After a week, I have found that Leopard is fantastic... there are several really nice additions to the OS that make it worth the upgrade.  (and from what I have read, many more reasons will be revealed when software is released that take advantage of many of Leopard's under the hood new features...):

Here are some of the features I wanted to highlight...

<strong>Spaces:</strong>

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/blogpix/Leopard_001.jpg" width="510" />

This is my favorite new feature.  This is not something that hasn't been done before (most Linux distros have it but I never got it to work in Ubuntu 7.04) but Leopard makes it easy.   Applications can be assigned to a specific space, so when the application is launched, it opens in that Space and then you are automatically switched to that space.

<strong>Photobooth updates:</strong>

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/blogpix/Leopard_002.jpg" width="510" />

These are cool... although, to make the backgrounds work, a really good lighting and a smooth background behind you are needed.  I had to go upstairs to where I had a good smooth wall behind me and then it worked great.  You can see some of the ones I made on the bottom of the window.

<strong>Finder:</strong>

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/blogpix/Leopard_003.jpg" width="510" />

The new Finder is really cool.  There are a few features of the new finder that make it great... one is CoverFlow (shown above).  The same concept as CoverFlow in iTunes... but when I first heard of this, I thought it would be really cheesy, but it seems as if this a really great way to look at your files, particularly media files because it shows you a live preview of the file.

<strong>QuickLook (in Finder):</strong>

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/blogpix/Leopard_004.jpg" width="510" />

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/blogpix/Leopard_005.jpg" width="510" />

Quicklook allow you to view any file without opening an application.  This makes it easy to find out what is in a file without the hassle of opening an application.  This includes documents (such as a text file in the first example) and even media files (such as the .MP4 shown in the second example).  Yes, that is me playing the drums!

Preview:

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/blogpix/Leopard_006.jpg" height="366" width="532" />

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/blogpix/Leopard_007.jpg" height="409" width="328" />

The new preview allows you to do some new things such as resizing photos and adjusting photos.  Very simple editing tools, but good enough for most users.  It also allows powerful .PDF editing tools.   This has allowed me to dump my image editor, Seashore, since mostly what I did with it was resize images for the web.

Time Machine:

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/blogpix/Leopard_008.jpg" width="510" />

Time Machine (in conjunction with  an external hard drive) can backup all of your files on a daily basis and makes it simpler to find any files that you might have modified or deleted and quickly recover them.  The UI is sort of cheesy, but it works great.

Stacks:

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/blogpix/Leopard_009.jpg" width="510" />

This allows any folder in the Dock to show it's contents either in a fan or in a grid.  I seem to prefer the grid.  The one gripe about is that the folders show the icon of the first item in the folder on top of the folder... where I'd rather just see the folder.  Hopefully, Apple fixes this....

<strong>Front Row:</strong>

It wouldn't let me do a screen capture of it, but it now has the same interface as the AppleTV and that, to me, is ultra-cool...

<strong>Desktop:</strong>

<img src="http://www.mmolenda.com/leopard/macbook_leopard.jpg" width="510" />

Some people complain about the new dock (the 3D look) and the translucent menu bar... but neither of these has presented a problem to me thus far.  I like the look of the new dock and the translucent menu bar has not bothered me as of yet.  It might depend on the background chosen.

So, thus far, I have had no issues with any of my previously installed applications, so far...so good.  Leopard gets two big thumbs up from me!