Leopard does not deserve #1, sorry, neither does vista.

skilled1

I'm really enjoying Microsoft Office 2007. The ribbon layout is so efficient and fantastic. I'm happy Lifehacker has the balls to step outside the "Microsoft sux" cloud. It's refreshing, and a much-deserved mention.

Webran61

@Michael Leddy: The thing that kills Numbers for me is the lack of pivot tables. However, the graphs are really amazing, to the point where I C&P my results from Excel to Numbers to make them. Also, the changes in Pages and Keynote aren't that revolutionary, just some new templates and transitions. It's a good new version, but I don't think I could pick it as a "best of '07."

That Plain Boy

@SESCOBAR

Sounds like POS hardware to me.

Syndication

I would say Vista is my #1 improvement, because I've improved my Windows unfreezing skills. I'm given the oportunity to practice it 5 o 8 times a day now, instead of the 2 or 3 XP gave me a day.

Vista is teaching me patience in a way I never learned before. That's a personal big improvement, right?

sescobar

Anyone else notice that there are two "Operating System, most improved" entries on this list?

RickS

meh, i'd put Gmail before ubuntu in this list, the speed increase was sooo refreshing. And while it offered a few new features, i wasn't at all that impressed with 7.10 and switched to debian on my main machine. 7.10 isn't nearly as stable as 7.04. Tracker is a CPU eating mess thats hard to kill and uninstall, and whats the use of a graphical X configuration tool when X crashes after using the "new and improved" restricted drivers manager. I ended up having to do it manually. Yea, compiz by default was cool but i switched to trevinos repositories on it since it didn't have all the plugins. and no compiz settings manager? why?

the whole thing felt like a buggy system update, only now am i starting to see stability updates rolling in to fix many of the issues i had seen since tribe 5. they really should have postponed the official release on this one. I really wouldn't mind "7.11" if it was as stable as 7.04. hopefully hardy will be better since it's LTS.

BackDoorAngel

Don't be put off by the information on the GrandCentral website that they're not taking memberships while in private beta. I "reserved" a number yesterday, which doesn't really reserve a number, but says it will notify you when they open it up to subscribers again. Less than 24 hours later, I received an invitation to join.

Limekiller

@APatzer: I also agree that Mint looks fascinating, but am also apprehensive about giving third parties passwords. I can say I would feel much more comfortable with the product if there were a desktop version. Is this something you have considered?

calebc

@soul_grind: Yeah, Joost's junk to good programming ratio is really high, but isn't that true with regular tv too? The UI definitely needs work. The menu system is just awful, and too many channels are cross-categorized--probably so you would think they have a lot of shows. The ads didn't come up so often for me, but the ads they do show are retarded. Anyway, I discovered Frisky Dingo and Metalocalypse through it, so it wasn't completely worthless for me.

nettoyeur

@xxdesmus:

Ya I don't think it should be #1.

I do like apple (I use it for work) but it seems apple always is #1 on these lists... A little bias maybe?

GeorgiaBoot

If you can get past the hate on the ribbon, Office 2k7 takes it for me. The Ribbon is actually quite logical in how it places items (that Home has all the basic functions, etc.) Sure, we've all gotten used to the menu structure now, but ribbon makes all sorts of logical sense once you actually see how things are arranged.

If not that, then well, um... uh... yea.

Damage

@msisaac: I recently upgraded to Leopard, and I knew about the menubar and dock complaints before I did. I have to say, I don't know what the big gripe is about. I've barely noticed the change in visibility. It may depend a lot on your wall paper--I tend to use dark ones. That aside, I think Leopard is a great improvement. I use quick look and spaces all the time. Also, Leopard seems to run faster than Tiger on my machine; the same cannot be said of Vista.

I've only used Vista a little, and yes it is much prettier than XP, but I didn't find all of the UI upgrades to be as salient as you say. For example, when moving a window, it changes its shape as if being dragged through a medium. Why? I know I'm moving the window, I don't need an animation to reinforce that.

