Be prepared. For the next couple of weeks I'm sure there will be lots of computing news about Panther, the next version of OS X. For those of you who are running Jaguar (OS X 10.2) and wondering if this update is worth the $129 pricetag, I have to give a big big YES.

So what's so great about it? Even though it's just going from 10.2 to 10.3 Apple has really crammed a lot into this release. Now there's a lot of stuff on their list that I think should have been there to begin with, but there's a lot of other stuff there too. One thing they seem to be doing is paying attention to the unix world. Here's just some of the apps that i've noticed on OS X client (some of these were there before I believe, but I know others weren't.):

• fetchmail
• procmail
• postfix
• python
• ruby
• tcl

One feature I've been liking is in Mail.app's support of S/MIME. I now have a certificate and sign all my emails with it. I've even tried out the encryption features of it and it's pretty keen. The other is Expose. Expose is a program for working lots of windows on your desktop (read the above link for a much better explaination than I could give). When I first read about it, I thought it sounded a little unimpressive, like just another kind of application switcher. It that, but it's probably one of the best ones I've used, it's just too cool.

For a roundup of a bunch of other cool things, check out this article over at O'Reilly's MacDevCenter about 10 cool in Panther.