Actually I’m not, because I’m doing it on my brand new Apple MacBook Air and it’s keyboard is the easiest to type on in all the world. I am the happiest person typing on a laptop right now, with maybe the exception of fat American kids playing Warcraft in their dark basements. Or kids not doing homework sniggering on MSN to other procrastinating kids.

Buying an Apple product is a sin. I’ve never owned an iPod, I only use iPhone clones and I’ve always hated Mac OS X. There are hundreds of reasons why that I’ve never been shy about telling people. But by some miracle I forgot to care.

I needed a computer to build websites. This is my occupation. A guy that builds websites without a computer is like a builder that builds houses without their arms.

The criteria was simple. I needed a portable machine because I share my living space. Not seventeen inch wide 20 kilograms heavy only works near a wall portable, but actually portable. I needed a high resolution screen to do actual work on. I didn’t want silly things like DVD/BluRay drives, a gazillion petabytes of HDD space or anything else that really doesn’t matter in life. But I did need it not to be shit.

I’m a Linux user. I am so because I was a Windows user. Windows today is resource hungry, slow and sluggish, and works horribly. I wouldn’t be satisfied with any of today’s Windows laptops because they wouldn’t be portable or not shit. They crash all the time, catch viruses, slow down to a halt for no reason and only last 30 seconds without being charged. They use fans that are so powerful the things could levitate.

I would’ve gone for Linux on a laptop, but over the last few years I’ve spent more time setting up my environment on a silly steep learning curve than I have actually using the thing. When time is money this isn’t acceptable.

So I set about looking into the state of Macs five years since my last horrible and painful experiences with them.

Thankfully Steve Jobs makes this easy. He’s a minimalist, and this is good. You get a minimal amount of choice. For laptops, the options were Pro, Standard or Gimmick.

Goldilocks had the same problem with porridge. The Standard was too cold and just wouldn’t cut it. The Pro was too hot and overkill, plus it touches on the portability and efficiency points. But the Gimmick model looked just right.

The MacBook Air is a thin underpowered laptop. It’s such a blatant marketing gimmick. Apple is all about branding, so it makes sense that they would try to sell this thing. Marketing bullshit.

But it is an efficient and portable laptop. The screen space is really good and it’s by far the most powerful computer that I’ve ever owned, portable or desktop. It is minimalistic to a fault. And OS X today is unanimously the only good graphical operating system. Price was never an issue because it’s for business.

So now I’ve got one. And it’s beautiful.

Since owning it I think my life has changed. People in the office that I’ve literally never spoken to before because of my anti-social nature will come up to me and start talking “Apple-speak” at me. It’s horrible. I can feel that as my girlfriend stares at it when I use it, she doesn’t trust it anymore than a slutty whore.

But I couldn’t give a shit. It’s a decent piece of kit and it’s made me really happy. The hardware is excellent and I can run programs on very modest specs without having a fit. I’m not ageing waiting for things to work anymore.

The evil has overthrown me but I’m still not buying into the brand. I’m not picking up an iPod or iPhone. The MacBook Air is just a tool that I use. So far, it has been amazing. I’ve done shed loads of web design work on it, and maybe one day I can use it for music recording and performing.

So Steve, I’ll give you this one. It’s really good. Don’t get too smarmy about it though.

I’ve already scared one member of the house-hold by shouting and clutching at a pillow with more vigour than I’ve ever know. I’ve gotten over-emotional at a silly episode of Doctor Who, and shouted at a politician on a rolling news channel.

So how long’s it been? 11 hours. Not even a day.

Why am I giving up? I’m skint. Also I need to sort my life out a bit, and I guess cutting out the crap is a kind-of start to it all. Wahoo. I’m also getting a car and don’t want to crash it because I was too busy rolling one at the junction. (I can still remember the points in the roads and journeys where I used to light up.)

Couple months back I did a fortnight before crashing on a really sticky night out. I smoked because I was in town I was drunk and looking for highs. I didn’t pick-up the fags during my hangover the next day like I thought I would- I got over it and carried on without them. But then something happened and I marched to the nearest shop for 20 Embassy number 1s. And I was back to my ten-to-fifteen a day.

I stayed indoors last week for the Sunday and the bank holiday. I was playing on my new phone and it did such a good job of distracting me I didn’t need to smoke. But then I had to get the bus really early the next day and the absence of nicotine from my system made the physical pain distracting. I had too much work on to loose concentration.

But now I’ve not got much work on because I done it all. I was quitting this morning, and there was a point where I was really happy I hadn’t gone out for a smoke at all, and then, something happened.

These “something happened” moments suck, but they’re not related to my smoking (except they only seem to happen when I’m trying to quit) and I figured I need to get over them. Shit will happen in life, and a cigarette seems so insignificant. So I’m going to learn to take news like a real person, and talk when things are upsetting instead. Also, the less I try and quit the less these catastrophic events will happen. I’m sure of it!

So why am I blogging this? Why is this being broadcast? Why have I dramatically changed my grammar?

BECAUSE I’M GOING FUCKING CRAZY!

Or I’m just being a bit of a wuss…

Initially I worked with four applications tiled vertically across the workspace. This was very efficient. However, I do a lot of work just using the browser. So a few Firefox extensions and a vertical re-haul later and I’m in business :D

So here’s what I’m doing. First thing I did was switch the Windows task-bar vertically to the left-hand side of the workspace. Because I’ve got so much width, I can easily afford a generous sized task-bar now. I’ve got the task-bar at approximately 96px wide. I can clearly read the titles of at least 24 application tabs with 18 32px icons attached as well. It’s daunting at first, and I still look at the bottom right for the time, but it’s certainly much more efficient. My only gripe is the start menu doesn’t invert with the task-bar, so when you press it you have to navigate to the bottom to find “All programs”.

Setting up Firefox wide was pleasurable. I use Personal Menu to eliminate the menu-bar from the top, essentially hiding the menu-bar (like Internet Explorer and Chrome). Although I’ve got a good height, applications and websites will always scroll down, so having a few extra pixels really helps. (Don’t get me started on stupid side scrolling website :P)

For the tabs, I use Tree Style Tabs. It’s a beautiful add-on that sorts out tabs in a hierarchy, making them easily manageable. By default, it groups them and collapses the tree when out of focus, but I’ve disabled this as it would take me about 60 tabs to get that far :P

I can see the title of each tab very clearly. