It’s a funny old world. Over the course of the past few years I’ve seen a lot of people take a step back from contributing to WordPress, and I never thought I would get there. But here I am, writing about taking exactly such a break.
When I joined the WordPress community back in early 2016, it was the first global tech community I’d ever actively joined. Like the first time you learn to ride a bike, all I wanted to do was be part of this amazing thing and do as much of it as I could. Now, just 3 years later, I feel burned out and disillusioned as to what my purpose in this community really is.
Don’t get me wrong, the community is not the problem, just like riding a bike up and down your street is not the problem. But all it takes is one or two potholes, or an inconsiderate driver, and things soon take a turn for the worse.
Organising local events
I attended my first WordCamp in Cape Town in 2015, spoke at WordCamp Cape Town in 2016, lead the team for 2017 and 2018, and was part of the team again in 2019, and I need a break. I’d like to be able to attend my home town WordCamp as an attendee next year, without needing to rush from an interesting conversation to whatever next issue might need to be dealt with. I wish the 202o team all of the very best, and I’ll happily assist wherever I can, but not in an official organising capacity.
I will also be taking a step back in organising our local meetup. Fortunately one of our members has joined the meetup organising team, and if she’s as good at organising meetups as she was running Logistics for WCCT 2019, we’re in good hands. I’ll still happily help the team plan events, liase with sponsors and find speakers, but it will be great to share the load of hosting with the three currently active meetup organisers.
WP Notify
I’ve been a community team deputy for about 2 years now, and it’s been an amazing journey. For 2020 I will be taking a big step back from that team, to focus on the future of WP Notify, the notifications feature project I’ve been working on with other WordPress contributors, for the past few months. I think WP Notify is something that WordPress is desperately lacking, and I see it as an important part of moving WordPress into the future, so I want to spend all my core contribution time focused on that.
Speaker diversity training.
Besides WP Notify, my other big goal for 2020 is to do what I can to support the Speaker Diversity Training programme grow and flourish within our local community. Deb Butler has already dedicated herself to launching this training programme, and I want to do whatever I can to assist her.
I am hoping that this break from all of the many volunteer things I, knowingly, get myself into, and a focus on only one or two, will help me redefine my purpose and feel some of that joy I first had back in 2016.
The general recommendation to becoming a better writer, is to write every day.
Besides high school creative writing, I am mostly a self taught writer. I’ve never completed any official copy-writing courses, even though I have three purchased on Udemy from about 2 years ago. I generally don’t understand the finer details that would take me from being a blogger or writing contributor to the ranks of editing someone else’s writing work.
That being said, since I was accepted as a freelance contributor on the Skyword platform early last year, I’ve probably completed at least two written assignments per month. I’m definitely writing more than I ever have, and it’s definitely paying off. I’m seeing the benefits not only in my paid writing work, but also in the general content of my blog.
I thought that it might be useful to share the process I follow, when I am writing content for money. If nothing else, it allows me to write something else today 😉
Brain vomit
While the image above my not be pleasant, this is always my first step. When working on a specific assignment, I will have certain guidelines I need to follow, in terms of article content.
I’ll create a new blank Google Doc, paste any relevant information from the assignment at the top of the page, and then just type out whatever comes to mind. This is usually just a few words or phrases, maybe a title, or a sentence or two.
Research
Once I’ve put down the thoughts I have in my head about the topic in question, I’ll start doing some research. Often this is to clarify some points of (mis)understanding, or to fill in some gaps in my knowledge. The assignment topic will define how much research I do. If it’s in an area I know little about, I can spend up to an hour researching. As I am researching the topic, I’m starting to put together a plan of how the article will look and what the story is I want to tell.
First draft
I then start writing my first draft. This is just everything as it enters my head. I might make minor edits here or there, but mostly I just write as the thoughts come to me.
Break
This is a pretty important step, but I then take some time away from writing. I find this allows me to think about what I’ve written, if there’s anything else I want to add or take away, and allows me to come back to review what I’ve put down with ‘fresh’ eyes.
