overlooked. Wonderful (although I would love a darker shadow, and perhaps a bold frame around the window too).
-The Apple web site offers a very nice 9-10 minute introduction. Check it out, it's worth it (trust me).
-Cover Flow is AWESOME! If you are familiar with flipping through album art on the new iPhone or iPods, you'll recognize the power of this feature right away. For those who've been on the sidelines, let me catch you up. There's icon view. There's list view. There's also a column view that's less popular. And there's now cover flow. Much like iTunes, you can flip through files like albums in a juke box, or turning pages in a picture book. The Mac lets you see the first page, so you don't get just a dumb icon, or even a tiny picture, you get a nice big image. It's nothing short of amazing. Cover flow does more (like you can play a video in cover flow without exiting the program or launching a player, fast and convenient), but again, this is a simpler version for the rest of us.
-A further extension of file management is Quick Look. You can sort of open files without launching a program. It's designed to be a time-saver for the person with a lot of files.
-Spaces. OK, this might be a little hard to describe. Essentially, are you someone who like to have 10 programs running at one time? If so, Spaces is ideal for you. You can open say a few photos in one space, a publishing program and Photoshop in another. You can toggle back and forth between the spaces and the effect is a less cluttered environment. It's neat.
-Mail. THere's many new things here, most small. However, for those setting up a mail account for the first time, say on Yahoo or "another popular website", you enter your email address, password, and click OK. Leopard finds it and sets it up. This blows me away. Forever are gone are the days of entering POP and SMTP data, which I guess wasn't terribly bad, but again, this is 2007. Computers are supposed to be more intuitve, not less right? Mac delivers yet again.
-I didn't mention the Notes and To Do features in Mail, which are excellent adds. Example of what these are: I often send myself an email so that I have a note: Well, instead of sending a mail to myself, which can, if hung up take a minute or an hour to return to me, I can write myself a note which sits in my inbox. I can add attachments like an email. I can also turn a note into a "To do", assigning a due date and getting a check box to check when it has been completed. Anywhere I can access my email, I can also get my notes. Weird and wonderful! To do events sync to iCal (which also syncs to my iPhone)... excellent.
-Email contacts, addresses, phone numbers can be added to existing contacts, or a new contact with a couple clicks. This is very handy for the busy professional.
-The teleconferencing features of iChat makes presentations really personal and also allows you to share desktops. I won't use this at home, and I can only dream of this at work when working remotely with our team/my boss in the UK. Words don't do this feature justice.
-My existing programs seem to work ok. I did get a minor error with Parallels (see Cons section for more), but all other programs tried functioned fine.

Con:
-Boot Camp requires reboot to run Windows
-Changed the icons some, which is not a big deal, but which was unnecessary
-With all this advanced file-sharing capability in iChat, I am concerned that a guest could inadvertently open sensitive files or emails. I get confidential materials sometimes, and I have little means of limiting access. It's too open and I'd love some locking features, both in iChat and in case I walk away from my Mac and someone decides to have some fun.
- Parallels has become unstable and won't launch. A free patch fomr the Parallels website (build "5582") fixed the crash on launch issue, however an IP conflict gotten originally still persists. This IP error does not seem to cause any issues as far as I can tell, it is just a nuisance.

Bottom line: Highly recommended. Sleek, smart, and straight-forward. The review title says it all, however there are obviously many reasons to buy, including staying current with the OS so that you have access to future releases and features.



2 out of 5 stars It has some noteworthy deficiencies   October 27, 2007
Nicolas S. Martin (Indianapolis, IN United States)
36 out of 63 found this review helpful

It's premature to judge the value of many of 10.5's new features. I'm pleased with the improvements to Mail, iCal, and iChat. There are, however, some serious problems that should give a buyer pause. Apple has changed the Finder menus so that they are translucent. The lettering is no longer black-on-white unless you choose white as your wallpaper, which is hardly pleasing. I've compromised by choosing a solid light blue, but for the sake of efficiency and clarity nice designs and pictures are out. There is no corrective for the translucent pull-down menu: you always see a hazy semblance of whatever is behind it. This has introduced a lot of visual noise and may be a serious problem for individuals with vision impairment. In this case Apple has sacrificed clarity and performance for a dubious new aesthetic.

