Main view - app is accessible through the menubar.

Cobook is a new Address Book application for Mac OS X that makes use of popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Voice to provide unparalleled functionality.

By using information stored in the cloud, it automatically adds and updates relevant information to your contacts.

You can set it up to sync Address Book.app and, if you’re an iCloud user, all your contacts will be available on your iOS devices. If you have lots of contacts, keeping your contacts up-to-date can be a daunting task to do manually – Cobook saves you time and effort. It’s a must have, and it’s completely free.

The original iPad was an interesting device, and was great for consuming media. Tech pundits pointed this out numerous times and pondered whether Apple was intentionally trying to stifle ‘creation’ by popularising such a device. I can see now the rationale behind the functionality of the first generation iPad. They wanted to create, for starters, a media consumption device, which they nailed. Once that was done, they could focus on adding other functionality, instead of doing both of those at the same time and failing.

It’s an incremental update, much like the updates to the iPod touch and iPhone line. What started as a phone with web browsing and music ended up being the mainstream platform for mobile computing. I’m writing this on my iPod touch and publishing it without the need of a computer, which is pretty awesome for what was 2 years ago an mp3 player. In a way posting from my iPod touch is better than posting from my computer; Safari managed to crash on me while I was writing in WordPress more than once. PlainText has an auto-save feature that automatically syncs what I’m writing to my Dropbox folder.

Once again Apple has successfully pushed computing in the right direction, towards innovation. For all it’s failures in App Store revenue policy, I still think Apple is doing technology and us a big favour.

Mission Control

• The user interface elements are not consistent throughout the OS. Some elements, such as the login window still have remnants of the old UI, which look out of place. While a fresh coat of paint is always something neat and to be expected of a new release, I wouldn’t exactly decide in favor of the new desaturated approach to visual design, or the buttons that look transplanted from GNOME. Don’t get me wrong, GNOME is an awesome window manager, but I’d prefer Aqua any day.
• The new ‘About this Mac’ application is a commendable effort and stays true to the ‘it just works’ mantra.
• Launchpad is buggy, slow and superfluos to desktop computing. I understand that they want to get rid of the Dock, maybe even Finder, but instead of making things easier to access, they implanted a mobile UI paradigm into a full-blown OS. You can fully replace the Dock with Spaces, Mission Control and Launchpad, but why do I need three things to do what one small application does?
• I’ve wanted for so many years to get back to the MS-DOS days of single tasking, and full screen applications do just that. Aside from photo and video editing, which already had full screen views, why would I want to fill my entire screen with just one application? To make use of the Spaces feature and distract myself with beautifully rendered smooth transitions… .
• They’ve implemented Sessions, which means that when you restart, the n-th applications that you had opened, will be restored, which does an amazing job at simulating how time would pass if you were in the accretion disk of a black hole.
• The new Mail app is wonderful from both a design and functionality standpoint. I’m sorry for the developer of Sparrow.app which will have its user-base significantly diminished.
• FileVault had its security significantly boosted, with whole disk encryption now implemented.
• Scrolling is bass-ackwards. They’ve removed the open application Dock indicators by default. The WiFi status icon is always animated, even when connected (AirPort Express) and options like show time connected don’t do anything. You can now reset your account password using an AppleID and use iChat with your Yahoo! Messenger ID. FaceTime is installed by default. Accounts for services like Gmail, Yahoo and MobileMe are available to all applications that make use of the API. For example, if you set up your email account, those settings will be available to chat applications.

A free download from the App Store, PlainText uses your Dropbox account to store and sync plain text files between your computer and mobile devices, anything that works with Dropbox. Because it allows text input from mobile devices, you can use it for everything from to-do lists/reminders, short notes, expenses list, and even writing blog posts on the go (which I’m doing right now). Since it has a local cache and no bells and whistles to drain the battery, it is the perfect companion for the mobile blogger.

Create a stack from your PlainText folder and have every file only a click away.

If you’re proficient enough with the onscreen iPhone keyboard you could easily use this application to take class notes, keep track of homework and anything you can think of. Why carry your MacBook on campus when you could just pack your iPhone or iPod touch? Add a stand, an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and a charger for those long sessions and you’ve got yourself nothing less than a workhorse for modular mobile computing.

Revise your notes on the bus, or write your next novel, PlainText is a stroke of genius that’s there whenever you need it. Get it from the AppStore.

I use a mid-2009 unibody MacBook Pro 13-inch, which has a 2.5Ghz Core 2 Duo, 250GB hard drive, 4GB of RAM, an LED-backlit keyboard and display, with around 5 hours of battery life doing actual work. I use this machine to write for MakeUseOf and Tux Geek, for school assignments, for listening to music and watching movies.