First edit
This is the most edit heavy process. I read through the content and do my best to self edit my work, taking out repetitive words, looking for other words or phrases that will convey what I’m trying to say. This is usually where I will also start adding links to relevant content, including images, and generally trimming down the content to fit specific criteria. I may also take out sentences, and sometimes whole paragraphs, that don’t fit into the edited article any more.
Second edit
Immediately once the first edit is complete I’ll start the second, and final, edit. This is where I try to just read the article from top to bottom, as a reader would. Usually this is also where I look for complex sentences and try to uncomplicated them, as well as a more detailed focus on spelling and grammar errors. I will also look at the flow of the sentences and prune them where necessary.
I’m sure my process is nothing new or unique, but it’s evolved over time and I find it works for me.
I’ve been freelancing full time for just over three years now, having spent 10 years developing for either digital agencies or small to medium sized businesses, in various roles.
In the 3+ years since I switched to freelance development, the two sentences that I’ve heard/read the most from clients, and the ones that illicit the most negative responses in me, are:
“This will only take x minutes”
“This will be easy for an experienced developer”
If you are a freelancer, and you’ve been on the receiving end of these phrases, you’ll know what I’m talking about. This post however is not for you, it’s for anyone who has ever said one of these phrases to a developer, or who might not understand why they are so negative.
“This will only take x minutes”
x is usually a variable number, ranging anywhere from ‘a few’ to 30. Sometimes minutes is replaced by hours. Either way, the reason this phrase is so despised by freelancers is that it indicates to that you think you know more about what we do, than we do.
If you know something will take 5 minutes, that means you understand the problem fully, as well as the possible solutions required to solve it and also which one to apply to solve it within 5 minutes. This means you can do it yourself. And it is therefore a lie, because if you could do something in 5 minutes yourself, you would not be hiring someone to do it for you.
“This will be easy for an experienced developer”
Personally, this one is worse than the previous phrase, and here’s why.
This phrase tells me you understand that I am experienced in my field, that I am knowledgeable, and you recognise that I can fix your problem. What it also tells me is that while you recognise my ability to fix your problem, you don’t value my knowledge enough to pay what it’s going to cost.
What is happening in both instances is that you’re trying to get me to keep my price down, because you think it will be a simple solution and you assume therefore it will be quick to fix. Unfortunately, in most cases, you’re making the same mistakes as the folks who thought that Titanic was unsinkable.
If the problem was a 5 minute solution, you wouldn’t need to hire me to fix it. And my experience, comes with a price. You either value the fact that I am capable of solving your problem, or you are looking for a cheap solution, which usually means taking shortcuts, something that I am not prepared to do.
Successful solutions take time, planning and thorough testing. By making assumptions up front, you are setting the project up for failure, and nobody wants that.
If you’re a fan of sci-fi, specifically Douglas Adam’s “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, you’ll understand both the importance of this number, and the reference in the title.
I do think it’s sort of apt that the number 42 was used in this context. When I hit 40 I felt good about it, but now, a mere 2 years later, I think I have a much better idea of who I am as a person than I did two years ago, and my place in the world. Isn’t that weird, how two years can make such a difference?
What I have noticed is that in the last 2 years I have been focused less on worrying about what others are doing around me and more on just being a better version of myself. This way of thinking has bled through into all areas of what I do, both personally and professionally, and I think I’m really starting to see fruitful results.
So maybe the answer to the life, the universe, and everything, lies in having the confidence to being honest with myself as to my strengths and weaknesses, which, for me anyway, only comes from being on this earth for 40 years. I feel like there are people who get there earlier than I did, but I’ve learned that we all have our journey to follow, and each is unique, and that’s OK.
This morning I learned that the execution of Archduke Ferdinand, which kicked off WWI, happened on this day, but that the Treaty of Versailles, which effectively ended WWI, also happened on this day.
Isn’t that amazing, two major events that changed the world, happened on exactly the same day. This really gives me some food for thought.
At the end of it all I’m grateful for the 42 years I have spent in this planet, and I look forward to the next 42.
I don’t think I completed my year end review for 2018 or wrote a resolution post for 2019. However a bunch of things have happened so far this year, mostly in the past few months. As it’s almost exactly halfway through the year, I thought it might be cool to share them.