Well, as you say, it is a matter of opinion and personal use. But it appears that few people are truly in disagreement with Vista being left off of this list.

nettoyeur

I would certainly not consider Leopard #1. That's a joke right?

xxdesmus

Where is CS3?

I will only give 2 Votes,

Vote 1* CS3

Vote 2* Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)

GeorgiaBoot

Outlook 2007 is the worst application I've ever been forced to use.

Tom-LH

I've just recently started using Zoho, but I'm loving all their apps. The thing I like about the Zoho people is that they seem to be constantly working on improvements to the apps - the offline editing for Zoho Writer is really super.

Pondering the combination of Zoho + Google Gears + solid-state ultra-portables like the Asus Eee really opened my eyes to the possibilities of data portability and access. I think 2008 for me is really going to move toward online solutions and lightweight access and away from a self-contained stationary desktop environment.

chucklebuck

@mdellinger: yeah, after several failed attempts at getting control of my budget using MS Money, and looking for a better solutio, Mint looks nifty but I share your concern over security (can't help but picture hollywood movies where the bad guy hits a button and all the money drains from my account to the bad guy's)

@joelena: thanks for the links, very helpful!

Fierock

Not necessarily the most improved software or even new software, but software that I really didn't know about until this year and has drastically changed me :)

Generally this year has been the move towards command line for me so I can easily have everything accessible with putty if I happen to be away. One of the changes I made was switching from thunderbird to mutt ( a fairly time consuming process, but it was definitely worth it to be able to regex search my messages! It also loads up much faster than Thunderbird :P

Eclipsor

I am a big fan of Adobe's Image Viewer app that comes with the CS3 bundle. Way better than Mac or Windows' own image browsing apps, as you would expect.

olegna

Zoho: would be great if it interfaced with gmail. Is there an extension that allows me to zoho my docs straight from gmail? Lsat time i tried it there wasn't.

Joost: Been in it since the beta. Great idea. Never use it. So much stuff and so little i have any interest in watching. Plus its UI is infuriating and it seriously needs season passes, show queues, suggestions and LESS ADVERTS every 5 seconds.

Mint: Would love to be in this, but its US only.
Grandcentral: Also US only.

Gmail: Its been in stagnation for ages. They've added a few long overdue tweaks recently, but it still needs work. (and the talk of "folders" worries me).

And since I don't have a mac... hmm, what a disappointing list.
Gutsy was nice. My best finds of the year have probably been Launchy (in combination with yubby and webrunner/prism), Aptana and Sandboxie.

I gotta say, amazingly enough, that the updtes of Office and Internet Explorer are the ones that have impressed me. I don't use office at home, I use openoffice. But, like almost all open source software, it seriously needs to work on its looks and UI. Windows UIs are terrible, so i don't get why they insist on copying UIs from older, worse versions.
How about some open source UI design, as well as the back-end? /rant

soul_grind

i would have picked ubuntu. but gutsy doesnt work so well with my pc. i have to stick with feisty till i can find the fixes i need.

inthepit

@APATZER

Thanks for your response, you have to understand thought that some people are going to be a little weary about giving out their banking information like that.

I am going to give it a trial run, thanks.

mdellinger

@MDELLINGER

If numbers make you feel more comfortable, we've signed up nearly 100,000 people in the two months since launch, and organized over $4.0 billion in transactions.

Our security is audited by third parties, and we use RSA, Verisign, HackerSafe, along with TrustE to independently confirm our privacy practices.

Aaron Patzer
Founder & CEO, Mint.com

APatzer

I'm surprised that you didn't include iWork '08. That'd be my pick.

Michael Leddy

@Fierock: You can upgrade from Feisty to Gutsy within Feisty: [help.ubuntu.com]

No, the improvements aren't earth-shattering, but there were some decent UI improvements

[lifehacker.com]

joelena

@deziner: No, I don't need new eyes. If you spend any time googling OS X Leopard transparent menu bar, you'll find thousands of users griping about the lack of visibility in the default dock and menu bar.

