You ca n’t spend five minutes online these days without learning about the release of Apple ’s newest operating system acclivity . If you have Macs in your workplace , here ’s what you involve to know so you ’re ready to turn tail with OS X Leopard .

Apple brag more than300 new featuresin Leopard , many of which have practical implications in the work . TheiChat face - liftallows coworkers to get together on Indian file via the shared screen background function . Spaceslets user delegate freestanding workspaces within the background surround for better organization and efficiency . A robust computer backup system , Time Machine , much bulletproofs users against lost information .

For clientele fight with employees who are loath to learn their way around a computer , Leopard may leave the impetus . An overhauledFinderand the newStacksfeature make locating documents and files a snatch - cutting down on agitated call to the IT staff to detect a “ fall back ” spreadsheet .

kick upstairs to Leopard is a fairly straightforward mental process and does n’t demand much in the way of preparation as long as your staff is equipped with Macs that have an Intel , PowerPC G5 , or PowerPC G4 ( 867MHz or faster ) C.P.U. . You need at least 9 GB of disk blank and 512 MB of memory but , beyond that , Leopard is essentially ready decently out of the box . One caveat : To take full advantage of Time Machine ’s backup benefits , an extra punishing drive is required .

Leopard ’s been to schoolhouse

Bowdoin College in Brunswick , Maine , has been testing Leopard on its array of Macs for more than a year as part of Apple ’s Developer Connection program and is looking frontwards to a full rising slope on all its computers in the come months .

Jason Pelletier , Bowdoin ’s estimator lab manager , say there ’s stack to care about Leopard . “ Some of our faculty will care the idea of Time Machine to permit for a arrant arrangement backup [ since ] hard crusade are unpredictable . Spaces will be a salutary improver for power users and IT staff , as many of us already use applications likeVirtueorDesktop Manager . The newQuick Lookcan save clip since we can read written document , watch movies and pick up sound files without actually opening the item . ”

Though Macs are in copiousness across Bowdoin ’s campus — the multimedia lab alone has 14 Mac Pros — there is still a mix of old PowerPC and new Intel - found information processing system , as Bowdoin works its way through a four - year ironware replacing cycle . Pelletier say that a general operating system like Leopard that can handle both types of Macs will be a “ huge fourth dimension saver . ”

With such a large turn of Macs to upgrade , the process is n’t going to pass overnight . Pelletier ’s squad has been testing Leopard internally for month but is still ask a methodical approach to avert any potential rising slope issues .

“ Bowdoin has had access to download developer firing of OSX 10.5 since it was first announced during the summer of 2006 , ” says Pelletier . “ Since that time I have given presentations on the fresh technology to our IT stave and have been test it with our software , test how it interacts with our meshwork infrastructure and preparing for image creation and deployment . ”

Once the team is sure-footed that any kinks specific to Bowdoin ’s infrastructure have been identify and corrected , the IT stave will set up Leopard incrementally on car around the school . Pelletier says this will give the team the chance to “ make musical note of bugs and work with Apple on fixing them or come up with our own workarounds . ”

“ A few faculty and staff fellow member on campus will also become early adopters of the new operating organisation and will help offer feedback , ” notes Pelletier . “ Starting in the summertime of 2008 all of the labs and all of the new estimator we deploy will be running Leopard and we will be able to pop the question the upgrade as an option to the rest of campus . ”