As I mentioned in the previous article, Leopard will come with a lot of great new features. But there’s always a few more you can use:

• Adium, a free instant messenger for Mac OS X. It supports:

• AOL Instant Messenger (Including ICQ and .Mac)
• Jabber (Including Google Talk)
• MSN Messenger
• Yahoo! Messenger (Including Yahoo! Japan)
• Bonjour (Compatible with iChat)
• Gadu-Gadu
• LiveJournal
• Novell Groupwise
• QQ
• Lotus Sametime

• AppleJack is great for troubleshooting your disk. Just install and restart in Single User Mode to repair the disk, check system preferences and get rid of possibly infected cache files;
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Since the first versions of the Mac OS, Apple has set the standard for the GUI appearance and functionality (most of which were “borrowed” by that other company), and each successive update raises the bar. And now that iPhone has finally been released in the US, Mac fans will be eagerly awaiting the release of Leopard.

I started using a Mac just as System 7 was introduced; at that time, it had many enhancements from the previous system, including virtual memory support, the introduction of aliases and, thankfully, the “Empty Trash” command, which was a change from having the trash empty itself upon shutdown. Subsequent OS updates included an interface and GUI appearance changes, implementation of multi-user support and improved search with Sherlock. Some features introduced with OS 9 were adapted for OS X, like Software Update, Keychain and file encryption.

OS X was a radical change in the user interface, and I think it took a while for people (incluing me) to warm up to it. First, it required that you essentially re-learn how to use your computer: there were all new files (or at least newly visible files) that were in all-new places, a different menu structure and many other interface changes. Then, the developers had to update all their software to be compatible with the new system, which meant you had to make a new investment in, essentially, new software.
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 Sometimes, the font used for a product or brand may stick out in your mind more than the product or brand itself. A word or two, rendered in the right font, can instantly tell you about a movie, a band, a TV show or the “personality” of a company. Here’s a list of fonts that you’ll recognize from various TV shows, movies, games, bands and brands.

Some of my favs are ‘A Clockwork Orange‘, ‘28 Days Later‘ (one of the few really good zombie movies to come along in a while), ‘Enemy of the State‘ and ‘The Godfather‘. With ‘The Godfather’ (and a few others), I’d say that, because of their close association with the film/show, their use would be limited to something that would be a parody (i.e an ad, a headline, etc.). In other words, some fonts would be instantly recognizable and couldn’t really be effective if they were used in another context.

Further down the list are some fonts used in bands’ logos. Some are relatively simple (and flexible for other uses), like Cheap Trick’s or even Nirvana’s; others, like Orgy’s and Linkin Park’s give you a sense of the band: the sight is the sound.

For game fans, there’s fonts from your favorites. I’ve played Diablo, Riven and, yes, several Intellivision games back in the day.

Rounding out the list are some miscellaneous but very familiar fonts, like IBM, NASA, Xerox and, of course, the Pez font.