As one door closes…
Towards the end of last year, my wife and I decided to sell the family business we’d been running together since 2011. It was a hard decision to make, but as our boys were growing older we found ourselves less and less inclined to want to work on weekends, which the business required. I’m happy to say that we successfully sold the business earlier this year.
Castos and accelerator funds
Back in December of 2016 Craig Hewitt contacted me looking for someone to help him extend the podcasting plugin he had recently acquired. I’ve been working with Craig ever since, and so I was very pleased to find out the Castos, the company built to support and enhance the plugin was accepted into the TinySeed Accelerator. Which brings me to…
…another opens.
The investment Castos has received has allowed Craig to offer me a full time role in the company. I’ve been the designated lead developer of the project since pretty much just after we launched what was then called Seriously Simple Hosting back in 2017, but now it’s an official position, with all the benefits and responsibilities that go along with it. I couldn’t be happier, because I think we have a great product, and I now get to work with a small group of amazing people, helping our clients and plugin users from all over the world, every day, so I’m looking forward to what the next year holds for us all.
That’s not to say that I won’t be able to continue to work with my clients at Codeable. I’m lucky to have made great relationships with a group of repeat clients and I will continue to serve them in whatever capacity they require.
This position will also give me some security and time to to put into other areas, including expanding my contributions to WordPress, and getting back on the ‘building my own products’ train. Watch this space.
Castos goes to WCEU
Part of the Castos/TinySeed news was that I was able to travel to Berlin and (finally) meet both Craig and fellow Castos developers Danillo and Stefan. It was the first of what looks to become a regular, yearly team retreat. Working along side people remotely in a start up environment is a fun-filled experience, but there’s nothing like actually meeting in person. We know also know who the tallest member of team Castos is, and no, it’s not me! I’m hoping that the next team retreat will include the other members of our team.
The team retreat was timed to coincide with WordCamp Europe, which meant I was able to attend this year again. My favourite thing about WCEU is meeting people in real life, especially those I’ve only ever meet online. It’s always great to see my community team friends, but this year I was able to connect with, and meet in person, an entire years worth of ‘online only’ folks.
Professionally, 2019 is shaping up to be a pretty awesome year. I have some plans of things I want to accomplish for the rest of this year and the next, but I’m also acutely aware that one cannot succeed at everything. Win or loose, I’m exceptionally excited to be able to at least try.
I’ve never been someone who understood the value of unit testing. During my programming studies, when I learned new languages like PHP or JavaScript, unit testing was never a topic that came up. The byproduct of a non university, tertiary education I guess?
The first time I discovered unit tests was when I was working with a Python developer in the late 2000s. I can’t remember how it came about, but it was through him that I learned about the concept, how you write the tests first and then write the code to pass the tests. I still didn’t understand the value, so I did some cursory research but generally moved on.
Over the course of the next few years I often saw articles or discussions on unit testing, but the idea of unit testing my code was not something that was a part of any developer position I’ve held in the last 15 years, so I never learned how to, or why I should, write unit tests.
In 2015, when I started developing for WordPress, unit testing came up again, as I looked into contributing to WordPress core. In my search to ramp up my WordPress development knowledge I discovered Know the Code, and one of Tonya’s courses was about unit tests. At around the same time I started using Laravel, which meant eventually finding Laracasts, which also included a course on Unit Testing. Through these places I eventually discovered Grumpy Learning by Chris Hartjes, who has 3 books dedicated to unit testing PHP code.
I’ve since come to appreciate the value and need for unit tests and have committed myself to writing unit tests for all new functionality I code from 2019 onward. At first it was daunting, but today something finally clicked.
It started with a new feature. I needed to verify the extension of a media file path, ignore any query strings that might be appended to that path, and return the correct base name to the actual file. Contrary to my unit testing resolution, I wrote the actual code first, but realised that when it came time to test it, I’d need to do a whole bunch of other work to deploy the code and test it manually, the old fashioned way. I realised this was a great chance to write some unit tests.
During the writing of some simple assertEquals() assertions, I soon realised that my initial understanding of the problem was flawed. By writing a few additional tests for cases I had not originally thought of, I could more thoroughly test my solution and improve it to handle these new situations.
In a round about way, I ended up eventually writing the correct unit tests I should have written in the first place, rewriting my code from scratch to solve these tests, and ending up with a much better overall solution.
