{"id":2141,"date":"2012-08-10T16:42:42","date_gmt":"2012-08-10T14:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andreineagu.com\/?p=2141"},"modified":"2012-08-10T16:42:42","modified_gmt":"2012-08-10T14:42:42","slug":"mac-setup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andreineagu.com\/blog\/mac-setup\/","title":{"rendered":"Mac Setup"},"content":{"rendered":"

M-am gandit ca ar fi interesant sa prezint cateva setup-uri pe care unii oameni le fac intr-o maniera foare nerdy. Este vorba de tehnologia dusa la extrem si manipulata de catre om. Deci se poate ca si noi sa manipulam tehnologia in felul in care dorim sa o facem.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Who are you, what do you do, etc\u2026?<\/h3>\n

My name is Brett Terpstra. I\u2019m married to a wonderful girl named Aditi who happens to be a Certified Pet Dog Trainer, and I live in a zoo (figuratively: a Pit Bull, a German Shepherd, three cats, a parrot and a 75-gallon aquarium\u2026 plus the dogs we take in through our\u00a0Pit Bull rescue<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I have a great day job as a remote worker for AOL Tech, building blogs like\u00a0Engadget<\/a>,\u00a0TUAW<\/a> and\u00a0Joystiq<\/a>. By night I\u2019m a Mac developer, working on\u00a0Marked<\/a>,\u00a0nvALT<\/a> and other\u00a0mad science<\/a> with Macs.<\/p>\n

2. What is your current setup?<\/h3>\n

\"Brett<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Brett<\/p>\n

\"Brett<\/p>\n

\"Brett<\/p>\n

At the core of my anti-minimalist setup are a Mac Pro (2.8 GHz Quad-Core Xeon) and a built-to-order 2011 13\u2033 MacBook Air. I keep a couple of Mac minis around for testing (and nostalgia).<\/p>\n

I use an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard and a Magic Trackpad on all of my desktop machines.<\/p>\n

The Mac Pro is my primary machine. It\u2019s hooked up to 2 monitors (21\u2033 and 23\u2033, mismatched because I never get the timing right when I upgrade them). I boot it off of a\u00a0600GB Velociraptor HD<\/a>, and have additional internal hard drives for multiple OS versions and extra storage. I have aDrobo<\/a> with a 4TB capacity and a few more terabytes of external Firewire 800 drives hooked up. I have a cheap Buffalo NAS that comes in quite handy.<\/p>\n

My office is in the basement (walk-out with a huge glass sliding door that overlooks the Mississippi River Valley), so I have some issues connecting to my Airport Extreme on occasion. I use a PowerLink wifi antennae to get better results, but generally depend on Zyxel powerline networking.<\/p>\n

I keep a very paperless office. On the rare occasions that I\u00a0do<\/em> deal with paper, I have an Epson Perfection 4490 Photo and the \u00fcber-handy\u00a0Doxie scanner<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have an array of musical equipment for dinking around with. I don\u2019t do a lot of audio production these days, but still have an Oxygen 49 keyboard, M-Audio FastTrack,\u00a0Blue Snowball<\/a> and a condenser mic on a boom with a Blue Icicle. Desktop monitors, decent headphones, a couple of guitars\u2026 enough to keep me entertained. A 5.1 Logitech desktop speaker system covers the bases when I\u2019m just listening.<\/p>\n

I also have an iPad 3 and an iPhone 4, an\u00a0AeroPress<\/a>, and a bizarre assortment of old X10 home automation stuff.<\/p>\n

3. Why this rig?<\/h3>\n

The Mac Pro is provided by my employer. I probably wouldn\u2019t have one if it weren\u2019t for that; my Air is a superior computing machine for a lot of my needs. I like the dual large monitors, though, and that\u2019s the thing I miss when I go Air-only for a while.<\/p>\n

My keyboard and trackpad choice is the result of over a thousand dollars worth of \u201cresearch\u201d in input devices over the years. I\u2019ve tried just about everything. I actually skipped the aluminum keyboards for a long time because I was pretty sure that anything under $80 was going to be junk, and I skipped the Bluetooth keyboards because I swore I couldn\u2019t live without a numpad. Wrong on both counts.<\/p>\n

I went through a few dozen mice and trackballs, too. I settled on the\u00a0MX Revolution<\/a> for quite a while, but I started getting RSI and switched to aKensington Expert trackball<\/a>. I jumped on the\u00a0Magic Mouse<\/a> when it came out, and loved the idea but didn\u2019t get into the ergonomics. The\u00a0Magic Trackpad<\/a> took the parts of the Magic Mouse that I liked, made it bigger, better and friendlier on my wrists. In fact, since I started using it I haven\u2019t had any wrist pain at all.<\/p>\n

I had used 17\u2033 MacBook Pros for years when the Air came out. It was sexy, but I thought there was no way I could get along without my 17\u2033 screen and extra processor power. Then the time came for a new computer purchase, and something possessed me to take a chance on one. It\u2019s probably the best purchase I\u2019ve made in years. The only other purchase that\u2019s brought me as much happiness is my AeroPress. I\u2019ll probably get another of each as their respective times come.<\/p>\n

4. What software do you use and for what do you use it?<\/h3>\n

So much software. I\u2019m an app junky, and I try\u00a0everything<\/em> that I\u2019m remotely interested in. Even some things I\u2019m not. I can actually help you find a good cross-stitch pattern app because my mother-in-law asked me about it and I spent an evening trying a few out. However, what I use every day:<\/p>\n