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Mac OS X Version 10.5.4 Leopard
Price: $129.99 USD
Hello, tomorrow. The biggest Mac OS X upgrade ever, Leopard features 300+ innovations. Explore the Mac of the future today.



Create Stacks from anything to access quickly in one place.




Enjoy a gorgeous new look and organize your files in Stacks.

Desktop. A neat place to work.
From the menu bar to the stunning new Dock, the Leopard desktop isn't just about design. It's about enjoying the time you spend on your computer and getting more out of it.

An eye-opening experience.
Start from the top. The menu bar hovers transparently above your workspace, letting the desktop image--perhaps a favorite from your iPhoto library--take center stage. Dock icons rest on a reflective floor with a bright active application signal. And the look of Leopard extends to all applications: Every window has a consistent design theme, and active applications are even more distinct, casting deeper shadows.

Stacked in your favor.
Take a look at your desktop. Is it cluttered with files you downloaded or saved there (somewhat less than) temporarily? You're not alone. Everybody does it. Time to clean house with Stacks--a brand-new feature in Leopard. Create Stacks from anything you want to access quickly from one place: a handful of documents, a group of applications, an entire folder. Files you download in Safari or save from an email are automatically directed to a Stack in the Dock, and when the download is complete, the Stack signals that a new item has arrived. When you want to see the files in a Stack, all you have to do is click--Stacks spring open from the Dock in an elegant arc for a few items, or in an at-a-glance grid for more. Pretty neat.



Browse your files like you browse your music with Cover Flow.

Finder. Give your files the rock star treatment.
Imagine if browsing the files on your Mac was as easy as browsing music in iTunes. That's the idea behind the new Finder in Leopard. Now you can access everything on your system from an iTunes-style sidebar and flip through your files using Cover Flow.


Grouped sidebar items help you find what you need fast.

The sidebar steps up.
Leopard brings new power to your old friend, the sidebar. Now items are grouped into categories: places, devices, shared computers, and searches--just like the Source list in iTunes. So with a single click, you're on your way to finding what you need.

See what you seek.
Bring your files to life with Cover Flow in the Finder. Just as you use Cover Flow to flip through album art in iTunes, now you can use it to flip through your files. Cover Flow displays each file as a large preview of its first page. And you can page through multipage documents or play movies.

Search party.
Stop looking and start finding with Cover Flow and Spotlight. Click a prebuilt search like "yesterday" or "all images" in the sidebar and Cover Flow displays your search results in the perfect at-a-glance format. Leopard comes with a number of helpful prebuilt searches, but it's easy to create your own customized searches as well.

Closer connections.
With shared computers automatically displayed in the sidebar, it's far easier to find or access files on any computer in your house, whether Mac or PC. All it takes is a click. But here's where things get really interesting. By clicking on a connected Mac, you can see and control that computer (if authorized, of course) as if you were sitting in front of it. You can even search all the computers in the house to find what you're looking for.

And now, back to my Mac.
Ever need something on your Mac when you were thousands of miles from home? With Back to My Mac and a .Mac account, you can connect to any of your Macs at home from any Mac on the Internet. Your home computers will appear in the shared section of the sidebar just as they do when you're in the living room.

Improved spotlight searches.

Look deeper.
From the Finder or the menu bar, Spotlight in Leopard lets you search for more specific sets of things. Use Boolean logic to narrow search results by entering "AND," "OR," or "NOT" into a search request. You can also search for exact phrases (using quotation marks), dates, ranges (using greater than [>] and less than [<] symbols), absolute dates, and simple calculations.

View, play, and read files without even opening them.

Quick Look. Look before you launch.
Using Quick Look in Leopard, you can view the contents of a file without even opening it. Flip through multiple-page documents. Watch full-screen video. See entire Keynote presentations. With a single click.

Opening files is so 2006.
So you're flipping through files in the Finder. But you're looking for something specific and you don't have time to open lots of files to find it. Enter Quick Look. It gives you a sneak peek of entire files--even multiple-page documents and video--without opening them.

See everything.
Quick Look works with nearly every file on your system, including images, text files, PDFs, movies, Keynote presentations, and Microsoft Word and Excel files. Click the Quick Look icon or tap the Space bar to see a file in Quick Look. Then click the arrow icon to see the same file full screen--even video as it plays.

Time Machine. A giant leap backward.
More than a mere backup, Time Machine makes an up-to-date copy of everything on your Mac--digital photos, music, movies, TV shows, and documents--so you can go back in time to recover anything.

Set it, then forget it.
You can start using Time Machine in seconds. The first time you attach an external drive to your Mac, Time Machine asks if you'd like to use that drive as your backup. Say yes and Time Machine takes care of everything else. Automatically. In the background. You'll never have to worry about backing up again.

Back up everything.
Time Machine keeps an up-to-date copy of everything on your Mac. That includes system files, applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, and documents. But what makes Time Machine different from other backup applications is that it not only keeps a spare copy of every file, it remembers how your system looked on any given day--so you can revisit your Mac as it appeared in the past.


Go back in time to restore any file on your system.

