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I am a firm believer that workspaces make a huge difference to your work ethic and how productive you are (or not). In this post I’ll outline my workspace, why I love it, what I would change if I could, and loads more.

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I am lucky enough to have a pretty big desk (used to be our kitchen table!) and I absolutely love having a desk this size. Whilst it is true that often I don’t use the space fully I enjoy having it. So, what are the key elements of my workspace?

17inch PowerPC G5 iMac

A great example that you don’t need the latest tech to be ok. The iMac is around 5 years old but still runs fantastically well, I often have Coda, Firefox, Photoshop, Fireworks, Mail, Tweetie, Safari, Things, iCal, Skype & Textmate open at the same time and it does not even stutter. It runs OS X Leopard and is to be frank a joy to use. I’ve expressed my love of Macs many a time, and when the time comes to upgrade, I will be buying Apple. No question.

Cibox 19inch Widescreen Monitor

You can never fully appreciated dual screen monitors until you use them. Having Textmate on one and Firefox on the other is just fantastic, you don’t have to fanny around switching windows like you do with one monitor. When I’m just browsing I’ll have Skype + Tweetie sat over there with my main app that I’m using (Mail / Safari / etc) in the main window.

Big Ass Whiteboard

I’ve no idea how big it is, and while it might not be the biggest whiteboard you have ever seen, it’s stupidly useful for me. Usually (like in the pic) it contains some stuff I need to get done (all of that is for tomorrow!) and some doodles, if you look closely you can see some kinda scribble thing which will eventually form a mockup.

Logic3 iStation

I love my music and working without music is just a huge no no for me. I invested in these speakers from Amazon at a cost of £45, mainly as they provide excellent sound quality (I think so anyway) and more importantly have a stand from which I can sync my iPod with iTunes. I’m a huge fan of a minimal approach so killing two birds with one stone (syncing + music playing) is a bonus.

Moleskine

You might just have a notepad, I invested in one of these before a web conference because I needed half an excuse, and I really enjoy using it. In hindsight it’s probably a bit small, and a larger one is on my birthday list (you know your life is at a peak when a notepad is on your birthday list) but they are a joy to write in. On that note, can anyone recommend a really nice pen to go with it?

Is it always that clean?

I’ve always been asked this, is it this clean at all times or do you just tidy it for the camera? It used to be the latter, it would get shit messy until I cleaned it, and then the cycle repeated. Now I keep it as tidy as I can.

What would I like to Upgrade?

Well I’ve been promised by the parents a Macbook Pro if I hit my target A-Level grades in the summer so that’s the biggy. If I don’t get them then I’ll be saving up or waiting for Xmas to get one. I’d like a 1TB hard drive for back ups (currently have a 160GB HD but another is always good) and I will also be purchasing in the next month or so the Apple Magic Mouse. In an ideal world I’d ditch my keyboard for the smaller, wireless one but it’s a bit pointless.

Be Featured!

I’m starting a new series soon looking at other people’s work spaces. If you’re using Windows, Macs or Linux and fancy being a part of this blog then let me know, chuck me a message on Twitter (@Jack_Franklin).

Besides the rather pointless (which here means ‘incredibly hilarious’) title I wanted to blog today about Google and their monopoly of applications. Is this really good for the web? Have Google got too big for their boots?

The verb Google (as in ‘to google) actually was added to the Oxford dictionary in 2006:

intr. To use the Google search engine to find information on the Internet. trans. To search for information about (a person or thing) using the Google search engine.

And their search engine is pretty much still the number one - I don’t have specific stats to prove it but I don’t think you have to be Einstein to figure out that everyone who is anyone uses Google.

And amongst web designers / developers and a lot of others rely everyday on other google products - the top of which has to be Google Mail. I use it, loads of others use it, my college (3000+ email accounts) uses it, and I know other schools / colleges / unis use it as well.

In this ramble of sorts I guess what I’m trying to say is that Google’s domination of the web application market - Google Docs, Gmail, Search Engine, Calendar, Reader - all of which I use and lots others also - is almost scary and that Google’s confidence is growing - it will keep growing as they succeed, almost like a little child, and then they will fall over and they will regret doing whatever they did. This recent episode is one of many around the newly released Google Buzz (and I still don’t have a clue what it does).

Maybe Google should just sit back and consolidate on what they have rather than trying to build a webpire (new word I just made up!). Because judging by the Twitter talk, people are not very amused.

Less is more, as they say.

The Mac vs PC argument can go on forever and ever. So this is my take on it - or rather - my reasoning for never wanting to buy another PC again. My next computer will be a Macbook Pro, and I cannot see myself going back to using Windows on a daily basis. And you know why? It’s not because of the OS, or how nice it looks, but the apps.

Specifically, here are a list of apps that I use every day when on the Mac. I’ve yet to find a Windows replacement which I feel is as good. And for that reason, I could never use Windows for my web work. I would miss these apps too much.

1. Textmate. Yes, I know E-Text Editor on Windows supports bundles but it’s just not the sam. Textmate’s huge range of bundles built in, plus loads of fantastic extras by various people make it a clear choice for development.
2. Ecoute. This is what I use to listen to music. It sits on your desktop or in the menu bar and lets you play from your iTunes library without having to have iTunes loaded. I’m not iTunes’ biggest fan and this app is well worth the $10 it set me back.
3. Forklift - my FTP app of choice. It just works. And I won this in competition on a blog, makes it even better!
4. Shovebox - a little app that sits in your menu bar until needed. When you do, hit a shortcut of your choice and it brings up a box for you to type a quick note, then hit enter to save. Whenever I have a blog post idea, I put it in there. Much easier than writing it.
5. Tweetie - in my opinion the best Twitter client out there.
6. Coda - when I’m not in a Textmate mood I switch to Coda and it’s simply fantastic. Built in FTP, a fancy CSS editor mode, some great addons.
7. 1Password - like any geek I’m signed up to loads of services and remembering passwords is a pain. This is where 1Password comes in to play.
8. Some of the in-built Mac apps I like are: 
   Finder - just works. Some people don’t like it, but for me it’s superb.
   Expose/ Spaces - can’t imagine living without it now, to be honest.

