Here we are, two weeks after Leopard Day, and here’s Part 5 of our Leopard review. Today I get to talk about a calendar application. Isn’t that exciting?

You’re snoring.

Okay, so it’s not the sexiest topic out there. An important, useful one, maybe, but it’s not exciting.

iCal is Apple’s calendaring application bundled with Mac OS X. One of my friends switched from Mac OS X to Windows (yes, seriously), but the one thing he misses from the Mac is iCal. Since its release in 2002, iCal has seen little in the way of major changes. Is this still the case with iCal 3.0? Let’s take a quick look at what’s new with iCal in Leopard.

First, here’s the customary note about the score. The score you see at the bottom of this page only reflects what I cover in this article. When we’re done with the Leopard review, we will give Leopard an all-around score. Anyway, let’s do this.

iCal’s user interface has undergone a major update in Leopard (screenshot). Some of the changes are merely cosmetic, others are usability improvements. First of all, iCal now looks prettier! The new Leopard look really suits iCal well. It’s an attractive, streamlined piece of software.

iCal’s sidebar has been reworked, and it now sorts your calendars by category (Calendars, .Mac account calendars, subscribed calendars). Also, you can create your own calendar groups. For example, if you have one calendar for article deadlines and one for event coverage(ahem), you can stick them…
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As you may have heard amid all the Leopard talk the last couple weeks, there is an actual malicious trojan horse in the wild that affects Mac OS X. It is important to make the distinction between this and a virus or other malware that exploits an actual security flaw in Mac OS X. This trojan poses as a video codec and tricks the user into downloading it, mounting the disk image, and installing the trojan. It doesn’t exploit any security holes in OS X, it exploits user stupidity/gullibility.

Naturally, any time this sort of thing happens—a proof-of-concept, a security flaw found, actual malicious malware—there is a deluge of media attention, with some security analysts comparing Mac OS X to Windows 98.

Wait, what?

There are a few things people like to point to when to comes to Mac security. These one-liners may make for plenty of controversy, but let’s take a moment to dig deeper and see if there is something more going on.

Apple doesn’t pay enough attention to Mac security

Back in April I wrote about a Symantec report analyzing how quickly major OS vendors release security patches after flaws are discovered. The Symantec report looks at data between July and December 2006. Their findings? Microsoft took 21 days to issue fixes, Red Hat took 58 days, and Apple took 66 days.

In Wired’s article, New Apple Trojan Means Mac Hunting Season Is Open, security researcher Gadi Evron states that “Hackers will find it profitable and all too…
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Mac OS X Finder users moving (as opposed to copying) files from one volume or drive to the other may be in for a rude surprise if the connection is interrupted during a file transfer. Tom Karpik outlines this bug and how to reproduce it on his blog. If you’re moving files or folders from one drive or mounted share to another, and if the connection--USB, network, etc...--is interrupted, the original folders or files will disappear from existence. It isn’t simply a matter of files disappearing from the Finder, you won’t be able to access them from the Terminal, either. They will be, for all intents and purposes, gone. But you back up regularly, right?

The worst part about this? According to those who have commented on Karpik’s article, this bug has been around since Panther (Mac OS X 10.3).

As I mentioned before, this only impacts moving items between volumes. By default, the Finder will copy items to the target disk, leaving the original intact. If you hold down the command key while dragging a file to another disk, the files will be moved outright instead. This is when this bug comes into play. Karpik gives a short primer on what happens behind the scenes when Finder copies and moves files, which is worth reading.

John Gruber noted a workaround: copy the file to the other disk and then deltete the original if the copy job is successful.

I tried using the mv command in Terminal while forcibly interrupting the…
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I’m in a good mood today. I have a job interview later this week, the California Golden Bears football team won over the weekend, and I get to write another section of our Leopard review! This is certainly going to end up being the longest article series we’ve written; we’re currently planning for nine or ten sections, so there’s a lot more to cover.

This part covers a feature brand new to Leopard: Spaces.

Here’s the traditional note regarding the score: the score you see at the bottom of this page is for the features discussed in this section only. When all is said and done, we will give Leopard an all-around score.

Anyway, let’s get this party started!

Through space and time

The idea behind Spaces is not new. Spaces is a direct descendant of virtual desktops, which has been a mainstay of UNIX and Linux GUIs (KDE, etc…) for years. If you’re reading this review, I would assume that you at least have an idea of what virtual desktops are, so I won’t describe the concept behind them.

There have been implementations of virtual desktops for Mac OS X before Spaces; in fact, both Pilky and Jay have written about one in particular called Desktop Manager.

I have toyed with Desktop Manager in the past, but I never really got into the idea of virtual desktops. I never saw any way to integrate them into my workflow.

With Spaces, though, I finally decided to give virtual desktops a try.…
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Ah yes, our Leopard review keeps on marching along! This is the third installment of our Mac OS X Leopard review. For those keeping score at home, here’s what has been covered so far:

• Part 1: The Leopard UI
• Leopard screenshots
• Part 2: Spotlight and the Finder

  This part will cover one new Leopard feature that has been the focus of controversy in some circles: stacks. And as usual, the score at the bottom of this page pertains to this section only. We will give Leopard a cumulative score when the review is complete.

  Before we get to actually discussing stacks, let’s go back in time…

  A brief history lesson

  The Dock itself has its roots in NEXTSTEP, where it served as an application launcher and worked much like the Dock in Mac OS X. The idea behind stacks, at least as far as I know, has its roots in an old Mac OS feature: tabbed folders. The idea behind tabbed folders was simple: open a folder in the Finder and drag its window to the bottom of the screen. The window’s titlebar would then become a tab anchored to the bottom of the screen, thus making the folder’s contents accessible with a click. Tabbed folders were well-designed. If you dragged a file to a tabbed folder, the folder would spring open, allowing you to drop the file into the tabbed folder, or into a folder inside the tabbed folder. It was a pretty cool ideas.

  Then along came Mac OS…
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