Go back in time.
Enter the Time Machine browser in search of your long-lost files and you see exactly how your computer looked on the dates you're browsing. Select a specific date, let Time Machine find your most recent changes, or do a Spotlight search to find exactly what you're looking for. Once you do, click Restore and Time Machine brings it back to the present. Time Machine restores individual files, complete folders, or your entire computer--putting everything back the way it was and where it should be.

Preferential treatment.
Customize Time Machine by modifying the following behaviors in System Preferences:

  • Backup disk. Change the drive or volume you're backing up to. Or back up to a Mac OS X Server computer.
  • Do not back up. By default, Time Machine backs up your entire system. But you can also select items you'd rather not back up.
  • Encrypt backup data. Turn on encryption to store your backup securely.
  • Backup storage time limits. Manage older backups so your backup drive doesn't fill up.


Drag windows to different workspaces and unclutter your Mac.

Spaces. Room for everything.
You do a lot on your Mac. So what happens when projects pile up? Easy. Use Spaces to group your windows and banish clutter completely. Leopard gives you a Space for everything and puts everything in its Space.

Rearrange the rooms.
Create a Space for work. Create a Space for play. Organize each Space the way you want it just by dragging in windows. Keep all your work projects in one Space and that fun flick you made in iMovie in another. Create a communication Space for iChat and Mail. You can even rearrange your Spaces with drag-and-drop ease--shift a Space and every window in it comes along for the ride.

Make yourself at home.
Moving from Space to Space is easy. Get a bird's-eye view and select the Space you want or toggle between Spaces using the arrow keys. Even the Dock is down with Spaces: When you click a Dock icon, Leopard whisks you to the Space (or Spaces) where you have that application open.

Pick your patterns.
Configure your Spaces by visiting the Expose Spaces pane in System Preferences. Add rows and columns until you have all the real estate you need. Arrange your Spaces as you see fit, then choose the function keys you want to control them. You can also assign applications to specific Spaces, so you'll always know where, say, Safari or Keynote is.



Email personalized stationery, write to-dos, and take notes.

Mail. Think outside the inbox.
Leopard transforms email into personalized stationery. Notes you can access anywhere. To-dos that change as your errands do. For everything you do with email--and some things you haven't thought of yet--there's Mail.

Sincerely yours.
Mail for Leopard features more than 30 professionally designed stationery templates that make a virtual keepsake out of every email you send. Mail Stationary From invitations to birthday greetings, stationery templates feature coordinated layouts, fonts, colors, and drag-and-drop photo placement--everything to help you get your point across. You can even create personalized templates. And messages created using stationery in Mail use standard HTML that can be read by every popular email program on the market--for both Mac and PC.


Notes and tasks help you stay organized.

Noteworthy indeed.
Ever email yourself a reminder that gets lost in your inbox? Mail lets you write handy notes you can access from anywhere. Brainstorm ideas, jot down meeting notes, scribble a phone number--notes can include graphics, colored text, and attachments. Group notes into folders or create Smart Mailboxes that group them for you. Since your notes folder acts like an email mailbox, you can retrieve notes from any Mac or PC.

Much ado about to-dos.
Forget manually entering a new item to your to-do list every time an email hits your inbox. Mail Tasks Simply highlight text in an email, then click the To-do icon to create a to-do from a message. Include a due date, set an alarm, or assign priorities. Every to-do you create includes a link to the original email or note, and to-dos automatically appear in iCal, complete with any edits or additions you make. And since to-dos are stored with your email, you can access them from Mail on any Mac.

Spotlight on Mail.
With smarter relevance ranking in Spotlight, you'll find the right email at the top of the search results list. And everything you create in Leopard Mail--to-dos, notes, and, of course, email messages--appears in a Spotlight search of your system.

Stop the presses.
Subscribe to an RSS feed in Mail and you'll know the moment an article or blog post hits the wire. Even better, you can choose to have new articles emailed to you. Sorting your news is easy, too. Use Smart Mailboxes to organize incoming news articles according to search terms that pique your interest. Mail shares its unread RSS feed count with Safari, so your reading list always stays in sync.

Data, detected.
Say you get an email invitation to dinner. What if Mail recognized the address of the restaurant and let you map directions on the web? Or let you click once to add the date to your iCal calendar? With Leopard, it does. Mail even recognizes combinations of data in phrases like "lunch tomorrow at 12 p.m. at 701 Baltic Ave, San Francisco, CA," making it easy to make plans.

Setup made simple.
Now you can set up a new Mail account in one easy step. Just enter your current email address and password and let Mail do the rest. Mail works with the most popular email providers to automatically configure all those cryptic server settings for you.


Add effects to video chats and make remote presentations.

iChat. Not being there is half the fun.
Filled with fun new features, iChat turns any video chat into an event. Video backdrops, Photo Booth effects, photo slideshows, Keynote presentations, even movies on your Mac--you can share it all using iChat.


Transform your video chats using Photo booth effects.


Share your files with friends using iChat Theater.

Chat for effect.
Transform your video chats using new Photo Booth effects. Choose an effect and your image changes instantly--iChat detects your background and adds the effect only to your image. And the reverse is true for iChat backdrops: Drag an Apple-designed backdrop or your own photo or video into the video preview window to create an effect that will fool your buddies into thinking you're chatting from your living room, the beach, or the moon.