The rest of OS X.5 is fine, but that dock and menu bar are huge UI mistakes on Apple's part. And considering that Apple usually pays great attention to detail, those translucent elements almost feel like an afterthought on the part of the developers.

I know there are terminal tweaks to get rid of the glassy dock and the translucent menu bar, but my main point is that I really feel Apple took a step backwards in their default out-of-the-box design.

Anyway, this isn't a rant on Apple. I'm not a hater or anything. I really enjoy all operating systems, but I just felt that OS X.5 being listed as #1 on this list is a bit ridiculous. But, this is Gina's list and not mine, so to each his or her own.

msisaac

Jott has been fun.

Direct voice to text translation and posting to blogs, email/sms and even google calendar reminders.

www.jott.com

pretzelgreg

Wait, I don't see Vista on the the list...

/someone had to make the joke

Bubarubu

Hey msisaac, sounds like you need some new eyes, git yo lasik on baby!

;-)

deziner

I really like the look of Mint and I'd love to try it out, but I just can't bring myself to providing my banking usernames and passwords to some 3rd party.

Has anyone else used this?

mdellinger

Thanks for helping solve the Fusion vs. Parallels question for me.

I think you should also do a year-end wrap-up of the best Freebie applications you've written about this year; my votes would go to Schoolhouse and MagiCal, both for making me a MUCH more productive student than I have been in the past.

That Plain Boy

I guess one person's "improvement" is another person's "failure". I own a Mac Mini and a MacBook Pro. I got a free upgrade to Leopard when it was released. What a waste. After 3 days of struggling to see what applications were open on the glass dock, or straining my eyes to see menu options in the translucent menu bar, I went back to 10.4. I usually love Apple's take on UI design, but I have got to give this round of OS eye candy to Microsoft Vista. Say what you will about the underlying operating system's stability, but the eye candy is very well thought out. When you maximize a window, the translucent borders of the window and the taskbar become opaque, getting rid of that nasty eye strain associated with OS X.5. I do believe Microsoft screwed up more things than they got right in Vista, but they beat OS X.5 in eye candy, in my opinion. But again, one person's "improvement" is another person's "failure".

Good call on VMware Fusion though. After suffering through Parallels 3.whatever freezing my machine or beachballing, I've switched to VMware Fusion and I have never been happier. It's nice to see VMware come out with such a strong product for a 1.0.

One application that I really feel has improved and has made my life sooooo much easier is Spb PocketPlus 4.0 for Windows Mobile phones. 4.0 has introduced so many great features, like finger scrolling in the crappy mobile Internet Explorer or the file manager, that it's quickly become an indispensable tool for me. Also, being able to integrate Spb Weather and Spb PhoneSuite in to tabs under PocketPlus saves precious Today screen real estate.

msisaac

It's between Leopard and VMware Fusion for me. It works insanely better than Parallels and does not bog down the system. VMware+spaces = glad panda.

Kaiser-Machead

I'd include Adobe Lightroom (and Aperture 1.5 for last year). And maybe Adobe CS3?

Cameron

is gutsy gibbon that much of an improvement over feisty fawn? Another question for ubuntu users... I've got feisty fawn on an older PC which works ok, but I still mainly boot to windows on it - can I upgrade to latest ubuntu through its own interface or do I have to reinstall it? If I reinstall will all my settings be lost?

Fierock

IE7 is 2006 stuff.

Victor V.

How about IE7?

Oh I missed the IMPROVED part.

daybringer

My vote goes to Yahoo Pipes. I'm not hardcore geek so it took me a while to get the basics (thank you tutorials). But I've got all sorts of searches and filters in place. It is great for Craigslist.

Kaobear

What about VISTA! Oops! There's always SP1, or 2, or 3. We all felt the same way about XP in the early days. 2000. Now that was an operating system.

philosopher_dog

Thanks for keeping the comments on THE MINT page.

