Wednesday's Mountain launch has many Mac users squirming to get home from work so they can update their personal machines to the next major version of OS X. And many are already reading John Siracusa's massive, 26,000-word review of the operating system. But what if you have to actually get work done today and you don't have time yet to spend hours reading about the intricacies of Mountain Lion?

Sometimes it's nice to get a feel for which features to look out for ahead of time, and what better way to do that than through a screenshot tour? So sit back, relax, and grab a cup of coffee while you check out our screenshots highlighting the major features and functionality of Mountain Lion.

Notification Center

Notification Center's settings, found within your System Preferences, allow you to change what kind of alerts show up for different apps, and where.

The "alert" style looks like this:

Notification Center itself looks like Notification Center on iOS, and can be accessed via the icon at the top right of your menu bar.

Reminders

Hallelujah, there's now a Reminders app for the desktop that syncs with iOS!

You can set due dates and even locations for your reminders, which can use your current location or pull addresses from your Contact list.

Notes

Just like Reminders, Apple has now added a standalone Notes app to OS X (pulling it out of Mail, where it previously lived) that syncs with your iOS devices.

Dictation

Siri may not be on the desktop just yet, but Apple has added voice dictation throughout the entire OS. The settings can be found in Dictation & Speech under your System Preferences.

When you enable it, Apple warns you that it will need access to your Contact list in order to properly use your friends' names.

You can invoke the dictation feature by pressing the "fn" key twice (or whatever key combo you set up in the settings), or by going to the Edit menu under any app and scrolling to the bottom where it says "Start Dictation."

The microphone will pop up in any area you can enter text.