The tests themselves and the code solution was trivial. What was important was the realisation that, had I started writing the tests first, my mind would have provided additional cases I might not have thought of. I would therefore be preparing myself to not only come up with a better solution, but with a much faster way to test and confirm it.
Through all this I’m getting a good grasp of which types of problems lend themselves to unit testing and which do not. I also realise that if I’m going to write more unit tests I need to allow myself more time up front to plan and execute proper unit testing. I’m still learning, so things like mocks and stubs are still far off concepts I’m aware of but will need to master. I am however excited to see how this improves as I practice, and how it improves my development output as a whole.
Have a clear understanding of your project requirements to ensure you get the most out of your freelance developer
The purpose of this post is to ensure that you know precisely what you need to do in order to get the most out of the freelance developer you’re about to hire. You need a complete understanding of what you want to achieve before even looking at the Freelance for Hire pages. Seriously. Otherwise you will waste time and money and nobody has an endless supply of either.
Here’s a great example…
You are an expert teddy bear maker. You love them. You know that your particular brand of bear is exceptional and you want to build a business out of them. You contact a developer and you say, “I want to sell teddy bears online.”
While an admirable plan, this is too vague and will require a lot of work to fine tune into a final requirements list. Instead, look at developing a breakdown of your requirements that outline every aspect of your business, your needs, your requirements and your customer deliverables.
Something like this…
– I would like to build an eCommerce store that can help me to sell my teddy bears
– The store needs to support a product gallery that can showcase each bear
– The store needs to support a short product description for each bear along with a list of specifications such as fur used, type of eyes etc.
– I would like to accept credit card payments along with EFT and possibly Snapscan or another app payment platform
– I would like the payment gateway to support both international and local credit cards
– I need to add shipping to the order after it has been placed as these will differ depending on the product purchased and the location of the customer
– I would like web hosting options
– I have a domain and email accounts that are linked to that domain, and I think the domain and emails are managed by my internet service provider
– I would like my store to be built with WordPress and WooCommerce
This level of detail really helps both you and your freelance developer to assess the job and what will need to be implemented to make it work. And what underlying technologies will need to be used. We will be exploring the process of clarifying these requirements in greater detail in a later post/chapter as they will help you with pre-hire and with how to harness the help of a freelancer in the scoping and investigative phase.
The detail
Have you ever tried to explain a complex concept to a child? As the parent of two very inquisitive young boys I have learned a lot about how to take something complex and breaking it down into pieces that their brains can understand. To achieve this, you need a solid understanding of the concept yourself. There’s little point in explaining the concept of why the wind blows unless you understand high and low air pressures (I was a geography nerd at school).
The same theory applies to your product or service. Understand your product and its requirements intricately before you move into a relationship with a freelance developer. You can’t brief something unless you know it really well. This also ensures you have a clear vision and will inform all your engagements with your freelancer.
Another bonus is that it will also refine your vision and you will potentially identify any loopholes or issues before it is too late.
CASE STUDY: The successful client/freelance relationship
Craig from Seriously Simple Podcasting
– He understands the concept of podcasting really well
– He was able to define the value of Seriously Simple Podcasting and how its add-on services delivered value to customers
– Already had a viable customer base
– Understands what his clients want
– Has completed some programming tutorials and has some understanding around the basics of web development and the concepts that define it
– Works with his freelance developer to define scope, determine project goals and discuss possible solutions to any problems that arise
CASE STUDY: The flexible partner
Melinda from Agency Of Creativity*
– She is a designer and owns her own agency
– She uses a popular page builder plugin to build her client’s websites
– Each client has a common requirement that she has to build from scratch each time and she realises that this could be developed as a plug-in
– She isn’t clear on the underlying technologies required to make this a reality but she is happy to hire a coding expert who can work with her to achieve her goals
– She provides clear and concise instructions
– She knows exactly what her clients need and is the ideal person to test what is built along the way to ensure it meets specifications
CASE STUDY: The client that can’t
Dawid from Services R Us*
– He has a vague idea of the service listing he would like to provide but isn’t sure about implementation
– Assumes that the process is as simple as ‘just add this field to this page, it should be quick’
– Rambles on about different ideas that pop into his head without actually getting to the point
– Doesn’t send a clear briefing email but rather wanders with his thought processes
– Can’t provide a detailed list of requirements but expects a clear and fixed cost/time estimate
– Constantly contacts the developer, asking them to fix other technical issues that are unrelated to the project. He expects freelance support for free just because of the project
The first two projects are a development success. The last is a time and energy vortex that leaves both client and freelance developer gasping. The best way for your project and your vision to succeed is to have a clear vision and to be open to the reality of what is required.
