Although Dashboard may have been another one of those “staple” features of Tiger, I kind of stopped using it after a few months. Looking back, I’m not sure why. It could have been that Dashboard started to seem less and less useful, or it could have been that every time I started up my computer, Dashboard would take so long to load all of the widgets, or because I kept hitting F12 accidentally when I wanted to hit the Delete key, but I haven’t actually used Dashboard in a few months. I might try it out again sometime, although I haven’t gotten there quite yet.

However, one of the new Dashboard features in Leopard is something called Web Clip. Although Web Clip is considered a “widget”, and even appears in the “Dashboard Dock”, you actually activate it from Safari by clicking the Web Clip button in the toolbar. This gives you a way to select a section of a web page, and then by clicking Add, that portion of the web page will open as a widget in Dashboard. (By flipping the widget over via the customary “i” icon, you can choose a “theme” for the widget.) Although I don’t have too many comments on Web Clip, I’ve tried it out a few times, and it works quite well and is actually very flexible. As Apple has indicated in its demonstrations of Web Clip, this can be very useful for many scenarios when a user wants to have a way to easily track an auction, see the latest issue of a comic strip, grab a webcam, or do anything else quickly and easily.

However, I was a little disappointed to not see very much more added to Dashboard. In fact, one of the things that I might recommend for Dashboard would perhaps be a Dashboard implementation of Spaces. After all, if I can have virtual desktops for me to navigate around groups of windows, wouldn’t it be great to be able to move around just as easily within Dashboard? That would probably allow me to solve one of my issues of not being able to fit enough widgets on one screen as I have open. This would also allow a way to easily group widgets together so that I could have a group of widgets that I just look at briefly, versus another group of widgets that I might spend more time in. All I’m saying is that I’d kind of like Dashboard to be a little bit more accessible, and am disappointed that other than Web Clip, Apple hasn’t done any tweaking of the Dashboard user experience.

However, for those of you (unlike me) who use Dashboard and have made it a regular part of your habit, Web Clip will probably give you a nice range of new widget options, and it couldn’t be easier to use.

Feature Satisfaction Rating:

Be sure to check out the other articles in the Leopard Feature Presentation, occurring throughout the month of November here on Webmacster87.info.

Tags: Dashboard, Leopard Feature Presentation, Mac OS X Leopard, review, Safari, Spaces, Web Clip, widgets

Safari may be Apple’s default web browser, and it may have been announced simultaneously with the new features in Leopard, but strangely enough, it actually isn’t a Leopard-specific feature. Safari 3 has been available in a Public Beta for Tiger users since early June, however it wasn’t in a perfect state and did cause some compatibility problems with other applications because of the new version of WebKit that it installed. However, shortly after Leopard was out, a final version of Safari 3 was also delivered for Tiger users.

And of course, Safari is one of the few Mac applications that is available on other platforms, most specifically (and most controversially) the Windows platform. Larry and I had a 30 minute-long debate about this on PreviewCast #035. Safari 3 is still in a public beta for the Windows platform, unlike both the Tiger and Leopard versions which are now fully stable releases. The lagging of the Windows side could possibly be attributed to the fact that despite Safari’s “focus on security from day one,” the Windows Safari was ripped to shreds by hackers on day two. Oh, and Safari also exists, probably most famously, on the iPhone and iPod touch.

But I’ve upgraded to Leopard, and for me, the guy who threw out Safari Public Beta on day three because of how much it messed up my other apps at the time, Safari 3 is a new feature in Leopard, and so I’m going to review it from a Safari 2 on Tiger to Safari 3 in Leopard point of view. Things that I talk about in this Leopard Feature Presentation may not necessarily reflect your Safari 3 experience on Tiger or on Windows, and most definitely will not reflect your Safari experience on the iPhone/iPod touch. Nevertheless, despite my previous heartfelt love for Camino, I’ve spent the last few weeks giving Safari a whirl, and I’m ready to give it its review.
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Tags: beta, blocking, bookmarks, features, forms, innovation, Leopard Feature Presentation, Mac OS X Leopard, review, Safari, tabs, web browser, WebKit

I’ve blogged about how Apple has really ramped it up against Microsoft Office with iWork ‘08. That is, they’ve ramped up against Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. But what about Outlook/Entourage? Well, Apple also has its return weapon for Entourage, which is the combination of Mail, Address Book, and iCal, and in Leopard, Apple has added even more to these three applications to increase the competition. But are these enhancements worth their weight in gold? Well, Address Book hasn’t seen any significant new features, so I’ll ignore it this go-around. iCal’s Feature Presentation will happen later this month, which means today’s focus is on Mail.
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Tags: Address Book, calendars, data detectors, e-mail, Entourage, features, HTML, iCal, iPhone, iPod touch, Leopard Feature Presentation, Mac OS X Leopard, Mail, managers, newsfeeds, notes, Outlook, productivity, review, RSS, Safari, stationery, Stikkit, sync, templates, to-dos