There are instances when icons and buttons which are themselves grey are placed against a gray background. This is true with the Trash on the new Dock background (if you place the Dock on the right). This makes them more difficult to see at a glance.

In changing many aesthetic features of OS X Apple seems to be addressing problems that don't exist. There is a reason why most books are not printed on translucent or colored paper, and that same reason is why the Finder should be black-on-white. Apple has added milliseconds to basic functions, thereby reducing productivity. Apple's habit of offering take-it-or-leave-it features which cannot be modified or turned off is frustrating.

One of the few regular maintenance requirements of OS X is repairing permissions. In 10.4 this took less than a minute to accomplish, but after installing 10.5 I found that it took about 7 minutes, and then a cryptic message appeared. Each time I repeated the procedure the same thing happened, though it does report also that permissions have been repaired.

When I click on the Applications folder in 10.4 the contents appear almost instantly. In 10.5 it takes more than 4 seconds for the contents to appear. It remains to be seen how many other basic functions of OS X have been harmed.

In summary, Apple seems to have made substantial changes merely for the sake of change, rather than to improve productivity, and some of these changes have degraded both productivity and comfort.

I installed Leopard on one of my three Macs, but I will not "upgrade" the other two until Apple eliminates the aesthetic drawbacks and brings speed back to parity with Tiger. It's nice to have eye candy, but productivity is my first concern. Some of the new visual features remind me of the clutter which is now standard on the screens of cable news channels.

As for the family pack, in my opinion it should contain 5 discs, not merely the same lone disc that is in the single-user package with some different text in the user agreement.

The installation discussed is on a MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz.



2 out of 5 stars The first Mac OS release to disappoint since 8.5   October 29, 2007
Lucas Holt (Kalamazoo, MI USA)
23 out of 39 found this review helpful

I pre-ordered 10.5 Leopard. The disc was here before the general availability. The disc was damaged. It would read on my old PowerMac, but as it's so big and dual layer, the intel portion would not work. I had to call apple, wait 55 minutes on the phone and then drive to the nearest apple store to get a new DVD. Upon arriving, I was hassled by the employees about not having a receipt. I couldn't print it since my Mac wouldn't boot. The printer was not connected to the other system. 10.5 disabled booting my Mac. I could only get into single user mode which is a shell prompt (unix command line). After getting a new disc, I could do a fresh install. I spent several hours reinstalling and/or copying files around to get everything back together.

Time Machine is nice. It does require several hours of syncing and when doing a lot of things, it will cause slowdowns using your Mac. You have good backups though.

Spotlight has to re-index everything which takes some time.

Mail.app now now has check box for INCOMING SSL/TLS certificate acceptance. This has been an issue for a long time. IF the certificate is self signed on your mail server, you had to go through a lot of hoops before. Those hoops are still required for OUTGOING mail. I had to set this up again.

Safari 3 has some rendering issues on some sites compared to the old version. It is much better than the betas though.

The transparency and new dock are ugly and harder to read. I have trouble telling if a program is open sometimes. (I use my dock on the left side) Transparency is disabled on old G4 PowerMacs, but enabled on newer Macs with beefy video cards.

My wacom tablet randomly stops working in Leopard. No driver yet (other than beta). Everything else works fine. Adobe has not updated many of their applications yet and won't until January 2008.

Test drive this before you buy it.



4 out of 5 stars Whiz-Bang? Kind of. Refined? Definitely.   October 28, 2007
Sette/Otto (Florida, USA)
14 out of 17 found this review helpful

Each new major release of an operating system (OS) has to make a splash. We all expect to be wowed. We expect and demand that we are shown new whiz-bang features and enhancements. For example, Microsoft's Vista has lots of whiz-bang features when compared to the steady and stalwart Windows XP. But since Vista's debut, the afterglow has faded. ANd now, the 'whiz' is the sound of people flocking back to XP and the 'bang' is the sound of people's heads hitting their keyboards from the frustration of wrestling with their computer's operating system.