Show off (without showing up).
Why wait for a darkened room and a projector to present vacation photos or Keynote slides? Now you can do it all remotely, right in iChat. Put on an entire photo slideshow, click through a Keynote presentation, or play a movie--in full screen, accompanied by a video feed of you hosting--while your buddy looks on. In fact, you can show any file on your system that works with Quick Look.

Chatting for the record.
Now you can save your audio and video chats for posterity with iChat recording. Before recording starts, iChat notifies your buddies and asks for their permission to record. When you're done chatting, iChat stores your audio chats as AAC files and video chats as MPEG-4 files so you can play them in iTunes or QuickTime. Share them with colleagues, friends, and family or sync them to your iPod and play on the go.

Crystal-clear audio.
iChat uses the AAC-LD audio codec to deliver the clearest possible sound during audio chats. A wideband codec that samples a full range of vocal frequencies, AAC-LD sounds great with any voice.

Still the best for text.
Sure, iChat has a lot to offer for video and audio chats, but text messaging also gets a boost in Leopard, thanks to these additions:

  • Tabbed chats
  • Multiple logins
  • Invisibility
  • Animated buddy icons
  • SMS forwarding
  • Custom buddy list order
  • File transfer manager
  • Space-efficient views

AIM to please.
iChat works with AIM, the largest instant messaging community in the U.S. You and your buddies can be either AIM or .Mac users. Text, audio, and video chat whether your buddies use a Mac or PC. Sign in with your AIM account and all your buddies appear in your iChat buddy list.

iCal. Your schedule is clear.
Leopard introduces a new look to iCal, along with an easier-to-use interface that makes scheduling and rescheduling a breeze. Add new group calendaring features, and iCal works better for business or pleasure.
Photo Booth. Say cheese.
Come on. You know you want to. Your built-in iSight or USB camera just begs to take your snapshot. Open Photo Booth--now built into Leopard--and have a little fun.
Dashboard. Where there's a will, there's a widget.
Leopard lets you create your very own Dashboard widget from any website. And new .Mac syncing keeps all of your widgets on all of your Macs.
Front Row. Put on a show.
Looking for a great way to enjoy all the cool stuff on your Mac? Front Row in Leopard works like Apple TV to play digital music, movies, TV shows, and photos on your Mac using the ultra-simple Apple Remote.
Safari. Still the world's best web browser.
Now your favorite web browser is also the fastest on the planet. With page load speeds to rival every other major browser, Safari for Leopard also introduces a few new features to the mix.
DVD Player. Very entertaining.
DVD Player in Leopard probably boasts more features than the DVD player in your home entertainment system. And you don't have to leave your Mac to enjoy it.
Parental Controls
Give your kids a safer, happier Mac experience.
Accessibility. More user friendly.
Leopard offers new features destined to make it the most accessible Mac OS yet. New voice technology in VoiceOver, along with Braille support, Breakthrough Browsing, and extended keyboard capability, give users with visual disabilities more control over the Mac than ever.
Boot Camp. Run Windows on your Mac.
Leopard is the world's most advanced operating system. So advanced, it even lets you run Windows if there's a PC application you need to use. Just get a copy of Windows and start up Boot Camp, now included with Leopard. Setup is simple and straightforward--just as you'd expect with a Mac.
Automator. Your personal automation assistant.
Automator brings remarkable speed to any task that's often repeated on your computer. Leopard adds even more muscle to Automator, making it easy to automate more kinds of tasks.

A host of new features that make life easier for every developer.

Rock-solid foundations.
Explore the core technologies that power Leaopard.

64-Bit. Advanced precision in one OS.
Leopard delivers 64-bit power in one, universal OS. Now the Cocoa application frameworks, as well as graphics, scripting, and the UNIX foundations of the Mac, are all 64-bit. And since you get full performance and compatibility for your 32-bit applications and drivers, you don't need to update everything on your system just to run a single 64-bit application.

Multicore. Fire on all cylinders.
Today's Mac computers offer astounding performance with up to eight cores of processing power. So how do you take full advantage? Simple. With Leopard. A rearchitected system, finely tuned key applications, and powerful new tools for developers make Leopard the perfect OS for your multicore Mac.

Security. Safer by design.
Every Mac is secure--right out of the box--thanks to the proven foundation of Mac OS X. Apple engineers have designed Leopard with more security to protect your personal data and make your online life safer.

Core Animation. Drag-and-drop-dead gorgeous.
Welcome to the next level in computer animation. No, it's not a feature film--it's your desktop. Core Animation is an API that makes it simple for Mac developers to add visually stunning graphics and animations to applications. Without any esoteric graphics and math techniques, you can create fluid, stutter-free effects and experiences as groundbreaking as Spaces and Time Machine.

UNIX. The UNIX you know. The Mac you love.
What can the fully UNIX-compliant Leopard do? It can run any POSIX-compliant source code. Help you make the most of multicore systems. Put a new, tabbed-interface Terminal at your fingertips. Introduce a whole host of new features that make life easier for every developer. So, really, what can't it do?
Create stunning Mac applications more quickly.

 

Ready. Set. Code.
Discover developer tools you can build on.

