Well, I can officially say I've been using Leopard for about a day (minus, of course, the 5 hours of sleep I got). As much as I'd like to say I'm wowed -- I'm really not. Perhaps it's the critical coder in me that sees right through the eye candy; perhaps it's the Linux aficionado recognizing that although the environment is cool, it is hardly unique (check out this screenshot if you don't believe me); or maybe I'm just getting old...

Regardless, I'm looking forward to learning this operating system inside out: eye candy and all.

So today I forced myself to forget that I had a new operating system. I tried to keep the mindset that everything was the same. I did not make any effort to try new features (okay, I'm lying, but I'll get to that part later). Instead, I worked as normal and observed anything significant to my regular workflow. Thus, I compiled the following table with my observations.

Things I Like
	I don't use the word pimp loosely, but this most definitely is! What a great new scheme! I love the monochromatic, dark look of the apple logo.
	The Arabesque screensaver. Although I wish there were configurable options, it is very soothing on the eyes. So simple, yet so elegant -- and I love having a clock superimposed over top. That was previously a pet peeve of mine: moving the mouse to see the time and then waiting for the entire screensaver wait state to begin. FYI - arabesque is a form of Islamic art made up of repeating geometric forms (gotta love Wikipedia).
	Rounded corners: leave it to Apple to implement web 2.0 into their interface.
	I've never really been a huge fan of cover flow on my Nano. Mostly because the songs I listen to are usually live sets and thus don't have cover art. I didn't see the value of coverflow in Leopard until I had to search for a particular ebook: being able to quickly see the first page of each book definitely made it easier to find what I was looking for.
	Although I don't see how a reflective dock is practical, I definitely appreciate the visual impact it makes. However, after 5 minutes I removed the dock anyways (more about why in a later post), relocating it to the left side, fairly small icon size, and auto-hide turned on.
	I wish I had more time today to play with this feature. Without doing any research (and only experimenting for about 3 minutes) it seems this feature allows you to extract only the part of a site that you like and save it as a widget. Although I haven't convinced myself of its benefit yet, I'm pretty certain there will be one. (think having only the login dialogs for all your favourite sites as widgets)
	This already helped me out once today. A history of the files you've recently accessed. I'm certain this existed in Tiger, but I can't be 100% sure. Regardless, if it did previously exist, I didn't notice it and that's why I'm commenting on it now.
	So I'm trying to download a new Drupal module. Not a difficult task: just click on the link, go to my desktop, extract the file and continue. Well, a seemingly easy task became increasingly difficult as I was not aware that the default download location (at least from Safari) had changed to a new Downloads folder instead of the desktop. After realizing this (and realizing that I had 7 versions of the same file -- oopsie) I nodded my head in satisfaction. Many of you readers may not be aware of the fact that OS X creates a new finder for each file/folder on the desktop. By maintaining a clean desktop (ie. NOT using deskshade like I do) should result in a more efficient OS X experience. HOWEVER, it seems we need not worry about such annoyances. I imagine the downloads folder fixes this (yay!).
Not so much
	I swear the bootup time is longer. I can't prove this (from lack of thinking ahead and timing the boot pre-install and post-install) but I'm certain it's slower to boot.
	Admittedly, I designed the wallpaper to prove a point: the translucent menu bar sucks! Yes, it's kind of cool when there's a solid colour underneath, but in cases where there isn't (like my "don't peek" text), it is quite annoying. Apple should take a hint from the Linux crew and allow control over the opacity levels.
	I'll be honest. I was very excited to check out Apple's new wallpapers. They have always set the standard for innovation in desktop backgrounds... this time they suck. The earth from space? An Asian home on a waterfront? Come on, Apple -- I-N-N-O-V-A-T-I-O-N !!! For the love of bejesus, at least give me a leopard!
	I don't understand the purpose of the blue dot. Judging by other people's blog posts, I'm not alone on this one. There are hacks to remove the blue dots in favour of the black triangles from Tiger: but users should have the option to do so without resorting to unconventional methods.
	I'm not sure if this is Apple's fault or Blacktree's. I like to keep my dock minimal (ie. as few icons as possible), and with Quicksilver I was able to select whether I wanted the icon to persist in the dock or menu bar. Well, since the menu bar's icons are smaller I chose the latter. I checked the preferences, and I'm pretty sure it says menu bar, but the icon shows up in the dock. I'm sure there will be a fix for this, but the annoyance persists.
	This one absolutely baffles me. The system preferences dialog box doesn't display correctly: it's cut off on the right side!!! I don't know how this got by quality control, but somebody needs to be slapped! Since I don't know anybody else who has Leopard I don't know if it's my laptop -- but I'm pretty certain it isn't.

At the risk of not upsetting balance, I've tried to keep my Yin (the good) better than my Yang (the bad). I must say that I really do love Leopard (so far), but we've only begun to scratch the surface.