Hydrogen, check! Oxygen, check! Weather below 32 degrees, check! Let It Snow!

So, for all of you located in the Queens, NY area, you'll know that last night was our first "official" snow fall. I can't say it was the "first of the season" because technically... it isn't even Winter yet! How sweet is that, not even Winter, and we've got snow! Personally, I love the snow; to me it makes the holiday season seem complete. No matter what you celebrate, or if you even celebrate anything at all, snow fits the last piece of the puzzle. Unfortunately, last night, it also rained right after, therefore no snow stuck to the ground. It was still a fantastic sight, all the little white flakes pouring from the sky. It's truly a moving scene to me. Snow always puts me into a better mood, so I thought I'd share this great feeling with you all. Everyone, Happy Holidays! Heck, maybe I'll even put up a Christmas wish list myself.

- Thomas Hayden

Snow Leopard Major Additions/Refinements

Intro/QuickTime X

After playing around with Snow Leopard for quite some time, I noticed that there are numerous amounts of additions and refinements to the overall operating system. There are more refinements than new features. The main new feature is QuickTime X. QuickTime X is a nice application that allows you to view videos (of course) and record movies, audio, and your screen which is one of the new main features in QuickTime X. Not all the features that were in QuickTime Pro are in this version of QuickTime, but that may not be a big deal to some people. All the features that you had to pay for in QuickTime before are now included with QuickTime X. I will be giving a review/overview of QuickTime X shortly.

Exposé

 Exposé is also refined in Snow Leopard. Many people use Snow Leopard (especially me), and it now enhances your experience with your Mac. It is arranged in a classier fashion, and it prevents screen clutter of your application windows. When you hold down on a certain application, all the windows will open in that application will be shown in Exposé. Pressing tab will open Exposé in your other open applications. Also while in Exposé, your minimized windows are shown at the bottom of the screen.

Stacks

Stacks has also undergone a makeover. Stacks is much more professional-looking while still bringing you the same wonderful organization tool that Apple has provided. As everyone knows Stacks is very nice when you want to quickly access something. Now Stacks is scrollable, and now when you click on a folder in a Stacks, Stacks will bring you to the contents of that folder without opening the finder window. It was very annoying before when Stacks rerouted you to Finder.

Finder/Speed/Responsiveness

Speaking of Finder, it has become much more responsive and fast making it much easier to use. It has been totally rewritten in 64 bit, as have many of the other applications making them more responsive and fast. Waking up your computer from sleep and shut-down is much faster preventing wasted time waiting for your computer to do these sometimes stressful tasks. In addition to all of this, Microsoft Exchange support is now available.

Conclusion

Overall, Snow Leopard has many new refinements that enhance your experience using your already-wonderful Mac. It is a nice addition to Leopard, and it is definitely worth checking out especially since it is only $30.

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Mac OS X Snow Leopard: Pre-Order on Amazon

Over the weekend I got around to pre-ordering my copy of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard on Amazon at the promised upgrade price of $29! Be sure to reserve your copy early, otherwise the rush of orders will get you stuck in backorder when Apple is expectedly overwhelmed with customers looking to purchase what is said to be "The world's most advanced operating system."

Amazon.com - Mac OS X Snow Leopard: http://www.amazon.com/Mac-version-10-6-Snow-Leopard/dp/B001AMHWP8

Have fun and good luck!