Tools of the trade

Before we go down the development path, I thought I would share with you my workspace and the apps I use on a daily basis. We are a small team, and we found it pays to standardise the tools we use for development. Over the past few years we’ve played with several different apps, but now feel fairly settled in what we use.

The items that surround me

MacBook – We’re now almost entirely an all-Apple shop (Tom our Cookie Monster – more to come – uses Linux). I personally opted for a MacBook rather than MacBook Pro as I write code all day and preferred the compactness over the enhanced graphics.

Magic Mouse – I had a mighty mouse until recently but was fed up with the scroller always sticking. The Magic Mouse solves that. Although I possibly prefer the shape of the Mighty, the Magic is a joy to use.

Books – I don’t know what it is…but I love books! I do read a lot of blogs, but there is something far nicer about having the book in your hands. I buy books to help further my knowledge and pick up a few tips, but also just to help support ‘the greats’ of our industry.

Coffee - Addict. Our development work is certainly fuelled by a great deal of caffeine!

Money Pig – A source of motivation! Our mission at The Money Pig is to ‘Save you money’…what better iconic symbol of saving than the good ‘ol fashion piggy bank. However a small personal goal is to get the next generation referring to piggy banks a Money Pigs…so far my daughter does…but I have a little way to go with it

Dice – The all important way we decide who has to make the coffee. We each have set numbers. Anyone can roll whenever they want. If it lands on your number its ‘pens down’ and off to make everyone a drink! We used to play Top Trumps…but that took far too long! The dice is short and sweet! How do you decide whose turn it is to make the drinks in your office?

iPhone – Finally the iPhone. I was a late adopter, but now cannot understand how I coped without it! I do find that in order to get some quality development done at times it has to go on silent to stop the constant interruptions.

Now onto the slightly more serious part…

The apps

Development: Coda – The original reason I wanted to move to Mac. All I wanted was a text editor with syntax highlighting which uploaded via FTP when you hit save…pretty much thats exactly what Coda does. Sure, like most apps, there are a few other features which I don’t use but they are inoffensive and don’t detract from the simplicity of Coda.

Databases: Sequel Pro – After using the ‘buggy as hell’ MySQL Query Browser for years I was blown away when I first used Sequel Pro! For me it puts the love – if there is any – back into database management. If you’re on a Mac, and work with MySQL you MUST try Sequel Pro.

Browser: Chrome (currently) – After being a faithful Firefox user for many years I am currently giving Chrome for Mac a trial. So far I have been blown away with the speed and love the simplicity of the UI. For the moment i’m pretty happy with it. I hope over time it doesn’t get over bloated with addons. Would I go back to Firefox? Yup, if it was stripped down a little and could match Chrome’s speed. When it comes to development we obviously also have to test in all major browsers.

Project Management: Basecamp – We are fully fledged, paid up, users for Basecamp. I would love to say that we seamlessly run all projects through it in an organised manor…but to tell the truth…we don’t! I love the concept, and the app, but we haven’t quite made the transition from physical whiteboard yet. I believe you have to play with Basecamp for a while before working out how it can best work for you. Jamie from Erskine Design wrote an interesting article about it: http://bit.ly/40f3W.

Music: iTunes – Finally, we all need a little music to help the day go by. It’s rare for one of of iTunes not to be playing out into the office.

Thank you

I hope you found the little whistle-stop tour of my workspace of some interest. I’d love to hear if your development or design space differs greatly, and if there are any apps you use on a daily basis which you couldn’t live without!

Finally, if you haven’t already please do complete our short survey to help us know more about you!

Posted by Dan Millar on Tuesday, December 15th, 2009 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.