One of the really helpful app that our mutual friend Paul told me about is Youpi Optimizer ([macupdate.com]). Lets you get rid of all those extra language packages you won’t be using.

Huh, can’t say that I ever thought about removing those, but I’ll of course never use them. That’s definitely a nice tip… thanks!

There are actually a few things in Leopard that I really love, and the biggest thing would probably be Spaces. It’s definitely a really polished virtual desktop system, and helps keep my apps more organized.

Also, VLC works just great for any movies I watch and it works with the remote that came with my laptop.

One of the really helpful app that our mutual friend Paul told me about is Youpi Optimizer ([macupdate.com]). Lets you get rid of all those extra language packages you won’t be using.

iSquint converts any video to an iPod playable format.

I also like the Google Notifier ([toolbar.google.com]), its not the whole google organizer, just the email and calendar alerts.

If you’re looking for an Open Office to use with your new macs. I use NeoOffice. Not as good as Microsoft Office, but its free and you can’t complain about that.

You should also look into the Screen Sharing settings, Leopard has a version VNC built into it.

I look forward to articles on software and little things in OS X – - I got a MacBook Pro in August and never really gave Leopard a chance – Vista is my primary operating system on it I rarely use OS X

Give it a chance, I think you might be pleasantly surprised. Now that we’ve been using Leopard for about a week and a half, things aren’t quite as bad as the first few days. Slowly but surely, life with Leopard is getting easier and in fact, I’m enjoying it.

I switched to OS X about a year and a half ago and I’ll say that the first week is the hardest, after that it gets A LOT easier. I went with a MacBook however and AM regretting it, I really wish I had the extra GPU horsepower when doing a lot of things such as playing games, watching HD video, etc.

Yeah, we decided to spend the extra money on MacBook Pro’s so that we will be set for awhile.

I’ve used Cyberduck a few times in the last week, and it’s actually quite impressive. I’m using the new version 3.0 Beta and I don’t have any complaints thusfar.

That’s a funny story actually. We went with the glossy screens after going to the store and comparing the two side-by-side. I know that matte screens are more color-accurate, but the glossy screens are so much more vibrant in colors.

So we custom-ordered our computers online and got them about a week later. The same day they shipped I realized that I forgot to pick the glossy screen option (matte is default). I called them up, they paid for return shipping once we got them (pretty nice since it was my mistake), and I was able to order the glossy screen computers. So we actually got them about a week later than we should have because of my dumb mistake.

That would be pretty awesome, but I think they just want to focus on making a solid operating system without having to worry about millions of different hardware configurations. After all, lack of hardware support is one thing a lot of people complain about in Vista. Apple is able to avoid that pitfall by selectively picking the hardware they use in their machines.

As for software, you might like most of the Panic software. If you do web development, try this one: [panic.com] Also, not sure if CyberDuck has improved since I last used it 2 years ago, but we used it at work for almost 2 years and finally gave up and bought Transmit licenses. Transmit was so much better: more stable, much faster, less odd bugs. Definitely worth the money.

Did you choose glossy screens or the default ones for your MacBooks? How do you like the screens?