Xcode. Build fast. Work smart.
Xcode 3.0 delivers better performance, as well as innovations that let you create stunning Mac applications more quickly. Enjoy a graphical IDE in which form focuses your functions. Delight in a debugger so groundbreaking, you'll make mistakes just to see it in action.

Xray. Apps, the developer will see you now.
When you need help debugging, Xcode 3.0 offers an extraordinary new program: Xray. Taking interface cues from timeline editors such as GarageBand, Xray lets you visualize application performance like never before.

Dashcode. Widgets without the wait.
Ever wish you could make your very own Dashboard widget? A handy RSS feed of your favorite blog, maybe. Or a miniature photocast of your iPhoto library. Something uniquely useful, uniquely you. Say hello to Dashcode. Now you can get a widget up and running in minutes, even if you've never written a line of code in your life.

Publisher: Apple
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition
Price: $149.95 USD
Homework and Home Work will be easier than ever with Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition. Get better results faster and create high-quality documents you can be proud of, with less frustration and more enjoyment.

Five Great Reasons to Get Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition:

Universal applications: Office 2008 runs natively on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs.

Intuitive interface: Reduce the time and frustration of learning new software and creating documents with visual galleries that present the right tools when you need them.

Your Mac, more compatible: Office 2008 for Mac and Windows-based 2007 Office products share the Open XML file formats and features like the Office Art graphics engine, so you'll be confident when sharing documents with colleagues, friends, and family across platforms.

Beautiful documents: Good design is a click away with hundreds of new templates, Smart Art graphics, Publishing Layout View, and professional quality clip art and photos.

Priced for home users: Don't need Microsoft Exchange Server Support or workflow management? Home and student users pay for just the features they need. Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition comes with three licenses of non-Exchange-enabled Office 2008 licensed for noncommercial computers.

Which Version of Office 2008 is right for you? View this comparison chart.

Simplify Your Work
Your presentation will make an impact. Your documents will be professional. Your analysis will be insightful. And Office 2008 will be there.
The latest version of the industry standard for productivity software on the Macintosh platform, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is more powerful and easier to use. Office 2008 combines Microsoft Word for Mac, Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac, Microsoft Excel for Mac, Microsoft Entourage for Mac, and Microsoft Messenger for Mac and lets you easily create high-impact documents and seamlessly share your ideas with others, whether they are on the Mac or Windows platform.

What's New in Office for Mac?

  • Universal versions of the most popular productivity applications on the Macintosh platform (Universal applications run natively on Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs.)
  • Microsoft Office for Mac natively supports the Open XML file formats for compatibility with Windows-based 2007 Microsoft Office products.
  • A redesigned user interface and powerful new tools for simplifying work, creating great looking documents, and exchanging ideas and information with others.

Highlights of Office 2008 for Mac

  • Office 2008 is a Universal Binary, was built by Mac users for Mac users, and includes many features which take advantage of underlying technologies of the Macintosh platform.
  • Office 2008 uses Open XML file formats for compatibility with Windows-based 2007 Microsoft Office products. XML file formats help reduce the risk of lost information due to damaged or corrupted files and also result in smaller file sizes--up to 75 percent smaller than comparable binary documents. Office 2008 for Mac is backward-compatible with earlier file formats and users can continue to use the older .doc, .xls, and .ppt binary formats.
  • Elements Gallery is the foundation of the new user interface, and gives easy access to the most commonly used tools and templates. With the new UI, you'll harness the capabilities of Office for Mac more easily than ever before.
  • Office 2008 includes OfficeArt, the powerful graphics engine also used in the Windows-based Office 2007 products. You get great cross-platform file fidelity and easy access to stunning visual and graphic effects.
  • Your words will make an impact with the modern styling of SmartArt graphics, which makes transforming text and bulleted lists into professional diagrams and graphics one-click easy.
  • A new Themes capability simplifies the process of applying a consistent look and feel across documents. Easily apply a complete set of colors, fonts, and effects to your Office 2008 documents, and change them as easily as changing your mind.
  • Automator Actions for Workflows in Microsoft Office enables you to automate Office 2008 with more than 70 pre-defined actions built to simplify your work and extend your productivity. (Available in Office 2008 for Mac and Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition.)

Entourage 2008, the hub of Office 2008, helps it to happen, one task at a time.

Enjoy powerful new tools, over 100 designer templates, rich themes, and an intuitive user interface in Word 2008.

Entourage 2008
Your e-mails will spark ideas, you'll schedule meetings where creativity abounds. Entourage 2008, the hub of Office 2008, helps it to happen, one task at a time.

  • My Day keeps you connected to the action. Schedules, tasks, and priorities in one easy, standalone interface. Time will have no choice but to be well-managed.
  • Use color-coded categories, status indicators, and flexible To-Do list management humble even the most hectic schedules.
  • Office 2008 for Mac and Office 2008 Special Media Edition enable users to access their Microsoft Exchange server accounts with Entourage.
  • Improved Junk E-Mail filtering capabilities and phishing protection tools help shield your inbox from the scourge of junk. Your inbox will breathe a sigh of relief.
  • Projects submit to your superior management skills when you unleash the power of Project Center, With project details like e-mail messages, documents, schedules, and contacts in one convenient place, Project Center helps keep your information--and your stress--under control.