I need to be able to review applications that run on various Linux distributions (mainly Ubuntu) as well as Windows, so having enough horsepower to run another instance of an OS turns out to be very useful. There’s another advantage to using a virtual machine instead of a dual or triple boot setup – I can easily review operating systems, no need to mess with partitions, boot-loaders and corrupted data. I also very much enjoy taking photos and editing them in Adobe’s Lightroom.

I also need Photoshop on a daily basis for cropping, adjusting and compressing screenshots for articles. And while I do all this, I like to have the possibility of listening to music and having a web browser run at a decent speed. So you see, I do actually benefit from having that extra horsepower. Even if I don’t use it to the max today, it’s future-proof. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

• For writing short pieces, mostly under 1000 words, I seldom use anything other than TextMate. TextMate is also the prima-ballerina when it comes to writing any kind of code – CSS, C++ or Python – mainly because of its excellent markup capabilities.
• However, I write longer essays and ebooks in Microsoft Word 2008 because of the extended formatting functionality.
• Apple’s Keynote is a must have for anyone who wants to create beautiful presentations in a snap.
• For web browsing I strongly recommend Google Chrome which works incredibly well on the Mac despite its current beta status. It’s fast, minimal and can be themed.
• Adium is by far your best option if you’re looking for a multi-protocol, versatile instant messaging client. It supports all the major protocols and services you could possibly want. Of course, if you’re looking for VOiP, you’ll want to download Skype.
• Backup?! Who needs backup? Apparently I do. I’ve lost data so many times due to partition errors and various misguided experiments that I lost count. I use Wuala to back up my photos and documents to the cloud for free. I also have Mozy running and doing the same thing. In the unlikely case something happens to the data-center of one of the services, I’m in the clear.
• Parallels 4 works like a charm with the latest versions of Ubuntu and Vista, and that’s just what I need. It’s a bit expensive but you do get the best performance available.

• Staying true to the faith, I manage my own web-server and thus need a capable FTP client. Cyberduck is free, open source and absolutely great.
• Caffeine keeps the computer from going to sleep when you don’t want it to. I wind up using this little app more than I thought at first. It’s free and comes in handy.
• ShoveBox, another permanent resident in the Finder bar, is a fantastic little app that can store snippets of information you need to remember but don’t need right now. I use it to store little bits of text and bookmarks when researching articles. It can also store photos and files.

• Transmission is the best bit torrent client on the Mac and a trusty companion when you visit the pirate bays, with its integrated IP blacklist feature, great UI and performance.
• The Unarchiver handles all your RAR and ZIP needs without the overhead of Stuffit Expander. Double-click to de-archive, that’s all it does.
• TuneUp Companion fixes your music tags and automatically adds cover art.
• I also use Perian (handles 99% of audio/video codecs), Twitterrific, Last.fm and Appfresh (updates your software). iStat Pro monitors various system indicators within the Dashboard. For my limited scheduling needs, iCal suffices. And lastly, NTFS 3G ensures I can mount, swap and write to NTFS volumes.

I also have a 1st generation iPod touch which I absolutely love, and a Microsoft Arc notebook mouse. While its design is so beautiful it’s uncharacteristic of Microsoft, it sometimes disconnects for no apparent reason. Battery life is somewhere around 2 months and it is very accurate even on glossy surfaces. It works on the Mac without drivers – unlike Apple’s own Magic Mouse. The only major downside is the wireless dongle – which blocks one USB port.

For articles larger than 1500+ words I usually pull out the low-end Microsoft ergonomic keyboard from the closet. Nothing fancy, but it is a lot more comfortable than the integrated keyboard.

I’d like to give a warm plug to MinimalMac, SimpleDesktops, and Prettify, sites which will guide you on the path of minimal geek nirvana.

In a perfect world, MobileMe would be free. I mean, after you pay an insane amount of money for a computer and expensive display adapters, they could at least thank you with a free MobileME account. But, no sir. They want to scam you for your very last dime, but it won’t work this time.

MobileME offers cloud services for Mac, Windows and iPhone/iPod touch. You get your email (a @me.com e-mail address), contacts and calendar in sync on all platforms, iDisk online storage repository, a web gallery to publish photos from iPhoto/Aperture or iPhone and movies from iMovie, iWeb publishing space, Back to My Mac feature and a web interface to access all your data. All these features share in common only 20 GB of space.

I have to admit that the tight and elegant integration with the Mac and the plethora of features it offers, makes MobileME a great service. But it is not worth 99$.