Usually, towards the end of a year, I start looking back at the year that has been, and looking forward to the year ahead, planning my new goals and resolutions.
This year, however, I have one very specific goal in my head. It’s an idea that actually birthed itself way back in July of 2016, when I wrote a post about why I got into development and blogging about development, in the first place.
2018 has been a year of personal goal achievement and so for 2019 I want to get back to sharing my (limited) knowledge and experience with others, to assist them in achieving their goals, both personally and professionally. So with that in mind I’d like to announce a few changes that will happen on this blog and my podcast, and a few other additions I’m making that will hopefully help support my efforts.
The Jonathan Bossenger Patreon
I have retooled and relaunched my Patreon page. The goal of this page is to give those of you who read my blog, listen to my podcast, or generally follow me online, the ability to help fund my work. I get a lot of folks asking questions in the comments area of my blog posts, and I’d like to be able to spend more time in helping them solve the problems they present. The Patreon is the perfect place to do this.
If you’d like to be able to get a little more out of me, from answering your questions to helping you solve your WordPress or web development problems, or you want me to write about specific experiences or topics, or even interview specific people on the podcast, the Patreon is the perfect way to have your voice heard. For a small monthly fee you can help me bring you the kind of content you are looking for.
At the bottom of every blog post there is a ‘subscribe to my mailing list’ form. If I’m honest I’ve not really used my mailing list to it’s full effect. I intend to do so moving forward. I promise I won’t bombard you with rubbish, but I will select a few useful topics or articles, from either my blog or the web, that I think you will find useful, to send to you, no more than twice a month.
I will also use this mailing lists to announce any new exciting things I am doing.
You may have noticed that I have been blogging a lot more the past few months. This is because I’ve recently started working with a copywriter, who is helping me get my content out there. While I will still use this blog to share my personal experiences, it is my hope that with the assistance of the copywriter I will produce more useful and relevant content to my readers.
WP HackerCast – Season 2
If you were a regular listener to the podcast, you will have noticed things went very quiet after episode 18. This was mostly due to not really having enough time to find guests and prepare podcasts. For 2019, and with the help of my Patreon, I hope to relaunch the podcast with more interesting guests and interviews.
It’s amazing how stories mutate. What started as a simple ‘this is my setup’ post, then turned into a ‘what a day in my life looks like’. This morning I woke up and realised it might be more interesting, and less braggy, to look at how, and why, my workstation has evolved in the last two years, since I moved from office worker to freelancer.
A long, long time ago…
First, a little background. In 2011 I moved from being employed to being a combination of self employed (in the business my wife and I run together) and contract worker (at a local web development agency called Reamdigital). This meant I was working half the time from on office and half the time from home. This lead to me purchasing my first ‘developer’ laptop, a 17 inch Dell Vostro with a Core i5 processer, nVidia graphics, 16GB of RAM (manually upgraded) and a 750 GB hard drive. About a year later I upgraded the hard drive to a 500GB SSD and put the 750 GB drive into an external housing, but that laptop lasted me for a good 5 years in that configuration.
This laptop replaced my then current desktop computer, which I had custom built in 2010, while I was still employed at a company. Using my bonus that year I built a mid range gaming computer. The original specs aren’t important, but by the time I purchased the laptop it had the original AMD Phenom II 945 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD boot drive, a Radeon GPU, and a 1TB Hard drive for storage. My monitor was a 23 inch Samsung Syncmaster, which my wife had kindly purchased for me as a birthday present the previous year.
Other peripherals I had purchased for the computer over time included a Logitech gaming mouse, a Logitech 2.1 surround sound set and a Logitech gaming headset. Some years before my wife got me (another present) a Microsoft ergonomic keyboard, after my previous one died.
