If you have tons of photos and music files, you'll like the fact that Panther lets you easily access them on the network. In Panther, each folder has a sidebar with shortcuts to help you quickly jump around the local hard drive and also to any other linked computers. The compatibility works in the other direction too: I've actually placed a shortcut on my Windows desktop that provides easy double-click access to all of the Mac's files.

File sharing doesn't stop there. If you have iTunes running on both computers, and you activate the sharing function in the iTunes Preferences menu, you can stream whole libraries back and forth. This means you can finally sneak the Eminem and Linkin Park you've been dying to sample, while your kids can get that taste of Ella singing the Cole Porter Songbook. You know they want it.

Panther's crowning glory for, uh, mixed households is the Windows Printing feature. When configuring a printer on the Mac, you can actually browse to your Windows PC and pick the printer that it's connected to. Panther comes with a lot of printer drivers already in memory, although you may have to install software or call tech support to get your pages to print out properly.

In fact, you may end up calling tech support several times to whip your Macs and PCs into a harmonious state. They're not as bad as cats and dogs, but they sometimes need nudges in the right direction. I experienced several communication breakdowns where I had to call in the negotiators. Of course, anyone with a home network already knows this: it's very reminiscent of trying to network older Windows PCs to each other.

Panther's other features are more dramatic, like Exposé, which lets you momentarily clear the whole desktop, or have a look at every single open window all at once, with the touch of a function key; Preview, a lightning-fast PDF viewer that also does JPEGs; FileVault for encrypting your stuff, and protecting old data even when your computer has become a hand-me-down; and iDisk, the online storage system, now saves a mirror image to your own hard drive for easier access and management. And there are more.

Bottom line for the Mac users: it only gets better from here on in. Bottom line for Windows people: getting a Mac doesn't mean switching. It just means having a little more fun.

Note: The Apple PowerMac G5 is one of the products featured in our Tech Buyer's Guide.