Mail

Mac

Set up Mail to use your Gmail account with IMAP. You get 7+ GB of space, 20 MB attachment limit, labels (folders) and the possibility to gather all your mail from other POP3 accounts.

Windows

I’d say skip Outlook all together and stick to Gmail’s web interface, but if you like Outlook, configure it to use Gmail with IMAP.

Linux

Use your favorite e-mail client and configure it for your Gmail IMAP account.

iPhone

You can use Gmail IMAP but you don’t have PUSH mail (I wonder why Yahoo Mail has PUSH, but Gmail does not). For PUSH, you can configure an Yahoo account or a free Mail2Web Exchange account and have your Gmail account mark as read and forward all incoming mail to one of these accounts. To reply, use your Gmail account.

Web

Gmail’s interface is simple, clean and functional. The big difference from other email systems is its threaded conversations. Many times I wanted to quit Apple Mail for Gmail’s web interface.

Calendar

Mac

iCal can be synced to your Google Calendars using the CalDAV protocol. Use this nifty application for easy setup.

Windows

Use Google’s Calendar Sync tool for Outlook or get a free Plaxo account and install the Plaxo Toolbar for Microsoft Outlook to sync your Google Calendars.

Linux

You can use Evolution’s built in support for Google Calendar or use Thunderbird + Lightning Calendar extension + Provider for Google Calendar extension.

iPhone

You can do it the offline-way by syncing the calendar when you connect the iPhone to iTunes or over the air, where you have some viable options:

- NuevaSync is a web-based solution that creates a Microsoft Exchange account you can connect to, so there is nothing to install on your iPhone. There is a security threat, because all your Google data goes through NuevaSync’s servers. Also, note that all your calendar events on your iPhone will be wiped and replaced with Google Calendar’s events. The iPhone allows only one Microsoft Exchange account, so if you already used Mail2Web for push Gmail then you need to choose another solution for Calendar Syncing.

- NemusSync is a Cydia/Installer application, so you can install it only on a jail-broken iPhone. It can sync your Google Calendar with iPhone’s Calendar on demand. It supports multiple calendars and multiple Google Accounts.

- SaiSuke is $10 iTunes Store separate calendaring application, where syncing to your Google Calendar is a breeze. It is actually better than iPhone’s built-in Calendar app because it offers many extra views.

Web

I consider Google Calendar’s web-interface better than iCal or Outlook. The Quick Add feature that lets you type natural language sentences is very useful.

Contacts

Mac

You can enable Address Book to sync to your Gmail Contacts fairly easily if you’ve connected an iPhone or an iPod touch to your Mac before. If not, you need to follow these instructions to get the Sync with Google option to appear in Address Book’s preferences.

Windows

Use a Plaxo account with the Plaxo Outlook Toolbar to sync with Outlook Contacts.

Linux

You can use Evolution’s built in support for Google Contacts or use Thunderbird + Zindus extension .

iPhone

You can try the offline way with syncing to iTunes or over the air with NuevaSync’s free Exchange account.

Web

Google Contacts separates your contacts in to two groups: My Contacts and Suggested Contacts. Suggested contacts contains people you e-mailed frequently.

iDisk

Mac

Use Dropbox. You get a Dropbox folder in your Documents folder. Everything you drop here will be uploaded into the cloud (you get 2 GB for the free account) and from there downloaded to all your computers where you install Dropbox.

If you drop a file in the Public sub folder of Dropbox, with a right click on that file you get a public link that you can share over email or IM.  If you use Dropbox to sync other computers, you cannot specify which files in the Dropbox folder you want to be synced, so don’t forget to delete those large files you uploaded just for sharing purposes.

Windows

You can use Dropbox or Syncplicity. Syncplicity has more features than Dropbox: it allows any folder to be synced online, you can specify if a folder should only be backed up online or also be synced to other computers with Sycnplicity installed  and when you open Syncplicity on another computer you are asked if you want to download the synced folders. The free Syncplicty account has 2GB of space, but if you invite three friends you get one extra GB for each.

If 2 GB is not enough you can always use GDrive shell extension, which turns a Google Account in to a drive that appears in Windows Explorer.
You can also use Gladinet Cloud Desktop to map your Google Docs into a folder inside Gladinet Drive that appears in Explorer.

Linux

Use DropBox.

Web

Both Dropbox and Sincplicty offer web interfaces for easy access to your important files and allows uploading of new files.

WebGallery

Mac

You have several options:

- the Dropbox Gallery feature. Just drop a folder with photos inside the Photos subfolder in Dropbox and a web gallery is automatically created. Just right-click to get the url. All the photos are resized to 640 by 480 and the web gallery is pretty dull looking with only one standard view.