Word 2008
Powerful new tools, over 100 designer templates, rich themes, and an intuitive user interface in Word 2008 will help you to make your ideas look as good as they are.

  • When you turn blah into brilliant, Publishing Layout View will elevate the way you think about Word 2008. This new specialized and customizable workspace lets users create incredibly rich documents such as newletters, flyers and brochures without a degree in design.
  • Great looking document construction won't require a hard hat. New Templates, Themes, and Document Elements like cover pages and bibliographies make creating professional-looking output a snap.
  • Your words will make an impact with the modern styling of SmartArt, which makes transforming text into high-quality graphics and diagrams as easy as one click.
  • Dynamic Guides will help you keep all of your words and graphics in line and on point.
  • Mass mailings will have a personal touch and Word 2008 Mail Merge Manager will guide you step by easy step.

Inspire your audience's imagination with compelling visuals and engaging layout in PowerPoint 2008.

Analyze, share, and manage your data, and easily create persuasive charts and thought-provoking graphs for powerful results with Excel 2008.

PowerPoint 2008
Your presentation is a story. PowerPoint 2008 will illustrate it. Inspire your audience's imagination with compelling visuals and engaging layout.

  • Great ideas will get their graphic due with SmartArt graphics in PowerPoint 2008. Start with a blank slide or a bulleted list, and, with a click of a button, you'll have a stunning chart, table, map, or diagram.
  • Designer Themes help you give your presentation a creative look, simply and quickly.
  • The new Object Palette allows quick access to all your shapes, art, symbols, and pictures--including iPhoto files--in one easy-to-access space.
  • Dynamic Guides will help you place and resize your graphic element to create professional-looking presentations in a snap.
  • You'll lay out custom designs to showcase your unique content with custom layout capabilities in PowerPoint 2008.
  • PowerPoint 2008 integration with Apple Remote Control lets you concentrate on your words, not your keyboard. Now control your presentation and engage your audience unleashed from the podium.

    Excel 2008
    It's a numbers game. With Excel 2008, analyze, share, and manage your data, and easily create persuasive charts and thought-provoking graphs for powerful results.

    • Ledger Sheets in Excel 2008 make tracking finances, inventories, even invoices and portfolios easy with preformulated spreadsheets and automatic calculations.
    • Charting improvements artfully convey the message your data is telling. You'll see your numbers in a whole new way.
    • The new prebuilt functions tackle the most common tasks and make creating error-free complex conditional formulas easier.
    • Quick access to formulas makes functions more functional with Formula Builder in Excel 2008.
    • Your data will know virtually no limits. Excel 2008 now supports over 16,000 columns and over 1 million rows.
    • Whether you're an Excel expert or a complete novice, Excel 2008 Formula AutoComplete simplifies your calculations by providing a dynamic pop-up menu so you can select and complete your formula.

    Messenger for Mac
    Convenience is the name of the game for Mac users who want to communicate instantly with family, friends and colleagues from one convenient place. Messenger for Mac is now a Universal application, and gives you more ways to share what's on your mind or on your plate.

    Use Messenger for Mac to instantly check the status of project team members, streamline workflow by sending documents directly from Word, or offer questions or comments on document changes instantly.

    • Yahoo! Interoperability will allow personal users to connect and message with Yahoo! Messenger for Mac users.
    • Your intentions will never again be in doubt when you create your own custom emoticons in Messenger for Mac.
    • Spelling Checker is now included in Messenger for Mac.
    • Let the world know your tastes when you display your iTunes selection with the new "What I'm listening to now" feature.
Publisher: Microsoft Software
Mac OS X Leopard: The Missing Manual
Price: $34.99 USD
With Leopard, Apple has unleashed the greatest version of Mac OS X yet, and David Pogue is back with another meticulous Missing Manual to cover the operating system with a wealth of detail. The new Mac OS X 10.5, better known as Leopard, is faster than its predecessors, but nothing's too fast for Pogue and this Missing Manual. It's just one of reasons this is the most popular computer book of all time. Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition is the authoritative book for Mac users of all technical levels and experience. If you're new to the Mac, this book gives you a crystal-clear, jargon-free introduction to the Dock, the Mac OS X folder structure, and the Mail application. There are also mini-manuals on iLife applications such as iMovie, iDVD, and iPhoto, and a tutorial for Safari, Mac's web browser. This Missing Manual book is amusing and fun to read, but Pogue doesn't take his subject lightly. Which new Leopard features work well and which do not? What should you look for? What should you avoid? Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition offers an objective and straightforward instruction for using: Leopard's totally revamped Finder Spaces to group your windows and organize your Mac tasks Quick Look to view files before you open them The Time Machine, Leopard's new backup feature Spotlight to search for and find anything in your Mac Front Row, a new way to enjoy music, photos, and videos Enhanced Parental Controls that come with Leopard Quick tips for setting up and configuring your Mac to make it your own There's something new on practically every page of this new edition, and David Pogue brings his celebrated wit and expertise to every one of them. Mac's brought a new catto town and Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition is a great new way to tame it.
Author: David Pogue
Publisher: Pogue Press
The Sims 2 (Mac)
Price: $49.99 USD
The Sims 2 is an incredible sequel to the best-selling PC game of all-time! You'll get to direct an entire Sims' lifetime, and try to get them to reach their goals in life. Will they have a long, successful and happy life - or will they end up poor and heartbroken?
The Sims was one of the most popular games ever made. In it, players micromanage the lives of a family of virtual people, or Sims, and influence their paths toward success or something akin to a nervous breakdown. Its open-ended blend of cartoonish behavior and everyday living is unique in an art form otherwise obsessed with carnage and sports. With The Sims 2, longtime fans now have a deeper game with lots of ways to customize and share their experiences. The game will also attract first-timers because the goal-oriented gameplay and the luridly fun starter families make it easier to get into the action right out of the box.


