Microsoft’s Vista Or Apple’s Leopard?

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mac-osx-vista Microsofts Vista Or Apples Leopard?

Let the Battle Begin!

Most releases of the OS X family of big cats from Apple introduce a few interface features and some applications that permeate the OS world. Now that there’s one such release on our hands let’s look at the features and compare how do the Vista measure up!

Step Into the Time Machine

Most Leopard reviews go gaga over the new automatic back up called the Time Machine. The application automatically backs up changes to files on a drive designated for that and typically is a drive added for that purpose. Browsing is convenient through a 3D interface.

Go Back in Time With Shadow Copies

Microsoft’s probably is a little ahead on this game. Their shadow copies feature saves previous versions of files and makes roll back from unintended edits or a recovery of deleted files are a snap! Snap of the right mouse button that is. One of the reasons it is not so well known is that Microsoft loads this feature in the premium versions of Vista such as Ultimate, Business and Enterprise versions only. This does not need a separate drive either. But then, that does not qualify the feature as a back up system. The interface is kind of bare bone too.

Safari and Web Clippings

There are quite a few interesting features in the Apple’s Web browser. This is the Safari 3 browser that has been in the beta for a while now. One of the nifty things is web clips by which you could mark up an area of text of a web page. The browser checks that section in the OS X dashboard, you could then check in any to find out if there’s been update to that specific web page.

Easy Dashboard ‘Apps’

Here’s a simple Web clipping showing the latest posts on PC World blogs. Once a clipping is added to Dashboard, you could access by keyboard shortcut or go to the screen corner the dashboard is stored in.

Firefox’s Best Marketing Tool: IE 7

Microsoft did make some progress with the IE7, RSS handling in particular is nice. But then the audience have m0ved, moved quite a while ago to Firefox. And some of the other ones.

Gadgets and Sidebar

Most OS’s have these gadgets/widgets/whatever!. MS calls them gadgets and remain housed in the Widows sidebar. You could use them to subscribe to RSS feeds and the headlines appear on the Feed Headlines gadgets. Still, these gadgets are not as simple to use as the web clippings in the Leopard!

Leopard’s Finder Takes a Cue From iTunes

Altered Finder adds quite a value to Leopard. Finder now includes ITunes Cover flow interface. You can now thumb through icons of folders, photos, videos and so on. While this is interesting as is, some tweaking would help. For example all folders look alike despite differing contents in them. Performance of Finder on the older systems aren’t great either.

A Nice Take on Folders

Vista does have some nice touches on this file finder stuff though. Many files have an indicative icon that lets you get a feel of what’s inside the folder. While Vista’s explorer isn’t greatly efficient on all fronts, this is something they have been able to add a nice touch to.

Quick Look: Live Previews in Leopard

This close-up illustrates the power of Leopard’s Quick Look, a universal file viewer that lets you see the contents of documents and videos without opening them. After finding a PDF document (shown here) in the Cover Flow interface, you could page through it by clicking the

Previews Through Small Apps

On the Vista, when previewing a photo, Windows photo gallery comes up and lets you do quick edits to the photo.

Automatic Listing of Shared Folders

Leopard can find shared folders on other machines over a network and shows the icons on the Finder’s sidebar. On earlier versions you had to ask your machine to go out and find these shared folders for you.

No More Network Neighborhood

There’s nothing called a Network neighborhood on the Vista anymore. But networked PCs occupy a similar location on the Windows explorer sidebar. Takes a while for the Vista to find those machines nearby anyway.

Searching Leopard With Spotlight

Improvements on the searchlight feature that you have speedy search and well categorized list of relevant files. That you could do a little bit of calculations on the search box is incidental.

Enhanced Searching in Vista

Though the search feature in Vista too has been worked on, save searches, search from any Explorer window etc and the drilling down to results are good. But Vista search is still not as fast as what Finder can do. Nor are the results as well segmented and organized.

Stacks of Files

Stack of files does not have an equivalent in Vista. Drag a folder or a group of files into the dock for easy access. Click on a stack icon and get to see the files neatly fanned out. If there are more than ten such files you get a small list menu to assist you.

Too Many Apps for One Screen?

If you wanted to cut out some clutter on the desktop, a set of applications can be grouped into a virtual desktop. So, create several such virtual desktops for set of applications you work on at any one time and the clutter is taken care of.

XP’s Multiple Desktop PowerToy

You could have similar features through some free add on available from third parties. MS itself had built a PowerToy for XP by which you could manage up to four virtual desktops. On the Vista there’s nothing as yet that has similar functionality.

Task Switching the Mac Way

Expose has been a classic feature of the OS X for a while. Press a hot key or wing you mouse pointer to a screen corner that brings up a set of icons indicating active applications. To bring one of them to the front, simply click on the icon.

Vista’s Flip 3D

Microsoft’s Flip 3D takes a different approach to task switching, arranging application thumbnails in 3D so you can flip through them.

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