The Cave
Germination? What is that all about? The answer, dear friend, comes courtesy of Michael Lopp, aka Rands.
In one of the most definitive pieces of literature on modern culture, Rands describes why each nerd (aka geek) needs his cave, some of the characteristics of a nerd cave, and some parameters for how to treat the nerd in his preferred environment. If you are a nerd, or have one in your life, go read this now.
It’s an ominous name: Cave. It alludes to a dark, damp place where you are likely to be eaten by a grue. The irony is that the purpose of a Cave is not to insulate, its purpose is to germinate.
True words. Great words.
And for me it could be said that I suffer from an unhealthy obsession with viewing other people's caves — their desk, the equipment around the cave, what software they use, and how they use it. But it is what it is.
And so, for those who have the same cave fetish, I'd like to share my own setup.
Hardware
A couple years back, I made the move to have a minimal amount of computer equipment in our home — only what was needed to do my job. This went against my IT background, where having a cluster of servers and Linux machines lying around was more the norm.
Today, I'm much more satisfied with my one machine and the various accoutrements that go with it. Here's what I use to do my work:
- A 13" Unibody Macbook with 4 GB of RAM.
- A 23" Apple Cinema Display (matte screen)
- An 8 GB white iPhone 3GS.
- A 16 GB Wifi iPad.
- A 500 GB Time Capsule.
- A 750 GB WD Passport.
- A pair of Sennheiser HD 515 headphones.
- mStand from Rain Design
- Assorted notebooks from Levenger, Field Notes, Moleskine, and my favorite, Rhodia
- Coffee from Kicking Horse Coffee or the Starbucks Coffee Company
Software
I do my best to have the same minimal mindset for the software I use. But the sad fact is that I struggle to not tinker with new software that becomes available. Being a Mac user only adds to this tendency — there is simply too much good software available on the platform.
It's a big part of what drew me to switching to a Mac. The third party software, and the passion of the people who create and use this software, was so much more attractive than what I saw in the corporate world. It was the community that caught my attention as much as the nice looking computers and gorgeous, easy-to-use software.
Nevertheless, it's a struggle to focus on work when there's so much to play with. I do what I can to regularly purge my Applications folder and ignore the newest bright and shiny app that come out. The following tools are the ones that have stuck around over the years.
iTunes
It's free, it's well designed, and it's a part of the OS on every Apple device. iTunes.
This is most favorite piece of software — it is always on and accompanies whatever type of work I happen to do on my computer. Sure, there is still room for improvement. But this is an application that handles a lot of different tasks, manages GBs worth of data, and rarely causes me any problems.
Things
When it comes to style and panache, the crew at Cultured Code have it in spades. It shows through in their work. Things — whether on the desktop, the iPhone, or the iPad — is a joy to use. The little touches make the app smooth and comfortable, while the feature set is simple enough for beginners, while also growing with those who have more advanced needs.
When I need to clear my head, it almost always involves some quiet time working in this application.
Textmate
Is there any more flexible, more robust piece of software for OS X? If I have any writing to do, it starts in Textmate. Coding of any sort? Textmate.
At around $50 US, it's not cheap. But it certainly is money well spent.
Yojimbo
It's not the prettiest piece of software for the Mac, but it does just enough and I've never seen it crash. If there is one thing the crew at Bare Bones Software do well, it's write rock solid applications.
Yojimbo is just that — a no frills tool that can be used to store multiple types of information. Images, URLs, PDFs, or just plain text notes, Yojimbo takes them all and makes it easy to get your information back out again. And it offers enough flexibility to fit your filing/organizational preferences.
Propane
Because our company is 100% remote, some sort of group chat tool is a requirement. Campfire from 37 signals more than fits the bill. But when it comes to every day Campfire usage, Propane gives me the features of a desktop application that I prefer.
With drag and drop actions and the ability to view multiple rooms at once, I prefer the experience to using Campfire in the browser.
Simplenote + Notational Velocity
A lot of companies — Apple included — struggle with syncing via the web or between multiple devices. Luckily, when it comes to your notes, Simplenote has us covered. Available on the iPhone and the iPad, Simplenote gives its users solid syncing with 'the cloud' with nary a hiccup.
And if that isn't enough, you can access your notes on the OS X desktop from a variety of good tools. My favorite by far is Notational Velocity, a cocoa app that gets out of your way, and does so with style.
Droplr
One of the best additions to many of my workflows in the past year came courtesy of Droplr. A desktop utility to share text, images, screenshots, and links, this tool is slick. Whether I'm working on a project with teammates, sharing meeting notes, or tweeting links, I use Droplr to do it.
Especially dear to my heart is the excellent formatting the web side of Droplr applies to code and plain text. Check it out.
Numbers
Another application from Apple, Numbers has endeared itself to me. Honestly, I believe Excel was one piece of software that M$ did well — it was robust, yet simple. My dad could run his business on it, and financial wizards could practically build a database with it (which gives IT guys shivers, but the app itself is not to blame).
Apple took a similar approach and applied their usual design savvy and good taste as well. Which gives a guy like me a pleasant way to crunch the numbers for a home based business. With style. A good example: at Fusion, we use Numbers to build a dashboard of ads for each month, as seen above. It serves us well.
Acorn
One thing must be said — I have a complete lack of skills and knowledge when it comes to graphics programs. But I do know this: whether on Windows or OS X, the Adobe products I've used have been a terrible experience. My experience has been limited to Acrobat and InDesign, but when it came time to purchase a graphics editor for my Mac, it was not going to be anything from Adobe.
In contrast, Acorn has been an absolute pleasure to use. It has never crashed on me, it has a sensible interface, and it does everything I've ever needed it to. The application embodies everything I love about the Mac developer community: it's offered by a one man shop, created by a guy who's not afraid to take on the monolithic big corporation by re-envisioning how an application in this category should work.
The Web
I would be remiss not to list some of the web based applications that have been a large part of the framework of my online life. The five here have to mentioned, either because they are well made or because I admire and want to support their creators. Whichever the case, these are the services I depend on every day to do what I do.
Twitter would also have to be mentioned, but I have a hard time separating the service and clients I've used to access it.
Lastly, there are a few utilities for OS X that I find indispensable. These are not full blown applications, but they augment the operating system enough that I miss them when they are not present.
| Utility | Description |
|---|---|
| TextExpander | Configurable shortcuts that pop in snippets of text when invoked. |
| Witch | OS X has decent, but not great, windows management. Witch takes it another level. |
| Growl | Often a distraction, this tool can be helpful for truly urgent notifications. |
The Desk
After working in front of a computer for the past ten years, I've been painfully aware the effects this time has had on my body. Not everyone is affected in the same way, but I know that my body needs sunlight and movement. And so I do what I can to ensure I get both in my day.
The easy part is using a room that gets a lot of sunlight as the office. The second part is harder. Prolonged periods of just sitting a toxic to this old body, so I've used a standing desk in the past. This new office doesn't quite have the right dimensions for the same configuration, so a laptop work station will probably be on the shopping list soon.
But I also do what I can to have tasks each day that take me away from the desk. For example, my whiteboard is on the opposite side of the room, forcing me to get up to use it.
If you are going to spend 8 or more hours a day in your cave, it should be an enjoyable environment. I'm blessed to have an office that is exactly that.