Now Sims are born with the traits of their parents, families grow, and Sims grow old.

The People in Your Neighborhood
The game starts at the neighborhood level. Here you can create a housing development from scratch or start with one of three premade neighborhoods, each with its own theme. From there, you'll settle on a house and a family of Sims to control.

The Sims 2 body shop
Create your own Sim (above) or your own house (below) from scratch with advanced tools.
The Sims 2 house-building tools
Aside from the basic needs carried over from the previous game, Sims now have aspirations, wants, and fears. The wants and fears are the day-to-day things that occupy their minds, like wanting to see friends or get married and fearing death or being rejected for a kiss. Satisfy their wants, and they become more efficient at completing tasks you assign them. Realize their fears, and Sims become lethargic, cranky, and unresponsive to your commands. Aspirations are the big-picture things, like raising a family, becoming wealthy, and gaining knowledge. Succeed here and you'll be able to buy odd gifts for your Sim to improve his or her life, like a money tree that pays dividends or a "fountain of youth" water cooler.

What Else Is New?
Of course, you wouldn't be able to juggle all that if it weren't for the improved "Free Will" option, which makes it easier for Sims to fulfill their basic needs. The artificial intelligence of the game is noticeably improved; they won't turn on radios just as a family member is going to bed but, strangely, they do occasionally put their dishes on the floor.

Another big change in the series is the concept of the lifespan. Now Sims are born with the traits of their parents, families grow, and Sims grow old. Not only does this go hand in hand with aspirations (growing up is the first aspiration that a baby Sim will have), it provides a limited time with which your Sims can achieve their goals.

Sims in live mode
The Universal Control Panel helps you manage your Sim family.
A Family Affair
The Sims 2 not only lets you create just about any type of Sim in any type of family, build elaborate houses, and even create a neighborhood from scratch, but it also allows you to start the game in medias res, with premade households. These families all have backstories that are smart spoofs of soap-opera plots--lots of scheming, romance, ghosts, and family fighting. Parents of teens shouldn't worry, though, because nudity is tastefully blurred out and "woo-hoo" between Sims takes place completely under the covers. The ESRB has given this a Teen rating. If The Sims 2 were a film, it would likely land between PG and PG-13.

The makers have included some nice tools to help share the universe you've created. For example, you can capture in-game stills and video to show friends the private moments, family interactions, and house parties of your Sims. You can even package a household to share as a blog or an album on a special Web site.

The Sims 2 is for patient gamers. Like life itself, the game is filled with mundane details, like getting ready for work and doing dishes. The game also demands a level of creativity from its players that the run-and-gun game genres wouldn't know what to do with. But those who stick with it will be rewarded with an absorbing, amusing diversion and a virtual family history that they've created themselves. --Porter B. Hall

Set Up a Sims 2 Machinima Studio
Amazon.com contributor Porter Hall reveals how you can make movies using the Sims as your actors. See his guide to
setting up a Sims 2 Machinima Studio.

