Following up on my recent post on the engineers toobox, I’ve just rebuilt my Apple MacBook (newer, bigger hard disk was the perfect opportunity for a fresh Snow Leopard install and to fix some annoying iPhoto index & thumbnail corruption), so here’s my list of essentials for my MacBook, in no particular order: Evernote SpanningSync Dropbox Last.fm Xmarks for Safari Xmarks for Firefox Panic Coda Thunderbird 3.x British Dictionary Enigmail Google Contacts Mail Redirect Nostalgy Mnenhy (view a custom set of headers) Display Remote Images automatically Custom Archive folder (one big bucket please) Adium VMWare Fusion iPhoto iMovie QuickSilver Microsoft Office Google Chrome Flickr Uploader Skype Google Picasa Get iPlayer Automator Cyberduck MacVim Spotify iSquint AudioHub VisualHub SuperSync TweetDeck ClickToFlash Growl

In days gone by, any computer guy worth his salt had a collection of boot floppies, 5.25″ & 3.5″, containing a mix of MS-DOS, DR-DOS, Toms Root Boot & Norton tools. These days passed and the next set of essentials was boot cd-r, containing BartPE, RIPLinux, Knoppix etc. People quickly switched to carrying these tools USB sticks, smaller, easier to change, great when the dodgy PC you were trying to breathe life into supported USB booting.

just incase anybody was interested, the slides from my BarCamp Belfast talk are here: Google Docs SlideShare (you can download the PPT from there as well)

St Anne’s Cathedral Originally uploaded by SimonMcC

BarCampBelfast-planning Originally uploaded by SimonMcC

DavyMac’s iPhone Photography talk at BarCamp Belfast 2010 Originally uploaded by SimonMcC

Matt Johnston commented recently that the recent surge in activity in the community side of the local tech & business scene could be “the ‘real’ end of the ‘Troubles’?”. It’s definitely a positive thing, I’m delighted the next generation of technologists in Northern Ireland has a growing & diverse community around them. Something that was sorely lacking in my formative years, where it seemed that the only exposure to technology was from inside the technology firm you worked in.

You can reach me by email at simon@mccartney.ie, I’m on Twitter as simonmcc, my LinkedIn profile is here and you can get me on Facebook here. Social enough? You could always just try phoning me on +44 7710 836 915

Brand: Union hand-roasted Bean: sumatra, extra fancy Region/Producer: Gayo Mountain Co-Operative, Aceh. Roast: Grind: Cafetière Test brew: Espresso Test Equipment: Kenwood Cremissimo Full bodied, deep rich taste, minimal bitter aftertaste, but not overly sweet. Very impressed. 4⁄5

I’m just back from the Open Source Solution Centre’s Information Evening at the Seagoe Hotel, Daniel Bled has obviously worked hard at sharing his passion for open source software, he and the rest of the team from Southern Regional College & InvestNI put on an evening they should be proud of. Daniel did a sterling job of trying to convey the Open Source philosophy to the gathered non-technical, business oriented audience.