- iPhoto with Picasa WebAlbums plugin. Picasa WebAlbums offers a tone of features (including face recognition for automatically tagging your friends) but just 1GB of space.

- iPhoto with Flickr plugin. Flickr offers 100 MB a month of traffic. (You have a $24.95/year unlimited storage PRO plan)

Windows

Use Dropbox, Picasa with Picasa WebAlbums or get a Flickr Uploader.

Linux

Same as Windows.

iPhone

Use the free Shozu app to upload your pictures to Picasa WebAlbums or Flickr. You can also use the AirMe app to instantly upload the snapshots you take with the camera. If everything else fails you can send the pictures by mail to your Flickr account, but they will be downscaled by the iPhone.

Web

Both Picasa and Flickr web interfaces are great for uploading, organizing and sharing your photos. Of course there are other photo sharing websites, like Zoomr, that offer unlimited storage space, but they have limited upload options.

Back to My Mac

Mac

Use Windows Live Sync to access any files on your computer and Screen Sharing over internet for remote work.

Windows

Use Windows Live Sync (or Hamachi and simple file sharing) and TightVNC.

Linux

FTP and VNC.

If you’ve used some of these alternatives for MobileMe or you know some more (only free) please tell us in the comments.

Familiar?

Apple’s recipe for success was simple, a top down approach: the device, the software, the place to get music, and the (demonic?) scheme to tie all these together- FairPlay DRM. Microsoft, rather  unsuccessfully copied that recipe a little later, and called it Zune. Even if more than 85% of PCs use Windows, Zune’s music player  market share is only 4% compared to iPod’s crushing 70%.

As expected,  there are three components in the Zune’s platform: the Zune player, the Zune Windows-only software and the Zune online services: Zune Marketplace and Zune Social. Oh, and let’s not forget the the Zune DRM. In this article I will take a look at Zune Software and Zune Marketplace. We’ll review the Zune hardware in a separate article later on, if possible.

Quick overview

Zune Software runs on XP and Vista and it is build on a variation of the Media Center UI Framework, and not WPF, as Microsoft probably wanted to eliminate the burden of installing the .NET 3.0 framework. A good choice.

The Zune software is a media player application that can be used to manage a Zune and stream content to a nearby XBOX 360. It supports MP3, AAC(.aac, .mp4, .m4a, .m4b, .mov), WMA for audio and MPEG4 ( .mp4, .m4v, .mov), H.264, WMV and ASF for video. It can also manage JPG pictures, but  this feature  is implemented just for syncing with the Zune player, so it is very limited in functionality. Like iTunes, it can rip and burn audio CDs.

Zune devices can only be managed using the Zune Software and no other media players are compatible with Zune software.  As Zune Marketplace is tightly integrated with the Zune Software, it  has also gone largely unnoticed.

Library management

Zune Software allows folder monitoring so whenever you drop files in the monitored folders they are automatically added to your collection. You can define folders for music, videos, pictures and podcasts from local or external drives. Sweet!  iTunes can replicate the same behavior only on the Mac using Folder Actions. The default location of the Zune library (songs downloaded from the Marketplace, podcasts and ripped CDs) can easily be changed, even from the first start-up screen.

Smart playlists are known in Zune as Autoplaylists. Unlike iTunes, where you can burn any playlist as an audio CD or MP3 Data CD, Zune Software has a dedicated burn playlists and you can burn it only as an audio CD.

At the bottom you can select the default playlist and any tracks dragged onto the playlist icon are added to that playlist. Another nice feature that iTunes did not implement properly is the Now Playing playlist.

It can automatically download album cover art and metadata for the content in the library or you can do it manually. It  does a good job at finding cover art, significantly better than iTunes.

Other than marking a song as favorite (the only functionality I see in this is  for the social extension since there is no favorites autoplaylist) or editing the metadata, there’s not much you can do.  In iTunes you had some more sophisticated options like specifying whether a song should be skipped when shuffling or the start and end time if there’s just a part that you like.

You can rate songs but it doesn’t have a five star rating systems like iTunes,  just a love/ don’t love heart symbol.

Searching brings results both from your collection and also from the Zune Marketplace, nicely divided in to two panes. This would be a view that I’d like to see in iTunes.

Look and feel

The look and feel of a software used for managing, discovering and listening to music is very important for the user experience and could be considered a deciding factor in buying a music player. In my opinion, the Zune Software is a worthy contender for the “Best Jukebox experience” title.

Interface

Zune has a unique, beautiful, clean(!), user-friendly and intuitive interface, which makes it far more attractive than any other media player I’ve used before. Even with the Cover Flow and the new Grid View, when compared to Zune, iTunes still looks too much like a spreadsheet.

