Who are you, and what do you do? My name is Scott Wallace and I'm a hacker at heart. This means that I love technology and messing about with it until it does what I want it to -- not the other way around. I'm a "contracting IT Systems Engineer". I like to think that I specialise in automation but it's really just scripting myself out of work. I'm essentially a mercenary and will work for the highest bidder. My main area of expertise lies around the Internet and web technologies. What hardware are you using? The device which goes with me everywhere is, of course, my mobile phone -- a Samsung Galaxy S2. It's battery life isn't the best (but it does run a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM) so I use Juice Defender Ultimate to keep me going through a normal day. It's also my alarm clock. My everyday computer is a mid-2007 15" Macbook Pro and for work I use a late 2009 iMac 27" with an Apple Magic Trackpad (bought mainly so my daughter can use the machine). For media consumption I have a mid-2007 Mac Mini running Boxee hooked up to a 40" Samsung Series 8 LED TV. All the media is loaded onto a Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra-4 with enough space to last well into the future. When I'm out and about I carry a Panasonic Lumix LX5 (with an EyeFi card) and my Kindle 3. For tired batteries that need replenishing, a Proporta USB Turbocharger 3400 comes in handy. And what software? All the Macs run Lion and are kept in sync with Dropbox. I always have an instance of Terminal, enhanced with HomeBrew, running and work wouldn't be the same without Skype or CoRD (and VirtualBox for any Windows nonsense). Jumpcut saves my bacon about 10 times a day. The trackpads are made a bit more usable with a few customisations using Better Touch Tool. iStat Menus keeps me informed of what my machines are up to. Roaming internet with the laptop is made possible by using Android's wireless hotspot functionality or Boingo and PdaNet. If I lose my either my phone or laptop, or they get stolen, Project Prey will help me out. Picasa is what I use for collating images before uploading them to SmugMug. Video conversion is done with Handbrake and any playback codec issues are swiftly dealt with by Perian. My browser of choice is, of course, Google Chrome loaded with my favourite plugins: Shareaholic, Chrome to Phone, and AdBlock Plus. I have tried to move my working set of software into the Cloud. All my website passwords are random and tracked in Lastpass; I use Grooveshark for listening to music on the PC and my mobile phone; Google Apps is used for Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Docs, RSS feeds and News -- all backed up with Backupify; Remember The Milk is for my to-do list; SpringPad for notes; and Instapaper for "read it later" functionality (with articles automatically sent through to my Kindle, daily). I can nearly search all my content in the Cloud using Greplin. And last, but certainly not least, FreeAgent helps me out with all the paperwork for my company (invoicing, taxes, timesheets, accounts, etc.). What would be your dream setup? A simple, light but fast computer that has access to the Internet from anywhere and acts as a WiFi-hotspot, even when closed. My mobile phone would be a combination of a PAN, the laptop and my watch. All powered with nuclear batteries. I'd also really love there to be a single movie and TV streaming service that provided all the world's content to anyone with a subscription and Internet access. |