Setup
About me?
A first year law student at the University of Michigan, whether it is day or night… Some things you just can’t escape from.
What is your current Mac setup?
Currently I am using a MacBook (late-2008) which sits squarely in front of my LED Cinema Display. Choosing the LED Display, which was a pretty penny higher than an equivalent DELL monitor, was based on the fact that it acts as more than a monitor: it acts like a dock for my desk. From it extends a USB hub that powers an iPhone cable, an external hard drive, and a bunch of stray cables that connect to various peripherals like my camera.
In conjunction with my attached external hard drive, I also have an Iomega NAS, a Home Media Network Hard Drive 1TB. I thought long and hard about a Drobo, but I could not justify the upsell that for the capability to place it on the network. Frankly, I believe that the network capabilities should come with it. Most importantly, the Iomega NAS masquerades as a Time Capsule on the network and so allows me to do remote backups without the inconvenience of Terminal commands and hacks. The addition of UPnP sets the Iomega NAS head and shoulders over the Time Capsule. After running it for a week… I really cannot recommend it enough, especially for the price.
I also have a Pixma MX850 that has kept growing in its usefulness to me. I just found out last week that placing an SD card in the card reader puts it as a network drive on the LAN. How cool is that?!
Why am I using this setup?
These days I spend a third of my day in class, a third in the law library, and a third at home trying to avoid the computer. Portability is thus extremely important to me. I had a 15” MacBook Pro before this system. Before that I had the jewel of my eye, a 12” PowerBook G4. I loved the size of the G4, but I hated the work I need to do to keep the PowerBook and the Power Mac in sync. So I moved to the 15” MacBook Pro as my sole machine and it was just unnecessary for my normal work. When I worked as a web designer I had a 24” display at my desk to hook up to. Importantly, it was a pain to lug around.
With the MacBook I get the size I need and when jammed together with 85 other law school kids in a first year class I don’t have to worry about getting in anyone’s way. Mostly though, it comes the closest to recreating the joys of my first Mac, the PowerBook G4.
At the desk it helps to have a larger monitor when I need to write a memo and have Lexis, WestLaw, and notes all open. It is extremely helpful to put all my secondary material on the big monitor and my paper on the little one. It really helps delineate my workspace. It translates to any freelance web development work I do as well… Photoshop, browsers and reference materials stay on the big monitor and TextMate and CSSEdit stay on the small one.
What Mac software do you use?
OmniOutliner: This program is my bread and butter. A week before class started I set out to make myself a template for class notes. I usually keep one document per class. It got to be such a good repository that I even did my outlines in OO. During finals it was incredibly easy to Cmd+Tab and then just do a search for a case or topic and scan the results.
Mail + MailTags: If it were not for MailTags, I would get a lot less use out of iCal. Luckily for me, MailTags helps me quickly deposit information into iCal, whether it be a to do or an event. You might question the necessity of MailTags with the data detectors that came along with Leopard. The fact is that I like a nice native interface instead of pop-ups and the whims of software. Also the fact that I can file away emails with projects and notes helps me organize my thoughts more effectively. I do wish at times that MailTags could tap into the data detectors and pre-fill some of the fields, but that is not as big of a deal. With my upgrade to Snow Leopard, I am waiting for the MailTags compatibility, an interminable wait.
NetNewsWire: The move to Google Reader made me a much happier camper. However, the fact that an update has yet to come out for the iPhone makes me want to chuck something in this app’s general direction. Software should not frustrate you this much.
iCal: Class schedules, to dos, and reminders on when projects are due. I would never be able to keep up with reading without this.
Pages: I switched away from Word because I like Pages’ interface better. Unfortunately there is an odd bug in Pages where the same document is longer in Pages than in Word! This screwed with me on the first few assignments that were governed by a page-limit. However, brevity even when it is forced can be a good thing.
TextMate, CSSEdit, Cornerstone: For the past few months I have not done any real web development work. However, when I used to this was the combination of apps that helped me out. It took me forever to get used to CSSEdit. I started writing HTML in Notepad. The same for CSS. I like CSSEdit without any of the WYSIWYG features. But then I might as well use TextMate right? If not for the chapter like list of styles on the left side in CSSEdit, I would.
Any future upgrades planned?
It is difficult for me to say this, because I am such a sucker for new technology, but right now I am really set in my technology needs. I have a great laptop and a great setup at my desk. The one needed puzzle was a NAS/Time Capsule and luckily my Iomega NAS has fulfilled both duties cheaply. I am thinking of upgrading the SSD on the hackintoshed Dell mini 9, but the smaller footprint in Snow Leopard, maybe I just won’t have to. Though the girl just got a 3GS and I can feel my 3G become woefully slow… So the minute I can upgrade, I think that is in my future.
