The day of Leopard’s release will undoubtedly see it installed by thousands of excited users, but not everyone has the luxury of upgrading immediately. Even if you’re too budget-conscious to pony up the $129 to upgrade, or if you work in an office where stability trumps novelty, you can still enjoy some of Leopard’s features - assuming you’re running Tiger (Mac OS 10.4).
Here’s how to create reasonably lifelike facsimilies of five of Leopard’s most anticipated features. These workarounds may not be as attractive or as integrated as they are in Leopard, but they get the job done - and some of them are even free.
1. Organize Your Mac Life
With Leopard’s Spaces feature, Apple promises to integrate virtual desktops into the Mac OS for the first time. The advantage of this technology is its ability to create multiple desktops within the same user account, each with its own set of applications, and to let users switch between them anytime.
To add this nifty virtual desktop support to Tiger, download VirtueDesktops (free beta). Sadly, the developer has suspended work on this app, but the most recent beta was plenty stable in our testing. To get started, drag VirtueDesktops into your /Applications folder. Launch the program and enter your admin password to proceed with installation. Run VirtueDesktops, then log out and log back in to complete the setup. When VirtueDesktops is running, its icon appears in the menubar.
Create your desktops by clicking the app’s icon and selecting Organize Your Desktops from the drop-down menu. VirtueDesktops provides three default desktops in the list on the left; double-click each to rename it. Assign a background image to each desktop by dragging an image into the photo box on the right. Assign a tint by clicking the plus-sign button below the Decorations box, selecting Desktop Tint, and selecting a color label from the top of the screen.
To assign applications to a specific desktop, first run the applications. Then select Organize Your Applications from VirtueDesktop’s menu. To pin an application to a particular desktop, select it from the list on the left, check the box next to Bind Application To Desktop, and select the appropriate desktop from the drop-down menu. Once everything is set up, switch between your desktops by clicking the menubar icon or by pressing Control-Shift and the right or left arrow keys.
Create separate work areas by assigning your apps to different desktops with VirtueDesktops.
More...
benet
November 10, 2009 at 8:32pm
Every little chat Salon 1000 ah!replica watchYou are my best's buddy
dsafwej
luftwagen1963&1971
November 29, 2007 at 1:28pm
I'm an apple fan and have used them since 1988. But as I am moving my work towards site developer I'm seeing a lot from apple having been "borrowed" from Linux, specifically the Fedora / Red Hat flavors. Although Apple is innovating some tech.'s they claim they certainly borrow heavy from the Linux desktop / server distributions.
Macsweep
November 22, 2007 at 8:50am
You don't tell people they need broadband to use Apple's .Mac. Try backing up 150 GB of files and you'll see what I mean. Even then it'd take a very long time. Even 150 MB might take an hour or more.
Steve
October 28, 2007 at 8:35pm
virtuedesktops.info is either down or closed
10/28/07
Steve
October 28, 2007 at 8:55pm
virtue desktops is available at MacUpdate.
Has anyone used Desktop Manager?
Ed
October 12, 2007 at 6:48am
Does VirtueDesktops or will Leopard allow you to have and use some of the same applications on more than one desktop?. By this I mean can you share a application over each different desktop?. Or, are you restricted to a application only working in one desktop only?. Sounds great if I can have 2 or 3 apps shared amoung the 3 desktops and then can hop back and forth between desktops.
