Apple has been hyping Panther for awhile now. I pre-ordered it and paid the extra for 2-day shipping so that I would get it on Friday (the first say it was available). Unfortunately, it spent 16 hours sitting in a “container” in the FedEx facilities in Memphis, TN and arrived a day late. (I am sure I am not the only one that experienced this. My brother’s copy was delayed in the same place for the same time.) I hung around in Wausau on Saturday until it was delivered and then headed to my mom’s house.

Matt had already driven up on Friday and didn’t get a chance to grab his copy, but he brought his PowerBook up with him. With my discs, we would be able to install it on both of our PowerBooks.

Matt had also brought his wireless router and had it working before I got there. Within an hour of my arrival my poor mom was treated to both of her sons sitting at the kitchen counter hunched over their PowerBooks. We started up the Panther upgrade process and left the house to do other things. When we got back, we finished up the installs and took Panther for a test drive.

I have to admit, Exposé is cooler than I thought. Right now it’s just a neat toy for me, but I can tell that it’s going to be indispensable soon. The worst part is that I don’t think there’s anything like it in the Windows world which will make using my work computer very annoying. Oh well, I am sure that Microsoft will rip it off and put it in Longhorn, in some form or another. The other feature that I am loving is the new Finder windows. Navigation is a lot easier. There’s plenty of other neat toys too. It should be fun to find them.

On the down side, my keyboard still won’t light up and I have the “white spots” on my screen. I hear that the Apple Store is really good about swapping out hardware, so I will probably wait until I hear that Apple has a good solution for the “white spots” and then I’ll head to Milwaukee.