The Setup

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the setup is interesting.screenshot of The Setup website

Self-​described as “a bunch of nerdy inter­views,” they basi­cally ask “What do peo­ple use to get the job done?” The inter­view ques­tions are all the same, con­sist­ing of four ques­tions:
  1. Who are you, and what do you do?
  2. What hard­ware are you using?
  3. And what software?
  4. What would be your dream setup?
Like most good intro­spec­tive exer­cises, you can approach it on dif­fer­ent levels–and with more or less rigor. Here are my answers:

Who are you and what do you do?

Michael Mont­gomery. Hus­band, father, lawyer, tech­nol­ogy fan, inter­net affi­cionado, speaker, orga­nizer, and write with a foun­tain pen. I blog some­times, and work for Christo­pher & Weis­berg as a reg­is­tered patent attor­ney and intel­lec­tual prop­erty lawyer. On the web, I play with markup & styling, teaches, presents, help with God­bit, Refresh­Laud­erdale and Refresh­Mi­ami.

What hard­ware are you using?

At work, I use a non­de­script box from a com­pany I won’t name, that’s been down­graded to XP for com­pat­i­bil­ity with Pro­Law, our office back-​end. The dis­plays are a 19″ HP f1905 and another 19″ non­de­script sec­ond monitor.

At the office, I have a 30Gb iPod dri­ving Tivoli Audio Model Two stereo speakers.

My lap­top is an HP G70 with 4Gb of RAM and Vista Home Pre­mium. It came with a free upgrade to Win­dows 7, but I haven’t yet had the courage. At home, I use a 19″ HP L1945w and the lap­top as a sec­ond monitor.

I tend to carry an 8Gb iPhone, and usu­ally either a book or Mole­sk­ine note­book. And a pen.

And what software?

For browsers, I use Fire­fox and Chrome (mostly for apps like Gmail). For text and code, Notepad++ rocks. For doc­u­ments, I use OpenOf­fice Writer by choice and MS Word when required.

For web­sites, Textpat­tern usu­ally, Expres­sio­nEngine for larger projects, and Word­Press for blogs. Drop­box (love it!) for syn­chro­niz­ing, and Jun­gle Disk (meh) for backup. Deli­cious for bookmarks.

Online I use Gmail, Google Cal­en­dar, Google Reader, Remem­ber the Milk, Read­er­naut, Ether­pad. I go by Mont­gomery most every­where. For games, LotRO, EVE and Babas Chess.

What would be your dream setup?

Vastly improved voice recog­ni­tion capability–so good it doesn’t require a head­set. I don’t under­stand why we’re all still typ­ing!

Corol­lary: kill the key­board and mouse. Long live the pen!

A First Resolution for 2010

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Clear­ing out some of the cob­webs around here, to say that I’m excited.

Excited about:

http://​pro​jec​t52​.info/

What is Project52?

Project52 is a per­sonal chal­lenge geared toward get­ting fresh con­tent on your web­site. The goal is to write at least 1 new arti­cle per week for 1 year. Because we all know what it’s like to pro­cras­ti­nate on our content.

All you need to do is just com­mit to the chal­lenge and write the con­tent. This site is just here to remind you of that commitment.

How to Participate

  • On Twit­ter, you can fol­low @p52info or use the hash­tag #p52. We’ll track that as often as we can.
  • Add your site to the form below. In time, we’ll gather the RSS feeds and begin sort­ing out who the slack­ers are.
  • If you would like a ban­ner to add to your site, feel free to down­load the logo. Be sure to link here and help spread the word. It’s time to get peo­ple writ­ing again!
  • You can also join the Google Group, if you’d like to share thoughts, ideas, and var­i­ous bits of inspiration.

An awe­some idea, whose time is overdue.

Barcamp Miami a Big Success

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I love Bar­camps.

The energy, the peo­ple, it’s all good.

  • Imag­ine a con­fer­ence about the Web–what’s cur­rent, and what’s com­ing in the future.
  • Imag­ine over 500 peo­ple attend­ing a con­fer­ence, which is com­pletely orga­nized and run by volunteers.
  • On a gor­geous day in Coconut Grove.

That was Bar­camp Miami 2009.

Won­der­ful event, peo­ple, top­ics and con­ver­sa­tions. Oh, and the loca­tions (Anohka restau­rant and the May­fair hotel) could not be bet­ter, (although I think the restau­rant was a lit­tle over­whelmed by lunch orders).

Over­all, an excel­lent job by all the orga­niz­ers and presenters.

See some pho­tos and some words.

I’m excited about 2009, and hope to see some of the same peo­ple at Refresh Miami meeting.