Publisher: Aspyr Media
Kraft Easy Mac Original, 2.05-Ounce Microwave Cups (Pack of 36)
Publisher: Easy Mac
MAC Liquidlast Liner Point Black
Price: $16.50 USD
Please note that not all computer monitors display colors the same way. What you see on your monitor may not accurately portray the color or shade of the product. We suggest you refer to your monitor owners manual to calibrate your monitor correctly. MAC Liquidlast Liner: A rich colour liquid eye liner that combines long-lasting wear with a non-smudge, non-flake precision line Goes on effortlessly Applies with its own brush to draw a perfectly defined line Available in a wide range of classic and trend shades
Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro for Mac
Price: $197.22 USD
To deliver image-perfect detail and clarity, the Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro webcam combines Logitech's premium autofocus technology with Carl Zeiss optics. The Logitech webcam uses a voice coil motor for its autofocus system, instead of a stepper motor. Focusing is fast and fluid - crisp even in extreme close-ups only 10 cm from the camera lens. Logitech's autofocus system compensates for changes in image-edge sharpness and refocuses images in less than three seconds. And through its exclusive collaboration with Carl Zeiss, Logitech ensures that the lens meets the world-renowned Zeiss standards for design and manufacturing to achieve superior sharpness in a compact, lightweight design.The 2-megapixel sensor helps the Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro webcam capture video images in high resolution. It is assisted by Logitech's RightLight 2 technology, which enables the webcam to adjust intelligently in dim or harshly backlighted situations.
Publisher: Logitech
Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition (Missing Manual)
Price: $29.99 USD
Is Windows giving you pause? Ready to make the leap to the Mac instead? There has never been a better time to switch from Windows to Mac, and this incomparable guide will help you make a smooth transition. New York Times columnist and Missing Manuals creator David Pogue gets you past three challenges: transferring your stuff, assembling Mac programs so you can do what you did with Windows, and learning your way around Mac OS X. Why is this such a good time to switch? Upgrading from one version of Windows to another used to be simple. But now there's Windows Vista, a veritable resource hog that forces you to relearn everything. Learning a Mac is not a piece of cake, but once you do, the rewards are oh-so-much better. No viruses, worms or spyware. No questionable firewalls, inefficient permissions, or other strange features. Just a beautiful machine with a thoroughly reliable system. And if you're still using Windows XP, we've got you covered, too. If you're ready to take on Mac OS X Leopard, the latest edition of this bestselling guide tells you everything you need to know: Transferring your stuff -- Moving photos, MP3s, and Microsoft Office documents is the easy part. This book gets you through the tricky things: extracting your email, address book, calendar, Web bookmarks, buddy list, desktop pictures, and MP3 files. Re-creating your software suite -- Big-name programs (Word, Photoshop, Firefox, Dreamweaver, and so on) are available in both Mac and Windows versions, but hundreds of other programs are available only for Windows. This guide identifies the Mac equivalents and explains how to move your data to them. Learning Leopard -- Once you've moved into the Mac, a final task awaits: Learning your way around. Fortunately, you're in good hands with the author of Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, the #1 bestselling guide to the Macintosh. Moving from Windows to a Mac successfully and painlessly is the one thing Apple does not deliver. Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Leopard Edition is your ticket to a new computing experience.
Author: David Pogue
Publisher: Pogue Press
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Price: $54.99 USD
Join the battle in Call Of Duty 4 - Modern Warfare for Macintosh. Featuring a tense storyline, filled with plot twists, the game thrusts you into battle like never before. With amazing special effects, including rim-lighting, depth of field, texture streaming and character self-shadowing, you are enlisted into one of the most photo-realistic gaming experiences imaginable. The community-oriented multiplayer gameplay features a robust leveling system, variety of unlockable perks, hot-join and matchmaking, as well as create a class and party capabilities. Over 100 challenges and a host of environments and modes deliver unlimited possibilities. Kill-Cam, a feature from Call of Duty 2, allows for spectator instant replays.

Join the battle

Featuring a tense storyline, filled with plot twists, the title thrusts players into battle like never before. With amazing special effects, including rim-lighting, depth of field, texture streaming and character self-shadowing, players are enlisted into one of the most photo-realistic gaming experiences imaginable.

The community-oriented Call of Duty 4 multiplayer gameplay features a robust leveling system, variety of unlockable perks, hot-join and matchmaking, as well as create a class and party capabilities to ensure that players of all skill levels can join in the fun. Additionally over 100 challenges and a host of new game environments and modes deliver unlimited possibilities. Infinity Ward has also included Kill-Cam, a fan favorite feature that they created in Call of Duty 2, which allows for spectator instant replays.

Call of Duty 4

Key Features

  • Authentic Advanced Weaponry - Featuring an available arsenal of more than 70 new and authentic weapons and gear from assault rifles with laser sites, claymore mines, .50 caliber sniper rifles, and M-249 SAW machine guns.
  • Coordinated Assault and Support - Delivering the most visceral action thriller ever, the title covers modern battle from the soldier to the satellite, where the need for air support is crucial to success. The adrenaline rush deployment enlists gamers to fast-rope from tactical helicopters, ride in an armada of attack choppers, utilize jets to remove enemy strongholds and even engage hostiles from thousands of feet above the ground inside a state of the art aerial gunship.
  • Cinematic Quality Graphics and Sound - Featuring stunning next-generation graphics, players will be drawn into the cinematic intensity of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Combine the lifelike graphics and the realistic battle chatter with the Call of Duty award-winning sound design and players will face battle as they never have before.
  • Unparalleled Depth to Multiplayer - The highly-anticipated multiplayer builds from the success of Call of Duty 2 deliver a persistent online experience for greater community action.
All Ghillied Up
All Ghillied Up
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From Land, Sea, or Air
From Land, Sea, or Air
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Publisher: Aspyr Media
Apple Mac mini MB138LL/A (1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 1 GB RAM, 80 GB Hard Drive, Combo Drive)
Price: $599.00 USD
The Mac Mini features the powerful 1.83GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor. It has two cores, so it's like having two 1.83GHz processors in one! Another great feature is the suite of applications in iLife '08. A full-featured collection of programs that are designed to let you easily take control of your creative projects. iPhoto organizes your digital pics, and has a cool feature that groups them by event. iWeb makes it easy to create your own website. iMovie & iDVD lets you edit your videos and make your own DVD movies. GarageBand gives you the tools to make your own music, and even start your own virtual band! All of this and more is packed inside a svelt and stylish 6.5" body that can fit anywhere! 2 RAM Slots (occupied) 80GB 5400RPM SATA HDD Slot-loading DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo Drive - reads DVDs up to 8x, writes CD-Rs up to 24x, & writes CD-RWs up to 16x Intel GMA 950 Graphics Processor with 64MB of shared memory (memory is shared with the main system) Ports - 1 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet, 1 Firewire 400 (8 watts), 4 USB 2.0, 1 DVI Out, 1 VGA Out (using included adapter) Built-in Speakers Built-in AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi 802.11g wireless network card Built-in Bluetooth 2.0+EDR (Enhanced Data Rate) module Unit Dimensions - 2 (h) x 6.5 (w) x 6.5 (d) Unit Weight - 2.9 lbs.
A great choice for home computing tasks and creating a digital media hub, Apple's Mac mini desktop PC combines design simplicity with powerful computing resources. Nicely compact at just 6.5 inches square and 2 inches high, the Mac mini offers an affordable avenue to dual-core processing power via the 1.83 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and Apple's latest suite of digital media applications--iLife '08. It also comes with the Apple Remote and Front Row media display software, which enables you to easily play your music, enjoy photo slideshows, and watch DVDs, iMovies, music videos and television shows from across the room.