If you’re on a Mac, which apps do you swear by? If you’re on Windows, do you know alternatives to the above or have a comment about Macs? Let me know!

Earlier on I tweeted:

It gets me down when you ask someone ‘big’ on Twitter a question, but they don’t respond because you are not also ‘big’.

I feel I should justify this because I don’t think it got taken as I wanted it to be taken.

Firstly, by ‘big’ I did not mean world famous celebs touting millions of followers. There is no way in hell they can reply to everyone and I fully understand this (I don’t even bother following celebs - partly down to this).

What I mean is someone who, in the ‘industry’ I follow (ie Web Design / Dev) are well known, respected, experts in their field. I point blank refuse to name people, but it annoys me when something happens that leads to myself, and no doubt others, ‘atting’ someone on twitter to ask them a question, or to interact with them. Now, if they get hundreds of tweets in a short period of time, I’ve no problem with a generic reply, or nothing. I don’t expect a personal response, and neither does anyone else on Twitter. At least I hope not. However, these people always seem more than happy to reply to other ‘big’ people. These people will often exchange multiple tweets whilst me, with a lot less followers and not such a known name, will just sit and watch.

I don’t want to come across bitter, although I think I may have inadvertently done so, because I’ve come to accept it, and I understand that you can’t always have your own way. But I think it’s unfair that people don’t reply to others because they only have 50 followers, whereas they will always reply to others with a similar number of followers (usually a few thousand plus) just because of who they are.

Disclaimer: I am no means an expert in our industry or very prominent. I understand that much more well known & experienced people will blog on this subject but I wanted to get my points across.

During the Boagworld Live 200th show, people in the chatroom made some very unsavoury comments towards some of the guests - particularly towards the women guests - Relly Annett-Baker, Sarah Parmenter and Inayaili de Leon seemed to take the real stick from people in the live chatroom.

But why?

There are a few key aspects that, in my mind, lead to people being so downright disgraceful, rude, and almost sexist. The key one for me is that the chatroom was completely anonymous - you could set a nickname if you wanted - but that does not mean you have to identify yourself. As Rachel Andrew has pointed out - if everyone had to log in via Facebook / Twitter, whatever, would they still be so keen to post such misguided and insulting views?

But the main factor in my mind is jealously. Lets face it, those guests got asked to be a part of the celebrations because they are well known experts in their field. And who wouldn’t want to be in their position? Not many people would turn down the chance to talk to Paul Boag & co live on air with hundreds of people watching. I believe the people who posted such rubbish were either jealous, and/or immature and although it is offensive and I fully understand all the posts, we should learn to just ignore it. It will always happen in any anonymous chatroom - a select few spoiling it for others.

I’ve seen Relly Annett-Baker speak at Bamboo Juice last year in what was probably my favourite presentation of the day and she clearly knows her stuff - hence her appearance, and while I have not met Sarah Parmenter I’ve read her blogs and she also knows a thing or two about this web stuff. And I’ve met Inayaili de Leon at Barcamp London 2007 - playing a particularly sneaky game of werewolf - and can say with confidence there is no reason for such comments to be aimed at her.

And at the end of the day, no one should give two hoots if the person speaking is Male/Female or whatever. As long as they know their stuff, that’s all that matters. People who think differently to that need to be sorted out.

But we shouldn’t let it overshadow what was a terrific event - and I’m gutted I couldn’t listen to it live but I’ll be listening to all 12 hours if they are released - and congratulations to Paul & Marcus, and all who help out with the podcast. I’m a weekly listener and long may it continue!

You will notice if you read this that I’m coming to you from a new domain. This tumblr blog was set up ages ago but now I’ve managed to get it running on my own domain, I’ve got a feeling I’m going to blog at least 3 times a week - not often the longest of posts, but I’m going to try and regularly update for a sustained period…something which has been tricky for me in the past.

Who knows what I might blog here? Certainly some web stuff - tutorials, round-ups, anything, whatever. Boring rambles, new stuff, recommended applications and a lot of traditional Apple fanboy Window bashing.

Stick around!

Step 1: Buy a Mac.

I just ordered a Mini VGA=>VGA adapter so I can hook my iMac up to my old 19inch flatscreen monitor. Need to use a program called Screen Spanning Doctor to enable it, as it’s not available by default, but the computer is more than capable of doing it. Apparently it’s so they can differentiate between lower and higher end products. On the webpage of this “hack” it says it may cock the computer up…but I have not found one case of that happening. So fingers crossed it works for me.

18GB of stuff from iTunes has been copying for 3 hours…and apparently has 4 hours to go! I’m having to play music from iPod but that is going to die anytime soon…so I need it to hurry up! I would pay £100 for an app that zipped your entire iTunes up, copied it to your new computer, and unzipped it all. Developers, get going. And no one better tell me that such an app exists, or I will cry.

I’m also running an Avast full scan to be safe, that is now in its 7th hour of scannage.

But my Mac has acted as if none of this hardcore copying and scanning is going on…Vista would slow to a halt…but this has not. Impressed, colour me.