Enter Mac OS 10.X:
10.1 - not a great debut. 10.2 was admittedly undercooked. 10.3 was getting there. And 10.4 finally delivered on the promise of the Mac OS in the modern age.

So with OS 10.5 - where's the whiz-bang? Ah, as they say the devil is in the details. 10.5 won't jump up and clamor for your attention out of the box. It's new features are to be lauded, but the real benefits here are in the easy way that 10.5 builds on the solid foundation of 10.4 and delivers as the best Mac OS to date.

I won't go into massive detail about each new feature, you can just check out the product info or peruse [...] for the sales pitch. Suffice to say that the additions and enhancements are indeed very cool. And perhaps more importantly worth the cost of the upgrade.

Instead of belaboring the fine points of each nook and cranny and application, I am going to touch on how impressed I am with the way that Apple has worked to ensure the continuance of a good thing.

10.5 is certainly evolutionary. The departure from Tiger is not drastic. But this is a good thing. Unlike the jolt of moving from XP to Vista - the transition from Tiger to Leopard can be best defined as "refined". At each turn there are subtle enhancements and features that may not trumpet for attention but work to take the "interference" out of using a computer. You can expect Leopard to work as advertised. Simple in its promise, but steadfast in its mission: 'it just works'.

During the past couple of years, more and more people have moved to Apple systems for the first time. With more people hopping on board, I'm glad to see that OS 10.5 is a mature refinement to an already fine OS. More than anything, I'm encouraged that this new version allows me and my family to actually use our computers with minimal interference from the OS.

So where's the whiz-bang? It's in getting an easy to learn, easy to use, and as-powerful-as-you-need-it operating system perfect for use in your home.

On a final note - this review is for the 5-user family pack. It is hard to beat the idea of getting the best OS on the block for $40 a computer. In my case, to upgrade each system averaged out to $67. And there is no strange upgrade path to follow. Each version of leopard is the same. No Leopard home, or business, or ultimate or penultimate. Just leopard. Everything you need, when you need it. No strange add-ons or deluxe editions needed.

For those interested - I have Leopard running on a 12" Powerbook G4 (1.25Ghz - And it will run - trust me), a MacBook and a Core2Duo iMac. Leopard is running well on all of these systems. It took about 45mins-1hr per system to upgrade.

Here's the upgrade path: Put in the DVD, walk through the the setup menu and wait for your "new" computer to restart.

Post-upgrade, all of my existing programs work. All of my files are in tact and I'm off and running with 10.5.

How's that for Whiz-bang?



5 out of 5 stars Worth the wait   October 31, 2007
G. Ware Cornell Jr. (Weston FL)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful

OK so I was out in front of the Apple Store waiting on the release of Leopard. There were lots of geeks and very few lawyers. But speaking as a lawyer, which in this case means non-geek consumer, the wait was definitely worth it. so worth it in fact that I returned Sunday to buy a Mac Mini for my assistant and tell her we were through with all the office PCs. And three days into the new world she's very enthusiastic.

But what is about Leopard that makes me giddy? First its the refinement of overall functionality. That seems almost impossible, but its really true...my Mac is more intuitive, more flexible, and in a business environment this all enables me to be more productive. It also enables my secretary to be more productive.

So here are my thoughts on the big changes:

Spaces-The idea is radicalkeep what you use together and close at hand. I use different programs at work, at home, and on the road.Why not declutter the desktop quickly and get right to the programs you need?

Time Machine: the jury is still out because I haven't needed to restore anything.

Stacks- Very cute, but it remains to be seen if will be be more efficient thatn folders. I my be missing something here.

Quick look- Great! A quick look cuts down on desktop clutter, and keeps RAM available (I think)

Shared Desktops- I can see what my secretary has on her desktop and can solve problems quicker.

Dashboard-MNow you can create your own widgets saving whats n a screen to your dashboard. This one still is a mytery to me.

Finder-Cover Flow is the big new thing here. Its handy but sometimes feels a bit too cute.

Safari 3- Auto-click is great...all your work stuff or play stuff in one click, then they are set out in tabs, not windows.



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