In honor of Labor Day, I’ve cooked up a special post. There’s a wonderful site for tech enthusiasts and it’s called The Setup. Each interview consists of the same four questions, all pertaining to the interviewee’s setup. A lot of my favorite internet writers have been featured here to talk about their setups (John Gruber, Marco Arment, Dan Benjamin, MG Siegler, Shawn Blanc, Brett Terpstra) and since I’ve been diving ever deeper into the GTD/workflow rabbit hole, I figured I’d share my own. And, without further ado, here it is.
Brian Conway
Writer, Creator (The Conway Report)
Who are you, and what do you do?
My name is Brian Conway and I have a website, The Conway Report, because if I didn’t I’d lose my mind. I use The Conway Report as a means to practice the craft; the topics vary, their prominence in the following order: news, movie reviews, Criterion movie reviews, music, comics, & literature.
What hardware do you use?
An iMac 21.5”, Mid 2010, 3.2 GHz i3, 4GB RAM, booting on an OWC Data Doubled 60GB SSD with data stored on an internal 2TB HDD, with an Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Trackpad is my primary workhorse.
The new iPad serves as my lounge/travel device on the odd occasions when I can lounge/travel. When I’m not using a finger with iPad, I’m using Studio Neat’s Cosmonaut.
An iPhone 4S rounds out the computing triumvirate as a technological Swiss army knife. I use it to make phone calls, too.
In the living room, there’s an Apple TV, PlayStation 3, and Wii hooked up to a 40” LCD Samsung television (tl;dc) and a Sonos Play:5.
Speaking of killer audio, a black Jambox follows me all over the house blaring 5by5 and Mule podcasts and I alternate between Bowers & Wilkins’s P3s (white) and C5s on the go.
Then there’s the kitchen equipment: a Hario Skerton grinder, the invincible AeroPress, and a six-cup Chemex when I have company.
Other random bits of neglected hardware include a Kindle Touch, Pro-Ject turntable, a Nikon D5000, and a litany of external hard drives and flash drives.
I want to use any of the dozen Field Notes Brand notebooks I have strewn about my house—my brain just isn’t wired to use pen and paper.
And what software?
The Conway Report is published through Tumblr and I write all my posts in iA Writer using John Gruber’s infinitely useful Markdown. I rediscovered Marked to preview Markdown output as I write thanks to Merlin Mann’s incessant name-dropping (…teeeerp…).
I’m really, really, really thinking about dropping a chunk of change on Coda 2 & Diet Coda. [EDIT: I bought it. I love it.]
Tweetbot is for gathering, Instapaper is for saving, and Clear for capturing elusive thoughts.
Launch Center Pro, 1Password, and Text Expander are the software vegetables I’m forcing myself to ingest until I love them and integrate them heavily into my tech diet.
Apple’s Podcasts app, iTunes Match, Spotify, Comic Zeal, Twist, and Mint.com round out the rest.
What would be your dream setup?
I don’t know yet; someone in Cupertino is dreaming it for me.
