Jim's Blog

Sydney Harbour Bridge (Taken with Instagram at Sydney Harbour Bridge)

My Tech Setup

Over on usesthis.com a bunch of business, IT folks and all-round geeks describe their technology setup. Below is mine.

I’ve also pulled this list into a board on Pinterest.

What do I do?
I’m currently Client Services Manager at Symantec.cloud. Before that, I was IT Store and Desktop Manager at Officeworks. Before Officeworks, I worked in a number of infrastructure management, technical consulting and engineering roles at Lonely Planet, Byte and Hewlett-Packard. During that time, I got a Master of Management in IT from Charles Sturt University.

What hardware am I using?
Until 2009, I used a mixture of desktops and laptops by Dell and the odd custom made system which I used mainly for gaming. Since then, I have greatly simplified my setup and have started a gradual transition to Apple hardware starting with the iPhone 3G.

Over the years, computing power has far exceeded my actual real world needs. I currently use a 13” MacBook Air (4GB memory, 256GB SSD) almost exclusively. I travel a lot in my current job and the form factor and battery life of the Air is invaluable.

In the office I use a generic 24” BENQ monitor, Apple Wireless Keyboard and Apple Magic Mouse.

At home, I have recently purchased a 27” Samsung LED monitor which was amazing value. I use a Logitech K800 backlit wireless keyboard with a Logitech Anywhere MX mouse. Both work with the Logitech Universal receiver and the mouse works on glass surfaces.

For networking I run a wireless N network using an Apple Time Capsule 2TB (which also serves as secondary storage), Airport Express and Netcomm NB6Plus4 ADSL2+ modem.

Gaming and entertainment is served by an Apple TV and Sony Playstation 3.

I also have an iPhone and an iPad. The latter I use as a laptop replacement when reading, reference and the odd email is the only requirement. Increasingly, I am being more and more productive on my iPad, a trend I hope to continue.

I have eliminated all hardware based backup systems and use Backblaze to backup my laptop (I store my data in the cloud).

And what software?
The majority of my computer use is web based and for this I use Google Chrome.

I use Gmail for personal email, and Apple Mail for work email.

I try to stick to multi-platform apps where possible.

My most frequent in no particular order, Asana, Salesforce, WebEx, TripIt, Evernote, BeeJiveIM, Skype, Foursquare, Flipboard, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Mail, Sparrow, Agenda, and Kindle

Google Docs (with Insync) acts as my primary storage and is accessible from most apps and devices.

What would be my dream setup?
My current setup serves me fine, but I would replace my monitors with 27” Thunderbolt Displays.

Goldman Sachs customers first

I read a Bloomberg Editorial attacking former executive Greg Smith’s criticism of his former employer, Goldman Sachs.

Quote from the Bloomberg post:

“It must have been a terrible shock when Smith concluded that Goldman actually was primarily about making money. He spares us the sordid details, but apparently it took more than a decade for the scales to finally fall from his eyes.”

Speaking out against your former employer is a risky practice and has the potential to tarnish you as disenfranchised or bitter. I found neither in Greg Smith’s post.

“When the history books are written about Goldman Sachs, they may reflect that the current chief executive officer, Lloyd C. Blankfein, and the president, Gary D. Cohn, lost hold of the firm’s culture on their watch. I truly believe that this decline in the firm’s moral fiber represents the single most serious threat to its long-run survival.”

Creating value for shareholders through sustainable (long-term) competitive advantage is the goal of many publicly listed companies. Focusing on customers is not mutually exclusive with that goal. Some would argue (eg. Apple) that maintaining a customer orientation is the key to business success.

That is the essence of Greg Smith’s post.