The nested-tab navigation is remarkably easy to use and seems so natural you wonder how you managed to live with out it.  In the upper left corner you will find the main tabs: Collection, Marketplace and Social as well as a tab for Zune devices when connected or CD when inserted.  Each main tab contains nested-tabs to display different  content. For instance, under the Collection tabs there are tabs for media stored on your computer: Music, Videos , Pictures, Podcasts and Channels.

The third level of nested-tabs allows you to choose the type of view you prefer. For Music you get Artists, Genres, Albums, Songs and Playlists. Each of this view has an uncluttered layout and they all look attractive, but I find the Artists view the most useful.

Themes

Zune Software does not support themes but  you can change the background. You get seven different backgrounds, the first being completely white, and the rest having some washed up colors on the same white background, but interesting non the less.

Now Playing

Zune doesn’t come with a true full-screen view or a mini-player but  it has a fabulous Now Playing screen, that tiles album art across the application window.

If your graphic card supports it and if you enabled the Premium graphics rendering with animation option, the Now Playing screen fills up with high quality photos of the current artist and animated bio info. I prefer this to any iTunes Visualizer.

Podcasts

Podcast support in Zune is decent.  No complains or new features here.

Music discovery features

Zune comes with three interesting music discovery services: Mixview, Channels and Picks.

Mixview

Mixview puts at the center the current artist (selected or playing), and flowing around it,  squares representing works of  the same artist, related artists, artists who have either  influenced or been influenced by the respective artist  and top listeners. When you click a square, the item moves in the center and new related items are displayed.  When you mouse over the center you can get more info, play or buy the item. Very cool!

Channels

If you are busy and don’t have time to track all the music you like, you can subscribe to  channels, that are basically  regularly-updated playlists that Zune Pass members can subscribe to. These are updated by partners–industry heavyweights and Zune employees. I’m going to talk about the Zune Pass a little later.

Picks

Like iTunes Genius, Picks makes music recommendations tailored to your taste, based on your listening habits. your friends and those listeners who prefer the same artists as you. After 116  plays I still didn’t get any recommendations. It is supposed to get better the more music you listen to.

Zune Marketplace and Zune Social

There are some differences between the Zune Marketplace and the iTunes store. The Zune Marketplace offers a lot less music (4 million songs) and no feature length movies or audio books. On the other hand, you have a simple interface and a subscription-based service called Zune Pass, which didn’t turn into a big hit.

For purchasing songs, Microsoft uses a system called Microsoft Points.These are available in denominations of $5 for 400 points. A song is 79 points, which equals to $0.9875, similar to the price on iTunes, but from a psychological point of view 79 is less than 99. To me, the only logical explanation for this confusing system is Microsoft’s greed. Just think at the fact that if you buy 400 points with 5$ you can buy only 5 songs with 395 points, so the remaining 5 points which equals to 0.0625$ remain to Microsoft.

Music content is offered in DRM-restricted WMA format @ 192kbit/s or non-DRM MP3 format (256kbit/s) for a per-song or per-album fee, or via a $14.99 Zune Pass monthly subscription.  The non-DRM offering is larger than Apple’s, but these MP3s are hard to find.

The Zune Pass allows you to download an unlimited number of  tracks, you can play on up to three computers and three Zunes. You are actually renting the music, since Zune Pass downloads cannot be burned to audio CDs and become unplayable when the subscription ends, unless purchased. Luckily you get to keep 10 DRM songs per month and all the MP3s. Also, with the Zune pass you can preview the whole song, not just 30 seconds. Still, 14.99$ seems a little expensive.

When you create a Zune account you get a 14-day free Zune Pass. The Zune pass isn’t a bad deal if you take into consideration that you can strip the DRM relatively easy(FairUse4WM).

Even if you don’t subscribe to the Zune pass you still have access to the music discovery services that will be applied on you existing collection and any music you rip of CDs.

Zune Social is the free online component that displays your  most-played artists, recently played and favorite songs, and a list of your friends. You can also earn badges, if  you listen to an album or artist a certain number of times. This info can be showcased on a user’s Zune card, which is a flash widget that can be embedded on other social sites like MySpace or Facebook.

Conclusion

Zune is a viable alternative to iTunes on the PC side, and you should really give it a try. For me, the Zune Software offered the best music experience on the Windows platform so far.  Too bad it doesn’t support other audio players. If you want to buy an iPod and use it with a Windows PC, I suggest you also try a Zune player first. I know I would, after seeing how elegant the Zune’s interface is.