Regular Reader – Duncan Smith

Week seven and we hear from Duncan – who has stormed to the top of the Regulars recently!

1. As this blog covers a lot of Mac related products what was your first Apple product that you bought?

20Gb 3rd Gen iPod closely followed by a 17″ Powerbook.

2. On a similar theme, but moving forward what will be the next Apple product that you buy?

Would really like to upgrade to a Mac Book Pro but funds are tight so I’m looking at upgrading the RAM on my powerbook from 1Gb to 2Gb. All I’ve read suggests this would be a good move – only really notice the go slow when I do some video encoding or have a lot of apps open, However, I’ve not tried a Mac Book pro yet and can imagine once I do the Powerbook will seem a lot slower.

3. Do you have an all time favourite Apple product or Mac application?

Hardware – my powerbook – it goes everywhere with me and is used every day. Couldn’t be without it. Application – currently coda which I am using for all my web design projects. Its great and has some nice features but I have yet to really get to grips with uploading. Seemingly sites created from scratch using coda understand the file hierachy and upload to the correct folder automatically however, sites I imported (from transmit) when I first installed Coda struggle with this. They seem to upload to the root directory. Not sure if this me or a known issue and have yet to research it properly.

4. The blog also covers other subjects, so do you have any specific interests or hobbies that keep you busy?

Outdoor activities – sea and white water kayaking, sailing, climbing and mountaineering, mountain biking. I have just relocated to the coast on the edge of the New Forest so I can introduce my daughter to the joys of paddling and sailing

5. What would be your all time favourite technology gadget?

An apple PDA so I can take one out and about in my sea kayak or in my rucsac. Got quite excited by the iPod touch until I realised you couldn’t add appointments or to do tasks. As I have commented on the blog I am quite chilled about the phone aspect needing the PDA features more however now I know O2 (my carrier) have got the iPhone I will probably plump for one

6. How do you pay the bills, or if you are studying what are your future plans to pay the bills?

Full time ICT teacher in a secondary school, part time web designer for pocket money and freelance Outdoor instructor in the holidays.

7. What three words or phrases would your friends use to describe you?

A gear freak (I love my outdoor kit). An apple fanboy (I think people I work with are getting sick of my ranting about stock school PC’s needing to be replaced with Macs). Not very organised (hence my recent purchase of Getting things done by Dave Allen and installing iGTD).

8. Anything else you want to share with us?

Not really, but would love to hear from folks who utilise their macs to support their Outdoor Adventures and how!! Also love to hear from any freelance web designers who have made the break from a ‘steady’ job and how they found this. Its a pipe dream at the moment as I have to have a secure income from a mortgage point of view but I keep practicsing and building my skills so maybe one day!

About These Interviews

A significant attraction for me in blogging is the ‘community’ that it creates. I am never going to be ‘up there’ with the young bloggers – I am not going to be that attractive to your average teenage blog reader, I actually don’t want to be as I find a lot of the stuff that interests them remarkably shallow and insipid, and I am perfectly happy with the slightly more mature (mentally and/or physically) reader that I attract.

I have ‘met’ some great people through the blog, some I communicate with daily, others much less frequently, but collectively they add to the enjoyment and satisfaction I get from blogging.

This series of interviews is a way of you getting to know each other better, and hopefully attract more of you to participate in the blog. I know there are a lot more of you out there that read the site regularly but don’t comment. That is your right of course, but trust me there are a really great bunch of readers around that I am sure you would get on with.

If you want to be included in this series please just email me either with your answers to these 8 questions or with any questions you may have.

And finally, thanks to all the readers who have participated in this series, and thanks to all of you for reading. I will do a long post at the end of the series with all the interviews so you can catch up easily on any that you miss, or get a great overview of some of the common answers, and some of the wildly different answers!