People deserve to see more than the marketing hype and understand the real risks. Wells Fargo protects my on-line account from fraud, but not if I give someone else my password. I'm sure other banks are similar.

aeronaut

I've been using mint for a few months now, and i'm very happy with it. I don't have to check all my separate accounts and deal with those websites' terrible interfaces.

good job :)

devinburn

GMail made me stop hating Webbased email (former Hotmail user and Yahoo mail user) It gets my #1.

Thanks Lifehacker for the mention of Mint! I had never heard of this before and now I'm signing up for it!

jquack

We all have different eyes and levels of vision and such, but I don't see how the translucent bars and drop menus are illegible. I've gone through so many different backgrounds and applications and never has it affected my visibility or been fatiguing.

But anyway, I think AOL deserves a little attention for the great looking beta builds they've been releasing for Mac. The application has not changed in a long time, and up until now has been a PPC app that was prone to crashing. I guess it can't officially be mentioned for anything since it is still only a beta. But it's really really nice to use, and is a lot lighter on the resources, and IMO a great deal better to install and load up than the Windows version.

Kaiser-Machead

@ CHUCKLEBUCK : Thanks!

@ SOUL_GRIND : We haven't got the GMail-Zoho functionality yet. Will try having it soon.

arvindnatarajan

@Ace in the Hole:
you probably have not tried the new features yet, perhaps that's why you rag on leopard? I'm not a mac fanboy, I use both mac and pc and am as objective as I can be. Leopard, I love b/c of its faster spotlight, and also its Time Machine. I no longer fret about backups. It was a chore before. Spaces is cool too, but it should allow different wallpaper for each space - a major missed feature.

qrius

Microsoft Office??? Are you smoking crack? That POS doesn't offer any leg up for the average user, and the interface went to total crap. Not only did I have to retrain the office, but almost all the computer began to have problems, crashes, random document changes. I say no way to Office ... oh, and it still doesn't run on Linux and there hasn't been an update for OS-X in YEARS!!!

And where is CS3? Adobe made leaps and bounds of changes with going into CS3, it's a far better product then it's ever been. And the compatibility with Intel Macs was a huge relief for CS3 users.

Why Ubuntu? The over-hyped Linux distro still doesn't have native support for Mac wireless networking or video cards. Gotta go out and find poorly written documents on how to install ndiswrapper or some other junk. I think Sabayon is worth taking a look at for their efforts.

And sorry, Leopard doesn't deserve to be listed. My Mac boots up just the same as it did on 10.4 ... things run faster now but ... whoopie!

Gmail? Puh-leez! It should have had IMAP to begin with, and so what if it uses AIM? It's still total crap in Gmail -- Meebo should be given some praises here.

Guess I'm one of the 6% that thinks none of those things stood out as a favorite.

Ace in the Hole

I like mint alot! but it doesn't support my Paycard from work.

Other than that, Id vote Leopard (even tho it really feels the same as 10.4) or VMWARE Fusion.

teqsun.com

I've been loving Q10 (one of those full-screen word processors) -- when I need to make notes for a presentation or kick out the first draft of a newsletter article, it helps to reduce the distraction to as close as 0 as possible.

epersonae

my vote is for gutsy and grandcentral

but where's quicksilver?

and wtf? MS Office???

emmetp

Office gets my vote. Only took about 10 minutes of hardcore searching, but everything is intuitively located. The only things I have to hunt now, are those commands that I don't often use.

cerulgalactus

Have you MS Office naysayers even tried it for more than 5 seconds of looking at screenshots of it? The tab/ribbon combination is quite an outstanding IMPROVEMENT to the interface. It's clean and organized, fast and efficient. Why defend MS Office you might wonder? Because Office 2003 was a pain for my freshman English papers. Office 2007 has been a dream.

Webran61

I know its popular to trash Vista, but I just built a new computer with Vista and I love it. As with any new operating system it takes a bit to get your bearings and find out where they hid all settings. But I haven't had a single crash or stability issue. And the security really is better than XP (provided you are smart enough to turn it on, they disabled the outgoing firewall by default because too many beta testers complained).

