Pirco's Story - Developer, Dreamer

My name is Pirco and I'm the Chief Technologist here at My First Mac. My story is nothing special but hopefully it will inspire you to share yours.

Let me tell you about my set-up: I am currently running a 15" MacBook Pro with 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2 GB or RAM as well as a Mac Pro Tower with 2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors (I had to actually look that up) and 8 GB or RAM. I'm also using a 30" Apple monitor and a secondary 20" Dell monitor where I mostly keep Transmit (my FTP client of choice) and some Finder windows.

Yes, I use Transmit rather frequently because I'm in the business of web site development. Therefore, I don't really care much about processor speed although I sometimes need to render Flash movies, which can be processor-intensive. Mostly, however, I need RAM to open or copy files or load data.

One of my favorite applications is Parallels Desktop, which allows me to simultaneously and transparently run Windows so I can check my web sites in multiple browsers. The best part is that I can load different versions of the Windows OS so I can check on IE 6 and IE7 as well as different versions of other browsers (now Safari, too!). This allowed me to get rid of my other PCs that were cluttering up my office for the sole purpose of testing web sites or run Windows Visio (although Chris pointed out that there is a Mac equivalent). The only issue I encountered so far is that creating (zip) archives on the Mac creates additional hidden files within the archive, even if I use Windows archiving software or other third-party “clean archiving” tools.

I also wanted to mention AppZapper, “the uninstaller that Apple forgot” (it finds all the extra files you might want to get rid of after you delete an application) and Little Snitch which tells me what software or web site is trying to connect to the internet.

As a hobby musician, I also use Apple’s Logic once in a while (even my 30” monitor seems too small for that software). I have an electronic drum set right next to my desk and with just a couple of clicks of the mouse and a few twirls with my sticks, I can record some of those beats that constantly go through my head. That’s one of the few “play” times that I allow on my Mac Pro Tower. Otherwise, I do try to separate work and play by using the Tower for all my development work and the MacBook Pro for everything else such as browsing, email, iChat, bookkeeping, etc.

My next purchase will be the iPhone. I’m trying to convince myself that it will be necessary to test websites on small screens…

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