As this computer was originally built as a gaming rig, when I purchased the Dell laptop I turned this into a media streaming centre, and played the odd game on it in my lounge. Much fun was had with my oldest when I re-discovered the MAME emulator, and we had hours of joy playing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game together.
The ‘dad-station’ days
So, fast forward to January 2016 and I’m 100% freelance/self employed and working from home with a 1 year old at home all day and a 4 year old at home for the afternoon. Part of the reason I left the agency was to be able to spend more time with my boys, so I had a bright idea.
Scouring the local online classifieds, I found a second hand (this will become a recurring theme in this story) computer stand and set the laptop and monitor up in what I affectionately called ‘the dad-station’. This allowed me to work in the house seated or standing. The standing option was so that I could strap the 1 year old onto my chest and work while he sleeps, or just keep him busy while my wife tries to get some work done, or just take a break for sitting down all the time.
In the picture you can also see the Microsoft keyboard, Logitech gaming headset and mouse, and the R2D2 bobble head I received from the Reamdigital for my last birthday there.
It was during this time that the first of a few incremental changes happened to my work setup.
Firstly, having never previously worked on the Microsoft keyboard for a full day, I discovered that the so called ergonomic keyboard I had was causing a repetitive strain injury. For whatever reason, the way I use my right little finger on the shift key on the keyboard was leading to the top joint of the finger being slowly bent to the right over time and causing pain. To this day that top section of the finger is not straight when compared to the other hand.
While I was at Realmdigital someone suggested I look into the Logitech Marathon mouse, which I had done, and discovered it’s not only amazing battery life, but the fact that it uses the Logitech unifying software to connect, meaning you only need one USB dongle to connect multiple devices. When the keyboard starting giving me issues I went searching for a Logitech keyboard that was similar to a laptop keyboard (as I’d never experienced the problem when working on my laptop keyboard) and found a keyboard that was very similar, and also used the unifying software, so I purchased the wireless keyboard and mouse to replace my current gaming set.
Side note, the person I sold the mouse and keyboard to, a friend I know through jiu-jitsu, recently let me know that he is still using them, so I’m glad they found a new home.
At more or less the same time I purchased a second hand 27 inch monitor to replace the 23 inch, and moved from the house into our home office space. I also purchased a Gigabyte laptop stand so that I could have the bottom of the laptop screen at roughly the same height as the bottom of the monitor.
Towards the end of 2017 the Vostro laptop was in need of an upgrade, having served me well for 5 years. I opted for another Dell laptop, this time a Core i7 Dell Inspiron gaming laptop, RAM upgraded to 16GB, and a nVidia GeForce GTX 960M graphics card. It came with a 128GB M.2 SSD and I took the 500 GB SSD from the Vostro and installed it into the Inspiron, dual booting Ubuntu on the 500 GB drive and Windows on the 128 GB. I had a 320 GB notebook drive spare, which I installed in the Vostro and sold second hand to help pay for the Inspiron.
Unfortunately, as the year progressed, and as my workload and stress levels increased, it became obvious that working at home wasn’t productive or beneficial to anyone. My sons, as much as I love them, don’t understand either what a closed door means, or ‘the headphone rule’, and the constant interruptions caused me to start looking for an office space within a few kilometres radius.
In September 2017 I moved into my current office. Here is the original Instagram post I shared when I started in the new space.
What you can see in this image is the 27 inch monitor, the Inspiron laptop on the Gigabyte stand, the wireless mouse and keyboard, and the original gaming headset. As you can see R2D2 moved with me. The desk is a 6 seat dining table that was already in the office and the chair is an AllOffice contract office chair I used at home.
This is what my work space looks like now.
As you can see, quite a bit has changed.
Making the perfect space.
I replaced the dining room table with a second hand adjustable desk that I’ve made slightly higher then a standard office desk, to suit my size. I purchased an AllOffice Accent, which is a cost effective ergonomic office chair. I have definitely noticed the difference in purchasing an ergonomic office chair.
Next to my desk I have a small bar fridge and various coffee making paraphernalia, including a pour over coffee maker for when I want good coffee and a jar of Jacobs for when I just want OK coffee.