People always complain about Vista being a resource hog, but this is far from the truth, it is aggressive with your resources, it uses almost all your RAM all the time, but it is real good about shuffling it around to where it is needed most. Unused resources are wasted resources. This aggressive use of your system actually makes it much faster than XP for a lot of things because it learns what you do and then preloads stuff into your ram so it pops right up.

The only complaint I have is that a few old games don't run well, but if I had gotten ultimate I could have installed an XP virtual machine to take care of that too.

I think most people who have problems with vista are either confused because they can't figure it out (it is substantially different than all previous versions of windows which changed by itty-bitty steps each new release) or are trying to run it on an old computer with old software. If your computer/software is more than 2 years old, vista isn't for you (many businesses fall in this category), but otherwise you have nothing to worry about.

So I know I'm going to be trashed for this but one vote for Vista.

9house

MS Office 2007 as most improved office suite? Lettuce was more improved in 2007 than MS Office. Lifehacker has completely lost all credibility with me.

JohnW

@JohnW: Ouch! We can agree to disagree, can't we? Like I said, the Office improvements take time to grow on you.

@emmetp: Quicksilver didn't launch or significantly upgrade this year, so it was out of the running. Doesn't mean we don't love it, though. :)

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker Editor

I'll probably get around to checking out Mint one of these days, but I've really liked ClearCheckbook.com

cu_shane

@arvindnatarajan:

You're welcome, and thank you and the Zoho team for all the hard work!

chucklebuck

The Office 2007 improvements were very impressive, in my opinion. It did have some small learning curve, but after you get used to it, you'll never go back to Office 2003 or another Office suite again.

Dooga

Wow, people can be jerks over a difference in opinion.

Mint is awesome.

hominidx

Office 2007 FTW! I used to despise using older versions of Office, especially of Word, until I got 2007. The interface changes are wonderful, text rendering is clear and gorgeous, and the ribbon has made locating features and functions much easier. All of the little weirdnesses that used to plague my old documents have vanished, and I've never had a crash or an error, unlike with every other Office and "office" suite I've used. I couldn't ever go back to any other office suite after using Office 2007 for over six months.

lizzybee

@xxdesmus: Oh, no! I was about to say that myself, actually. I don't really see Leopard as being #1 anything. Aside from not being a Mac user, I just don't think OSes should be qualified for these kinds of lists. Let's focus on products, shall we?

That goes for Gutsy Gibbon as well, BTW.

voyagerfan5761

my vote goes to OneNote 2007. How I ever got anything done without it is beyond me (it has changed my environment from piles of notebooks and paper and post-it notes to a nice clean space with a potted plant on the side).

Also for Adobe Lightroom, which has changed the way I deal with digital photos, and just keeps getting better and better (although, was that a 2006 product?)

Al Iguana

@lizzybee: Office 2007: One word: Ew. 2003 does it for me; I don't want to re-learn the interface. Remind me again why Microsoft is suddenly doing away with toolbars? (IE7, Office 2007...)

voyagerfan5761

It has been asked before, but since there hasn't been any reaction from LHs side, let me state this again: can you PLEASE tell your readers if something (like Mint) is US only? Saves a lot of time for your international readers.

Toschi

I don't think Gmail should be included, considering the upgrade is only available to US users at the moment......

prupert

fotoflo: err, webmail encryption

fotoflo

My Vote is for WebmailSafety 2.0b, By GWEBS, www.gwebs.com. A new encryption app designed to use with Gmail, hotmail, and all the other webmails. its high time webmail came to the masses!

fotoflo

I am not a regular so hope my opinions matter:

Zoho: Not ever gonna be using any webbased office suites, unless in extreme case and when in real hurry and only for something that does not contain any personal or company's info.

Joost: An American service, so enjoy it, while it's free. I don't live there.

Mint: Not in my life. No sensitive information should ever go on the internet. Full stop. Unless some don't like their money?

