When it comes to computer operating systems, we’re all looking for something that’s easier to use with more advanced features that make day-to-day living simpler and business more productive. Pacific News Bytes takes a look at two systems that hope to revolutionize computing in both arenas.

Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 — The new Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 has lots to offer with more than 300 new features. Here are a few highlights, courtesy of Apple:

On the desktop: For starters, do you ever get frustrated with a cluttered desktop? One of the new features in Leopard are stacks. A stack is a Dock item that gives you fast access to a folder of files. When you click a stack, the files within spring from the Dock in a fan or a grid, depending on the number of items (or the preference you set). Leopard starts you off with two pre-made stacks: one for downloads and the other for documents. The downloads stack automatically captures files downloaded from Safari, Mail, and iChat, and the documents stack is a great place to keep things like presentations, spreadsheets and word processing files. You can create as many stacks as you wish simply by dragging folders to the right side of your Dock.

Take a Quick Look: Using Quick Look in Leopard, you can view the contents of a file without even opening it. If you’re looking for something specific and you don’t have time to open lots of files to find it, enter Quick Look. It gives you a sneak peek of entire files — even multiple-page documents and video — without opening them. Quick Look works with nearly every file on your system, including images, text files, PDF documents, movies, Keynote presentations, Mail attachments, and Microsoft Word and Excel files. Just tap the Space bar to see a file in Quick Look or click the Quick Look icon in the Finder window (if it’s not there already, add it by selecting Customize Toolbar from the View menu in the Finder). Then click the arrow icon to see the same file full screen — even video as it plays.

The Finder: Browsing files on your Mac is now as easy as browsing music in iTunes. That’s the idea behind the new Finder in Leopard. Now you can actually see your files in the Finder — not just as icons, but as they really look. Using Cover Flow, you can flip through your documents as easily as you flip through album art in iTunes. Cover Flow displays each file as a large preview of its first page, and you can click through multipage documents or play movies.

With shared computers automatically displayed in the sidebar, you can find files on any Mac or PC on your network. You can even use Spotlight and Cover Flow when you search another Mac. When you click a connected Mac, you can use screen sharing (if authorized, of course) — which lets you do anything you could do if you were sitting in front of that computer. Change a system preference, publish an iPhoto album, or add a new playlist to iTunes.

Also from the Finder or the menu bar, Spotlight in Leopard lets you search for more specific sets of things. Use Boolean logic to narrow search results by entering “AND,” “OR”, or “NOT” in a search request. Search for exact phrases using quotation marks, or search for items by dates or ranges using > and < symbols.

New Mail: Mail for Leopard features more than 30 professionally designed stationery templates that make a virtual keepsake out of every email you send. From invitations to birthday greetings, stationery templates feature coordinated layouts, fonts, colors, and drag-and-drop photo placement from your iPhoto library — everything to help you get your point across. You can even create personalized templates. Messages created with stationery in Mail use standard HTML that can be read by popular webmail services and email programs on both Mac computers and PCs.

The new Mail also includes: If you subscribe to an RSS feed in Mail and you’ll know the moment an article or blog post hits the wire. You can choose to have new articles appear in your inbox alongside your latest email messages. Use Smart Mailboxes to organize incoming news articles according to search terms that pique your interest. Mail shares its unread RSS feed count with HYPERLINK "http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/safari.html"Safari, so your reading list always stays in sync. And say you get an email invitation to dinner. Leopard Mail can recognize the address of the restaurant and let you map directions or it lets you click once to save the date in your iCal calendar.

Parental controls: Using the same technology that keeps your inbox free of junk mail, a new content filter in Leopard takes a quick peek at websites before they load and tries to determine if they’re suitable for kids. If not, Leopard blocks them from view. You can override this filter by creating lists of specific websites you want — or don’t want — your children to see. In addition, many kids would sit at the computer for days if you let them. Fortunately, Leopard makes it easier to set the rules. Just enter bedtime and time limits for using the Mac, specifying different times for weekdays and weekends if you wish. Parents happy, kids happy (relatively). With Leopard, your Mac also logs your kids’ activities to help you keep them from communicating with people they shouldn’t be. The log keeps track of websites your kids have visited, applications they’ve used, and people they’ve chatted with. It’s the perfect way to make sure your children stay safe online. You can access the parental controls and monitor logs remotely from any Mac on the network.

