Who are you, what do you do, etc…?

I’m Duncan Davidson and I am a photographer, writer, and recovering software developer. Possibly my most recognizable affiliation is as the main stage photographer for TED. I’ve been exploring video and learning all I can, including bridging between stills and motion with a lot of time-lapse work, such as my recent Tribute in Light project. Finally, I’m a partner in Luma Labs which makes some awesome camera slings.

What is your current setup?

My desktop is an eight-core, early-2008 Mac Pro with 14GB of RAM, an upgraded ATI 4870 video card, an SSD boot drive in the bottom DVD drive bay, and 24TB of online storage across several arrays, both internal and external.

My primary display is a late-2008 24″ LED Cinema display. Tunes are pumped out through a set of old school USB Harman Kardon SoundSticks. Input is handed using an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard and Magic Trackpad and a Wacom Intous 4 tablet. For voice input, I use an Audio Technica AT2050 microphone hooked up to an Apogee One, and I monitor on a pair of Audio Technica ATH-M40fs headphones.

Document scanning is handed with a Fujitsu SnapScan. Photographs are scanned with an Epson v500 flatbed scanner. Most of my print needs are handled by an Epson 3880 printer, but for bigger jobs I also have a 24″ HP Z3200.

My primary laptop unless I’m in the throes of heavy photo or video work is a mid-2011, 13″ MacBook Air with 4GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. I went with the i5 instead of the i7 in the hope of getting the maximum battery life possible.

My secondary laptop which I pull out when I need to use FireWire drives on the road or when I know that the GPU will come in handy is a late-2008, 15″ MacBook Pro that I’ve upgraded to 4GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. This laptop is almost effectively retired, but not quite.

An iPhone 4 keeps me connected most of the time. A first generation iPad is what you’ll find me using on the couch or in seat 6A when I’m traveling.

Why this rig?

A desktop-plus-portable strategy is the only one that can satisfy my need for power, speed, and storage at home while also keeping things as light as possible for when I’m traveling fast. If I could go with a simpler setup, I would in a heartbeat. So far, however, the trend has been that my storage needs are ramping up quickly over time and dealing with over a TB a year of new data is the big challenge.

On the other hand, nothing beats being able to throw my MacBook Air and a Fuji X100 into a small bag and head out the door for a day or a weekend.

What software do you use and for what do you use it?

I manage my photographs using a combination of Aperture, Lightroom and Bridge. Aperture is taking over my primary catalog needs from Lightroom. I use Bridge when I need to scour through the archives of photographs that aren’t in my active catalog.

When I need more in the way of photo editing tools than I get from Aperture, I use Photoshop. When I need less, I use Acorn and sometimes even Preview.

For video, I use Final Cut Pro X and love it. I also use Compressor and After Effects for various tasks, including stitching together still frames into video clips.

When I’m in code mode, I use BBEdit or Xcode depending on the task at hand. For straight ahead writing—including all of my blog entries as well as the writing that currently isn’t seeing the light of day—I’ve become a huge fan of iA Writer.

To get things done, I use OmniFocus. At least I try. Sometimes I do better than others. Keeping all of my non-media data in sync between machines in handled by Dropbox. 1Password is essential for passwords. Mail, iCal, Safari, Numbers, and Pages are all open on my computer right now.

How does this setup help you do your best creative work?

For the most part, it lets me do what I need to do in the kinds of environments I like to be in.

At home, I’ve arranged my desk so that when I’m working on my desktop, I can look up across my living room and out my huge living room windows across downtown Portland. Watching the weather go by is therapeutic to me. The MacBook Air lets me work in cafés near home and as well as anywhere in the world. It’s even useful for the kinds of light photo editing I do on the road.

How would your ideal setup look and function?

I’m pretty close to my ideal right now. If I could change anything, I’d have a view of midtown Manhattan out my window from 25 floors up and I’d have a 15″ MacBook Pro that wasn’t much heavier than my current Air but which did have a GPU. The former is a pipe dream right now. The latter might happen any month now. Hopefully.

I used to use two screens on my desktop, and I might consider do so again. However, I’ve found that using one screen increases my ability to glance up and look outside my window. A second screen cuts that down quite a bit. As well, I’ve discovered that parking my laptop on one side lets me keep various websites or other reference material in easy view while I work on the desktop.

Finally, a closer-to-ideal setup would include a data solution for my media files that was a bit less maintenance intensive. I think the best I’ll be able to do in the near future is consolidate my various hard drive arrays into two Promise Thunderbolt R6 arrays when I upgrade my desktop machine. That jump will probably happen sometime in the next six months.

More Sweet Setups

Duncan’s setup is just one in a series of sweet Mac Setups.

Share the stuff you like: Facebook, Twitter, blogging, emailing - now built right in! Go read the announcement on the Vienna blog! Click here for the English-Only version.