Vmware fusion: Have not used it yet.

Office 2007: Perhaps one of those best things, that sometimes happen in life. With the colorful tables, I finally spent time making a good resume and landed a good job with it. Now wish me luck to do the job well too.

gmail: ComeOn, step it up man, it's still so boring. the label thing just does not cut it. stop trying to be different and do the right & already proven success thing and let us have our own folders? will ya? And if you are so adamant on giving us color labels, then at least increase the # of colors. what are you?? color blind?

Ubuntu: sorry, for novices like us, either help us from A to Z to get it working or shut up. We don't need it, if we can't use it. Good clear precise and step by step instructions for all functions are still nowhere to be found. The only Linux I ever got to use for few hours and surfed the internet with was mandriva. So step up ubuntu.

Grand Central: Again an American service. Not for us.

Google gears: not used it. Probably won't.

Leopard: Apple can give it to me for free, and I will try to put it on my windows box after I partition it. If not then I have no need for it. There's nothing that my good ol windows box can not do, that apple does or does it better and yes I have used Apple for long time.

Also other worthy of mention causes..:

Yahoo: I highly recommend everyone never to use it. After changing password, won't let me log in and they are asking me what is my birth date? like I would actually remember the fake birth date I gave them 8 year ago? get a life, Ass**hol**. Moved all my emails from the remaining 3 accounts to gmail. gmail just asks you answer to your secret question and you are let to set a new password. thank you gmail.

Hotmail: Slow and unfriendly towards attachments. New interface and colors are very nice though.

Vista: Been using it for 6 months, love the eye candy and no problems at all so far. Epson won't release a vista driver for their US50$ scanner. so I am never buying Epson again. It's not Vista's fault, now is it?

Adobe CS3: Em. I can't for the life of me understand the price tag of almost 2,000US$. It should be more like 200-300US$ at most. And yes no operating system should cost more than 100-150US$'s.

Don't you guys agree? We are being robbed by these people with all this eye candy.

mohkahn

gotta be Launchy! ... most useful app since Total Commander.

dublinjames

I am honestly blown away that you guys chose Leopard as your most-improved OS, given the Vista-esque troubles that a lot of people are having with it.

I do like that Office 2k7 got some mention - I really prefer the ribbon interface over the old top-menu-driven-style of previous versions (and OO.o).

Erwos

@PRUPERT: Not true - I'm in Denmark and have been enjoying the upgraded interface for some weeks now.

bosworth

My vote goes to Jott www.jott.com

They've built links to so many other web services (Remember the Milk, Google Calendar, all kinds of blog sites, Zillow and more). Not a day goes by where I don't uses Jott to keep track of my life.

beau.raines

@MOHKAHN - "sorry, for novices like us, either help us from A to Z to get it working or shut up. We don't need it, if we can't use it. Good clear precise and step by step instructions for all functions are still nowhere to be found. The only Linux I ever got to use for few hours and surfed the internet with was mandriva. So step up ubuntu."

Ubuntu is designed for novices like you as well as the more sophisticated Linux users. It is very easy to use and actually probably the easiest of all the Linux distros. As far as step by step instructions....try going to the forums if you can't find instructions, you can find every answer that a novice would be asking. I suggest you download the Gutsy Live CD and play around with it before ragging on it. With the live CD you don't have to install anything just to play around in the OS.

Hard to have an opinion when you have never used it :-/

siblog

I appreciated a lot :

rememberthemillk.com with googlegears

As to grand central it may be grand BUT it is USA central :-(

As opposed to all other apps you distinguished.

