It's almost time for Mac OS 10.2, or Jaguar, to start shipping, and Brett Larson got his paws on a copy. On today's "Call for Help," he'll give you an overview of what's best in the new release. And over the next few weeks, we'll be showing you how to get the most out of the newest features in Jaguar. But for now, here are a couple things you'll want to note.

There have been quite a few cosmetic changes to OS X. The Aqua interface has been tweaked to give your Mac user interface a cleaner look. A drop shadow has been added to the mouse pointer, the "lollipop" that replaces the mouse pointer when the Mac is busy has been updated, and the buttons have been given a smoother treatment. Even with all of these aesthetic improvements, the graphic rendering is faster than in previous versions.

Jaguar also promises vastly improved Windows networking compatibility. In the short time we've been tinkering with 10.2, we've already noticed huge leaps in connectivity. Our little iMac is finding all the Windows machines, even on nodes we didn't think we could get to. Brett is thoroughly impressed with the VPN support, and was gushing all day when he found out how simple it is to set up.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, folks. Watch "Call For Help" in the coming weeks to learn more about Jaguar. If you haven't tried OS X or version 10.1, we're going to show you what you're missing.