The workstation
I upgraded the custom built workstation, to be powered by an MSI x470 gaming motherboard, 6 core AMD Ryzen 5 2600x, 16GB of DDR4 RAM and a Zotac Geforce GTX 1060. OS is taken care of by two 128 GB SSD hard drives dual booting Ubuntu and Windows, with the original 1 TB hard drive and a new one purchase for storage for each OS. This handles every thing I throw at it, including some down time gaming between work sessions.
My peripherals now include a new Dell 27 inch LED, the 7 year old Samsung 23 inch Syncmaster and a Philips 24 inch monitor I picked up second hand recently. My wife is currently using the other 27 inch monitor, as I found the frame around it to be too big when I wanted to add additional monitors. The side monitor stands are a combination of phone books and Dos 6.2, Windows 3.1, and Office manuals I found in the office when I moved in.
You’ll see my R2D2 bobble head stayed, and he’s joined by the Lego Mini-Me I got from WordCamp Cape Town 2017. Next to that is the travel mug we all got as swag from WordCamp Cape Town 2018.
The wireless mouse, keyboard and headset are all the same, and I dug out my Logitech 2.1 surround sound set. I was actually pretty happy to be able to use my speaker set again, as it’s been sitting in a cupboard for almost 7 years now, since the days of the ‘dad-station’. Because I switched from a laptop to a workstation, I had to purchase a separate webcam which, if you’ve not already noticed the trend, is a Logitech one.
Finally I also purchased a Samson mic for meetings and podcast recordings.
I had previously purchased a Griffin stand to replace the Gigabyte one after I moved into the new office, mostly to allow for more space. I keep it around for when I need to use my laptop at the office (mostly to copy something I’ve forgotten to sync to the cloud). In this picture it’s on my desk, but I usually pack it away when I’m not using it.
Operator
My main OS is currently Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, and I generally stick to the LTS version unless something cool is coming out on a newer version. The Windows 10 install is mostly for gaming (those games that don’t work via Steam on Linux) or if I need to test something in a true Windows environment.
Remote work
I still use the Inspiron laptop, mainly when I’m travelling, either for meetings or conferences, or working from home. I took the 128GB SSD out of the laptop for the workstation and installed Ubuntu on the 500 GB SSD as the main OS. At the moment I am considering selling this laptop and replacing it with something lighter, slightly less powerful but with better battery life, as I still do some development on it, but not as much as I before, and definitely not enough to warrant such a powerful laptop.
The Office
The office is 5 minutes drive away from home and my morning commute takes me directly past a Vida, Xpresso and Seattle, so I can mix up my morning coffee flavours.
The office has a wall size street map of the Cape Peninsula, which is a talking point whenever I have video calls with folks from outside Cape Town and provides fun conversations when my 6 year old comes to visit.
There’s also a spare chair, if I ever have physical meetings, or the 6 year old is visiting. I like to keep the rest of the office as tidy as possible, but at the time of this photo there were a few boxes of stuff left over from WordCamp.
Downtime
One advantage of my office is that because it’s actually at the back of my father-in-law’s home office, I get to enjoy the pool whenever the Cape Town weather gets too hot. This is helpful as the office itself has no air conditioning.
It also means that if my children want to visit the grandparents for a swim, all I have to do is make sure I have my costume and towel, and I can join them for some water fun.
And in case you’re wondering, all that is in the bar fridge is some long-life milk for coffee, and a few bottles of water. I leave the beers at home, to be enjoyed on my couch with my family, after a long day 😉
The future
As it stands, I probably won’t make any changes to this setup any time soon. As previously mentioned, I might replace my laptop, but there’s no real need to yet. I will probably only start looking at upgrading the computer hardware in about 5 years.
During that time, the only hardware I might consider upgrading or replacing is my headset, to a wireless option, and possibly replacing the second hand monitors with newer Dell ones. I really like the minimalist build of the Dell monitors, but at around R3000 a piece for new 24 inch models, there’s no real desire to do so.
If I do spend money on the office space in the near future, it will probably be on air conditioning. Currently it can get quite hot in the summer and quite cold in the winter, and comfort is more of a current priority than computing power.