I'm sorry for you lifehackers but your audience is world wide (I'm french in France) and the fact that it is only for America make that app not comparable with others in your short list

Thibault

@mohkahn:
on labels comment: many of us see labaling (tagging) to be an approvement over folders. Opera started this with the in-build mail client and I'd never want to go back..

on your Ubuntu comment: Ubuntu (and other distributions) are alot easier to use (and install) for beginners than XP. People seem to forget that beginners are stranded with XP, too, if they don't have a helpful friend who configures it for them. Just yesterday I needed to remaster an XP-CD (including certain drivers) just to get it to recognize the hard-drives. A beginner would be lost there.
Ubuntu usually just works out-of-the-box. And if not you just head to an Ubuntu-Wiki/-Forum in your language and get step-by-step instructions from the friendliest community I have seen so far. Anyway.. the point is: if you are satisfied with what you have, stick with it. If not, try something else and use the available help.

rawfan

@Fierock:
I haven't reinstalled Ubuntu since its first release in 2004. Upgrading (usually) works just fine. There could be problems if you messed around with external repositories replacing too many of the original Ubuntu packages.

As for improvements: Check out the Lifehacker article ;) There are some UI improvements,it boots alot faster on my machine and if you want a fully integrated compiz with nice effects and usibility improvements, Gutsy is the way to go.

rawfan

@Siblog and At RawFan: Thanks to you both.

I will give it another shot one of these days. Currently I got burned (recently) CD's of gos and Ubuntu 7.10. ubuntu CD is not even starting on my vista, while vista is running that is.

Yes I have tried many different versions, at one point (about 1 year ago) i burned 20 different distros of linux, and the closest I got to a running system as informed b4 was with mandriva.

i gave up on ubuntu after many repeated attempts on trying to get it on the net using dsl/adsl model, the configuration were utterly alien and it was user unfriendly to say the least.

it was a pain to install any programs on it, could not play music, video.

anyway, will give it a shot one of these days. no software like free software, but time unfortunately is not free.

mohkahn

Ubunbtu can be upgraded from it's own upgrade manager. Will take around an hour i'd imagine if it has to download lots of files.

I hate MS, but the office 2007 UI improvements were a very welcome surprise. I understand why some people don't like change, but you have to bear in mind that PREVIOUS OFFICE APPS HAD THE WORST UI EVER.
Anything would have been an improvement, but they actually did a pretty good job.

soul_grind

Maybe I'm the oddball- but I think Leopard is worthy of #1. Disclaimer- I was a lifelong Windows snob. Vista came out and I realized (finally) that I was just getting strung along by MS. Happily, there was an option and it had pretty much everything Vista lacked (stability and performance).

Moral of the story- never get married to an operating system. Never.

nat lyon

@erwos - "I am honestly blown away that you guys chose Leopard as your most-improved OS, given the Vista-esque troubles that a lot of people are having with it."

you are misled by the few people that have had "Vista-esque" troubles with Leopard who have a big voice. on top of that the major problems like BSOD were due to 3rd party applications which Apple can no way have control over.

I think that anyone who is not a Mac user, cannot comment on whether Leopard should be on the list, or that it should not be #1. There are ground breaking features for an operating system including an intuituve backup with Time Machine, which Microsoft will be copying im sure for their next release.

Don't get me wrong im a long time PC user as well, I just believe that Apple has done a fantastic job with their product and it is being recognized for that. Quicklook alone imo, is enough to buy Leopard.

wiiittttt

Most improved application of the year? Adobe Coldfusion 8 without a doubt. All that ajax goodness empowers developers.

rmason

What about the Adobe Flash player as a runtime... Now runs on Linux and capable of playing HD video.

Definitely most improved video experience

arpit

Not having tried Office 2007 yet (our organization will roll it out this summer), I've been very happy with 2003 and feel like MS hit a sweet spot in terms of stability and functionality. Regardless, web apps are the future in terms of offering basic features that most users can get by with. Office Live had better grow into offering online capabilities in addition to collaboration!

acmorton

I bought Novamind Pro, i was searching a Mindmap program with binaires for Mac and PC. A perfect buy for me.

Viandelle

Yay for a new Ubuntu! I tried an older version about two years ago and alas, it wasn't what I was looking for at the time.

However, this may finally be what sends me over the edge into Linux-land and therefore, I will be spending the better part of this next week in different levels of crying, laughing and swearing...and possibly all at the same time.

