The reason why we all use Macs is because of the operating system. It is the heart and soul of our computing experience. Apple isn't satisfied just giving you an OS when they make a major update like this. You get a slew of applications too. Many of these applications are the primary use programs on our computers. Email, Web browsing, address book, calendar, photo viewer, these are some of the most commonly used types of applications and ALL are enhanced in Leopard's Mail, Safari, Address Book, iCal and Preview, just to name a few. Visionary Computer's position on the Leopard Upgrade is simple, every Mac user should be running Leopard, it's just a question of when (not if) is the right time to make the upgrade. If you are not sure that it's worth the $129, trust me...it is the very best $129 you can spend on your computer. We expect to have loads of them in stock when Apple lets us start selling them on Friday the 26th so please let us know if you want one and we will set it aside for you. If need more reasons why you should upgrade, please check out this very informative Apple page which lists each one of the 300 new features:

Get a closer look at the features which will transform your Mac.

Or, if you would rather watch, sit back and enjoy the Leopard Guided tour here:

Watch the Guided Tour.

The single most important feature of Leopard is Time Machine. Time Machine is backup software which is effectively built into the system. Just plug in an external hard drive (or use a 2nd internal) and time machine will take over. We expect this to END data loss once and for all! There is nothing worse than loosing all your photos, documents, email, music...it does not have to happen. Best of all, with Time Machine anyone can recover lost files in a few clicks, no more cryptic backup software...simple, powerful, safe, Mac like...

Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard requires more computing horsepower than previous operating systems. If your computer does not meet the minimum, then it means your using a woefully old machine and perhaps it's time to upgrade your hardware. Look on the bright side, if you do buy a new machine it will come with Leopard for free (and of course it will be rocket fast and you will get much more work done in the same amount of time, recouping the expense in short order!)

• CPU - at least a G4 running 867MHz or faster. 
• RAM - at least 512MB of RAM.
• Hard Drive - at least 9GB of free space.
• Optical - Leopard ships on DVD so you must have a DVD drive to run the installer disk.

There are also a few "feature specific" requirements:

• Time Machine requires an external or second Internal hard drive.
• DVD Player has some new features which require a at least a 1.6GHz processor.
• Photobooth and iChat have some new effects that require an Intel processor.
• Some features require Apple's .Mac service.

Visionary Computer would suggest that you have at least 1GB of RAM to run Leopard. RAM is very inexpensive these days and adding RAM will make your computer run more efficiently. This is especially true of slower computers (any G4 or single processor G5.) The disk space requirement is also not to be easily dismissed. You don't want the minimum here because you need room for files and such afterward. We would suggest trying to have at least 20GB of free space. Finally and perhaps most importantly, a broadband Internet connection is highly suggested. Apple and 3rd Party Developers will find issues and release important system or application updates, I suspect these updates will be huge and likely too large for dial-up. If you are an early adopter, be prepared to download lots of updates to the system and of your applications.

Like many of you, we are passionate about Apple and this release is one which has been long in coming. They hype meter is basically at about an 11 (out of 10) and many of our local customers want to install Leopard on Friday when it first comes out. Our general advice on this is simple - don't. I would suggest ALL customers wait until at least Tuesday October 30th before installing Leopard. It would be very wise to let "us", the Mac support community, have a few days to kick the tires and shake out any really horrible bugs. While Leopard has been in the hands of Developers for more than a year, just a few days ago one of the biggest, FileMaker, announced that they are not suggesting any customers install Leopard on computers running FileMaker until they release a software update for FileMaker specifically for Leopard compatibility. If this is true of FileMaker, it will be true of many other major programs. 

To be totally sure that your upgrade to Leopard will be trouble free, there are a few things you can do to make the process easy and efficient:

1.) Perform a Full Backup your computer BEFORE you install Leopard.

2.) Make a list of all your major Applications, be sure you are running the latest version of those programs. Check the web sites of the publishers to make sure their applications are Leopard Compatible. 

3.) Whenever there is a major release like this, many excellent Mac news web sites create lists of software which is or is not compatible. Check our web site for links to those sites.

We expect our usual advice to prove it's merit with Leopard, if you have been staying current on your OS and your Applications, you will most likely have a smooth update. If you are running two generations back on your OS or Applications, expect some downtime.

Installing Leopard takes 1-2 hours depending on the speed of your machine. In all likelihood, it makes the most sense for customers to purchase the boxed copy from us, then install it themselves. You really don't need to pay us $80 per hour to watch the thermometer bar slowly work itself across the screen. Where we can be useful to you is after the software is installed. Working through any compatibility issues or exploring the new features. For the first few weeks after release, compatibility solutions will likely have to come from the developers so it's best to check with them to be sure your most critical applications will run before installing. After install, take a few days to shake down any troubles on your machine, this will help you make the most productive use of our time together. Then we can explore all the fun new features and the productivity enhancements which will help you get more done in less time.

The moment we receive the Leopard boxes, we will being installing it onto our own business and home computers. Once we do that, we will being posting on our web site real feedback based on our own direct experience. We will also provide links to other web sites of interest to our customers (mostly sites which list compatibility problems and compatibility successes) so that you can make the upgrade when the time is right for you. There is no doubt in my mind, every Mac user should be running Leopard, the only question is when to install it. When that time is right for you, Visionary Computer will have the boxed copies ready for you. Single user copies are $129, The Family Pack (for 5 home users) is $199. We also have plenty of External Hard Drives in stock, perfect for your Time Machine Backup drive, 320GB models are $199. Special note for all you power-users out there, we expect our copies to be ready for sale on Friday evening.

Get ready for the next chapter in computing...