Inside its 2-inch-tall, 6.5-inch-square anodized aluminum enclosure, the Mac mini houses the fast Intel Core 2 Duo processor.
This Mac mini also features 1 GB of installed RAM (with a 2 GB maximum capacity), 80 GB hard drive, a combo DVD-RAM/CD-RW drive for watching DVD movie discs and burning your own mixes to CD, Gigabit Ethernet wired networking and 802.11b/g wireless LAN, and the Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard operating system. You'll have to supply your own keyboard, mouse, and display.

Preinstalled with iLife '08
Every Mac mini includes iLife '08, the latest version of Apple's award-winning suite of digital media applications, with major upgrades to iPhoto, iDVD, iWeb, and GarageBand and a completely reinvented iMovie. iPhoto '08 now automatically organizes photo libraries into Events that let you more easily manage your growing photo collections, and iMovie '08 can import video from the latest AVCHD, HDV and DV camcorders, as well as from digital cameras, and displays your entire video library whether it's stored on internal or external drives. Both iPhoto and iMovie integrate seamlessly with the new .Mac Web Gallery, Apple's new service for .Mac members to instantly create and host websites for their photos and videos.



The pre-installed iLife '08 software suite includes a completely redesigned iMovie, which makes it even easier to share your videos on the Internet.
iLife '08 also features iWeb '08, with live web widgets such as Google Maps that let you create even more dynamic websites, and GarageBand '08, with its new Magic GarageBand feature that makes it fun and easy for both musicians and non-musicians to create great sounding songs.

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
The Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 processor has a 1.83 GHz processor speed, fast 667 MHz front-side bus (FSB), and large 2 MB L2 cache. (An L2, or secondary, cache temporarily stores data; and a larger L2 cache can help speed up your system's performance. The FSB carries data between the CPU and RAM, and a faster front-side bus will deliver better overall performance.)

The Intel Core 2 Duo's 128-bit SSE3 vector engine handles 128-bit computations in a single clock cycle, accelerating data manipulation by simultaneously applying a single instruction to multiple data. And its two execution cores are designed to share resources and conserve power, helping it to achieve higher levels of performance since it uses fewer watts.

Wired and Wireless Connectivity


The small form of the Mac mini features several ports for a variety of different devices.
The Mac mini gives you plenty of room to grow with four USB 2.0 ports on the back--for connecting devices such as cameras, iPod, printer, camcorder, or keyboard--as well as a FireWire 400 port, which enables super-fast connectivity to hard drives as well as digital video camcorders. Share files around your house with built-in 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet as well as 54g Wi-Fi (802.11b/g). The integrated Bluetooth wireless connectivity--version 2.0 + Enhanced Data Rate (EDR)--allows you to use a wireless keyboard or mouse, and synchronize peripherals such as cell phones and PDAs. Enjoy high-quality sound on almost any speaker system with double-duty analog/digital audio. Record digital and analog sources through audio line in, perfect for your latest podcast in GarageBand.

Graphics and Video
The Mac mini has a DVI video output that supports digital resolutions up to 1920 by 1200 pixels and is compatible with the 20-inch Apple Cinema Display and 23-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. It also supports coherent digital displays up to 154 MHz, and non-coherent digital displays up to 135 MHz. Using the included VGA video adapter, you can connect to analog displays at a resolution up to 1920 by 1080 pixels. Video is powered by the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950, which uses Intel Dynamic Video Memory Technology (DVMT) and provides up to 64 MB of shared video memory.

Other Features

  • 1 GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300) on two SO-DIMM with a 2 GB maximum capacity
  • Slot-loading Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW): reads DVDs at up to 8x speed, writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed, writes CD-RW discs at up to 16x speed, and reads CDs at up to 24x speed
  • Built-in speaker
  • Meets ENERGY STAR requirements with maximum continuous power of 110 watts

Included Software
Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard operating system (includes Spotlight, Dashboard, Mail, iChat AV, Safari, Address Book, QuickTime, iCal, DVD Player, Xcode Developer Tools); iLife '08 (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb, GarageBand); Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive; iWork (30-day trial); and Front Row

What's in the Box
Mac mini, Apple Remote, power cord, install/restore DVDs, printed and electronic documentation

Publisher: Apple Computer
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