Aside from that, I do like the changes Google made to Gmail. Their interface is still rather plain, and to be honest, I prefer it that way...it loads quickly on nearly every computer I've logged in on (as opposed to Yahoo/Hotmail), and that alone wins my loyalty.

jaydei

I've been using Mint for a long time, and while I initially had some misgivings about offering up my banking information, I'm glad I did. It makes it easier to track where I'm wasting my money (anyone else have gas stations top the list?) and even tells me how I rank against other people with regard to largest expenditures, and if I recall correctly, offers solutions, like linking to a Vonage promotion that would save me money if I switched from Verizon. I'm sure they make money somehow if I chose to switch, but I personally that kind of targeted advertising is awesome and welcome. The interface is pretty cool too, I manage my personal checking/savings through BofA, business checking/savings through USBank, and PayPal/money market account through them, and it really makes it easier to have all that info in one place. as opposed to logging into all those websites and crunching my own numbers. Maybe I'm just lazy, but it gives me more time to focus on other issues, like battling a recent influx of mortgage spam and telemarketers. I just thought a Mint user's insight might be welcome amid all this paranoia.. The comment about banks not offering fraud protection if you give up your password is interesting, though..

Jo3y

Well, I can't vote having never used any of the above.

Still no Gmail 2.0 for so many, no IMAP. I'm sure it's as wonderful as you all say it is.

pickupnits

The one on the list that was the biggest improvement for me was Microsoft Office 2007. The new OOXML formats (docx, xlsx, pptx, etc.) were a pain, but the interface, at least for me, is a major improvement as well as several features that were either new or I could not find in the old Office.

The learning curve is much smaller than the old interface, though as of now, most Office users are so used to the old interface that this becomes a null point. But for me, at least, it makes it easier to find functions and also, as a laptop user, it makes it much easier to use the program without much mouse/trackpad involvement because the Alt key shortcuts are so much more readable in the ribbon format than the menu format, which really gives the best of both toolbars and menus.

Other than that, the only others on the list that I've used for a significant amount of time are GrandCentral, Gmail, and Google Gears, of which Gmail is the only one I've used on a daily basis, and I didn't think that Gmail 2.0 improved the interface in such a way that my experience improved significantly, so I'm going to stick with Office 2007.

MengBomin

Mine would have to be Windows Vista..and yea im a fanboy... of course my most used app on Vista , Process Explorer. The Windows Live apps are looking promising aswell....expect a new app from Microsoft soon bringing back the Microsoft MAX features....I have to add that Visual Studio 2008 is awesome and Windows Server 2008 is even sexier than Vista, cant wait for Vista SP1 to go RTM so we get the server 2008 kernel...cant wait..(kisses his 89 shares of Microsoft)...

HBX

The interesting thing to me about office is how they redesigned it to be much more like the Adobe products. When you choose an object or tool, the associated commands come up on the ribbon. The same is true in office!

If you like Creative Suite, you should like office 2007...

lineweaver

Ubuntu - I can't compare it to previous ubuntu distributions, but to other linux offerings it is a vast improvement. An old IBM A30 laptop took it on with little complaint. Thanks for pointing it out.
It's not completely there yet, but close.

The first linux distro I tried was from Softlanding back in '92. (on 14 floppies)

aeronaut

Leopard is too buggy and extremely rough around the edges for a product that was delayed many months (not to mention there finite number of machine combinations it has to work on compared to the regular office slag - Windows)...

Anyone noticed the window jitter that occurs when you open the first window in Finder? Close all the windows and try it... And then what about it's warped view on how and when to remember window settings? Change one window, change them all!?! Sure you can set some to be 'sticky' but it's a bit of a chore...

And the coup de grâce? I can't burn a single DVD... I'm getting coasters left, right and center... And I'm not alone: [discussions.apple.com]

encosion

@calebc: Try GnuCash...it's available for GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows and it's open source.

BruceMagnus