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.

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.

Before we start
Fedora is a popular Linux distro (ranking number 4 on Distrowatch), sponsored by RedHat and developed by the Fedora Project community, with a 4-6 month release cycle. Actually, it may be considered a “beta” version of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat’s supported distribution with a release cycle of 18 month.
Red Hat recommends Fedora for developers and highly-technical enthusiasts using Linux in non-critical environments. I’m neither a Linux developer or highly-technical when it comes to Linux, but at least I’m enthusiast.
Because both Ubuntu 8.10 and Fedora 10 use the latest versions of Gnome and Nautilus, they look quite similar.
What’s different
Editor’s note: Bogdan is the resident Mac geek, and has just started using linux. This article is not an in-depth comparison between Ubuntu and Fedora.
The main features that differentiate Fedora from Ubuntu are:
It uses RPM packaging and YUM for command-line package management, which some may find slower than Ubuntu’s apt-get and aptitude, but I didn’t notice that much of a difference.Community is smaller, number of pages indexed by Google is smaller(31 mil compared to 75) but the forums are active and you will definitely get your questions answered.It is considered leading-edge, because it always integrates the latest open-source technologies. (For example: OpenOffice 3.0, that didn’t made it to Ubuntu 8.10)Comes only with FOSS. So you don’t have MP3 support out of the box.because security is one of the most important features in Fedora, it has Security-Enhanced Linux(SELinux) which provides advanced security policies trough the use of Linux Security Modules(LSM) in the Linux kernel.

Installation
Fedora’s installer, called Anaconda, looks like a mature installer, with a lot of options if you know what you are doing (fully unattended installation with scripts or VNC support).
Partition configuration is easy and more intuitive than Ubuntu’s and you can also choose which software packages to install. During installation, you are asked for the root password. In Ubuntu I had to search the forums to figure out how to do a sudo, because the installer did not ask for a root password.

Devices
Logitech USB Webcam, Fuji Digital Camera, Wireless and Dual Monitor support worked OOB. To enable Bluetooth I had to modify a config file, but it worked great. My Canon MP520 printer refused to print with the generic drivers and no plug&play 3G internet connection with my Nokia phone. Overall, the experience was acceptable. Power management, suspend and hibernate also worked flawlessly on my MacBook.

Look and feel
As mentioned, because of Gnome, Fedora looked very much like Ubuntu. The default Nautilus is  striped down – no side panel, no buttons and no tab browsing. One little glitch I encountered: folder icons on external drives were represented with file icons.

I liked the Solar theme with it’s desktop wallpaper and the wait cursor. The boot loading bar is quite original, but the start-up tune is awful.

No luck in enabling desktop effects. It would just hang, requiring a restart. I tried to install some Compiz Configuration packages, but at every boot, it just loaded a blank screen. I had to reinstall Fedora. So no eye-candy for me. Reinstalling Fedora because of Xorg video framework errors is highly unnecessary; just remember to back-up the config files, then boot into the failsafe terminal to restore them. Unlike Ubuntu, the configuration tools are organized in folders and are easier to find.

Something very useful I didn’t notice in Ubuntu 8.10 is the File Sharing (SAMBA) configuration utility. This applet lets you easily set up a shared folder locally or access already shared resources.

Package Manager
Yum’s graphical front-end (gpk-application or Add/Remove Software) is somewhat similar to Synaptic, but a little less ergonomic and the number of available applications seemed smaller. To get the software that Fedora Project did not want to ship you need to install RPM Fusion.
Every time I tried to install a downloaded rpm package, I was greeted with some annoying warning messages and had to click “Copy File” and “Force Install”. To add to the frustration, no finish message was displayed, leaving me to think something bad happened.

I don’t know if this behavior is general, or specific just to Fedora and other RPM-based distros, but it is very annoying: I can’t install an rpm while another rpm is being installed.
Editor’s note: This is a security feature of SELinux.

Updates seem to come very often. Unfortunately, after a round of updates I started to receive Kernel failure errors. Just my luck.

Newbie friendly
In order to do some of the basic things they are used to on Windows or Mac, new Linux users must be fairly tech-savvy. This is why the ‘newbie friendly’ factor is important in attracting new Linux users from the other operating systems.
Ubuntu emerged as the most easy and user-friendly Linux distribution. I can say Fedora is not that far behind, but I wouldn’t recommend it to someone completely new to Linux.

I agree with the consensus that Ubuntu is intended for the desktop, while Fedora, with its high degree of configuration and professional feeling is intended for developers, linux enthusiasts or server machines. Or NASA geeks.