ITunes sucks. There, we said it. Apple’s once very handy jukebox and music library manager has morphed into an unusable piece of crap that’s not even an app anymore, it’s just a kiosk for the iTunes Store.

Path Finder is a standalone application that leverages what you already know about working with your files. It takes the Finder's familiar interface and adds numerous powerful features and interface innovations to help anyone be more productive on Mac OS X.

Threat Level had no idea the iPhone was so dangerous. We’re gratified that Apple locked down this potential weapon of mass disruption before hackers could unleash cybarmageddon. This also explains why Apple rejected the official Google Voice App for the iPhone this week. We thought it was because Google Voice posed a threat to AT&T’s exclusivity deal with Apple. Now we know it threatened national security.

It's disappointing that Snow Leopard doesn't promise many major new Finder features, but with the right tweaks and plug-ins, you can make browsing files on your Mac significantly better.

We've featured countless apps or all sorts over the years, but if you just want a quick look at the best free downloads for your Mac, this post's for you. This is the 2009 Lifehacker Pack for Mac OS X.

If you’ve just got yourself a new Mac and totally clueless what to install, this article is for you. If you are looking for alternatives for some applications you are currently using in your Mac, the following list might come in handy too. This week, we’d like to showcase you a list of useful yet free applications you can install for your Mac. Full list after jump.

Voor wie de website nog niet kent, Appletips.nl biedt de gebruiker een catalogus aan van een groot aantal, Nederlandstalige, tips voor het gebruik van je Apple. De tips zijn onderverdeeld in beginners, gevorderden, Apple TV en de iPhone. MacVandaag zoekt vandaag de 10 leukste tips uit in de categorie beginners!

Did Apple steal the idea from Kodak? Not at all. Was Apple aware of the Vanity Kodak, and the what and the how of Teague’s contribution? Without a doubt: Jonathan Ive is an outstanding designer, and the Vanity Kodak is one of the classic examples in the history of industrial design. What Apple did was learn from history, and adopt, adapt, and assimilate past success to current context. That is simply good, intelligent design in action. It is also a very good lesson: an obsession with the new and original, without a deep literacy and appreciation for the past, leads to a path of missed opportunities.

Al sje een document verplaatst naar een externe schijf wordt het standaard gekopieerd. Wil je echt iets verplaatsen, dan moet je de Apple-toets (Cmd) ingedrukt houden tijdens het slepen.

Once you own an iPhone, you discover that it’s more than a phone. It’s a way of life. Take a look at some ideas to help you get the most out of your iPhone, wherever you go.

ffmpegX is a Mac OS X graphic user interface designed to easily operate more than 20 powerful Unix open-source video and audio processing tools including ffmpeg the "hyper fast video and audio encoder", mpeg2enc the open-source mpeg-2 encoder and multiplexer and mencoder the mpeg-4 encoder with subtitles support.

There are two models for selecting multiple items in a list using the keyboard: anchored and unanchored.

Whether you’re new to the Mac or have been using one for some time, there’s usually always something new you can learn about it to make your workflow, personal projects, or fun time a little easier or more enjoyable. To that end, Apple makes plenty of resources available on their web site.

The revolutionary enhancement that transforms Apple’s Mail into a powerful email organization system.

This simple application activates the Fast User Switching feature built-in to Mac OS X. After clicking on MacLoc, it will appear that you’ve logged out, however upon entering your username and password, all open documents and applications will be right where you left them. MacLoc is the perfect solution when you need to step out of the room for a moment.

The latest issue of Mac Life magazine had a cool collection of 30 great Mac apps that “you’ve never heard of.” Well, that wasn’t quite right, but there were several great finds. Considering how many blog readers I get who are Macs, I figured I might share those finds plus a few of my own favorites.

It’s main purpose is to fire off a Growl notification each time devices are connected or disconnected from your Mac, and includes support for FireWire, USB and filesystem volumes (i.e. disks) as well as Bluetooth devices and network interfaces. Unfortunately, to make the best of use of Hardware Growler, you will have to do some work to get it installed properly.

Cost aside, the only reason to choose a desktop Mac over a laptop is if you’re never going to want to use your Mac anywhere but where you’ve parked it. If you’ve ever wished you could take your Mac with you, whether it’s to your couch or across the globe, a laptop can give you flexibility that no desktop system can.

Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.

Heb je net je eerste Mac gekocht? Dan ben je hier aan het juiste adres om hem echt te leren gebruíken. Onderstaande teksten en video's zijn vooral bedoeld als een introductie.

Trouble with video on the Mac. And thought Mac OS was currently the best operating system for video editing...?

Here are 10 reasons why I’d like to buy a Nokia N800 instead of an Apple iPhone. I realize that there are areas where the iPhone will be better than the N800, I just don’t think it’s worth the extra cost and lack of freedom that comes along with hav

A lot of people have been moving to the Mac over the past few years, so a while back I thought I'd jot down a few notes about my experience over the last five years or so.