The Time Machine. Time Machine is the breakthrough automatic backup that’s built right into Mac OS X. It keeps an up-to-date copy of everything on your Mac — digital photos, music, movies, TV shows, and documents. Now, if you ever have the need, you can easily go back in time to recover anything. Time Machine backs up your system files, applications, accounts, preferences, music, photos, movies, and documents. But what makes Time Machine different from other backup applications is that it not only keeps a spare copy of every file, it remembers how your system looked on a given day — so you can revisit your Mac as it appeared in the past. Enter the Time Machine browser in search of your long-lost files and you see exactly how your computer looked on the dates you’re browsing. Select a specific date, let Time Machine find your most recent changes, or do a Spotlight search to find exactly what you’re looking for. Use Quick Look to verify the file’s contents if you wish. Then click Restore and Time Machine brings it back to the present. Time Machine restores individual files, complete folders, iPhoto libraries, and Address Book contacts. You can even use Time Machine to restore your entire computer if need be. Time Machine saves the hourly backups for the past 24 hours, daily backups for the past month, and weekly backups for everything older than a month.

Windows Vista — Windows Vista boasts a breakthrough design, easy-to-use search and organization tools, and a safe online experience. The built-in Windows® Media Center(1) and new mobility features give users more ways to enjoy their favorite digital entertainment at home or on the go. Windows Vista was built to help make everyday PC tasks such as starting up a computer and finding files, faster and easier. Highlights of Windows Vista, courtesy of Microsoft:

Finding stuff fast: Instant Search helps users locate any document, photo, e-mail message, song, video, file or program on their PC with ease. Live Icons, which display a thumbnail of the contents of each file, help users find what they are looking for at a glance. Windows Flip 3D, available in Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Ultimate, gives users a new way to find the window they want by quickly flipping through all open windows in a 3-D stacked view.

Staying organized: Users can add personal “tags” to their files to make them easier to find. They can store, organize and retrieve information in ways that make the most sense to them — not just in traditional file folders.

Quick access: New technology in Windows Vista makes the PC significantly more responsive when performing every day tasks. Improved startup and sleep performance helps desktop and mobile PCs get up and running more quickly and turn off and on in a snap.

Consistent responsiveness: Inconsistency in PC performance can be frustrating. Windows Vista provides innovative technologies including a new memory management system called Windows SuperFetch that enables applications to launch much more quickly when users start their machines and ensures that these applications will continue to be responsive when it matters most.

Focus on tasks: Available in the Home Premium, Business and Ultimate editions of Windows Vista, the new Windows Areo™ user experience provides a translucent computing surface. Graphics, pictures and other content spring to life on the glasslike windows, which also remove distracting on-screen clutter.

According to Microsoft, Windows Vista is the most secure and reliable version of Windows that Microsoft Corp. has ever shipped, granting every owner of this software a more safe, secure online experience.

Layered security: Windows Vista offers multiple layers of defense that work together, including strong default protections, such as Protected Mode in Windows Internet Explorer® 7 in Windows Vista. Protected Mode helps prevent silent installations of malicious code. To help further reduce identity theft and increase user confidence in Web transactions, the Internet Explorer 7 Address Bar will display a green highlight when it detects that a user is visiting a safe Web site with a new Extended Validation Certificate.

Protection against phishing: Windows Vista helps block “phishing” Web sites that try to trick people into divulging personal information. The Microsoft Phishing Filter combines client-side scans for suspicious Web site characters with an opt-in online service that is updated several times an hour with the latest industry information about fraudulent Web sites.

Family Safety Settings: Windows Vista provides parents with a new level of control over their children’s computer use. If they choose to, parents can do the following: set limits on what time of day and for how long children can use the computer, limit the Web sites children can visit and the applications they can use, restrict PC games, and create reports that detail their children’s online activities and other computer use.

Now on the fun side, Windows Vista has made it easier for people to manage and enjoy their growing collections of digital music, photos, movies and other entertainment. In addition, Windows Vista lets people enjoy their digital entertainment and other resources virtually wherever they go.

Extending the experience: Windows Media Center(3) in Windows Vista lets people share their digital music, TV, pictures and other entertainment throughout the home or stream it to an Xbox 360 console.

Hitting the road: Tablet PC features(4) in Windows Vista lets people take their entire computing experience on the road and eliminate many of the challenges typically associated with mobile computing. Users can work without a keyboard and keep information synchronized between home, office and mobile devices. They can watch a TV show, review their photo collection or edit a home video on their mobile PC.