Apples Panther

Panther desktops redesigned Finder offers new sidebar (left) for streamlined access to system resources and often-used items, while previewing appearance of many document file types (right).

Although security patches have already been issued for Panther, it sets a new standard for convenient access to an arsenal of security features and for making the underlying system safe from both accident and malice.

One of many new utilities, inconspicuously included in the Panther package, is the expanded ActivityMonitor tool that provides real-time tracking of many types of system resource use.

Panthers FontBook tool is another example of the products attention to streamlining access to every kind of system resource.

The Expose feature of Panther uses its graphical integration to resize and rearrange windows, while maintaining activity in all of them, to make every open window visible for one-click promotion to full-size foreground view.

Xcode development suite, included in Panther, returns users to the good old days when every personal computer came with programming tools at no extra charge.

For hard-core hackers, theres a real live Unix workstation—with command lines, text-mode tools, and even X Window capabilities—ready to be summoned up from underneath the graphical Mac OS environment.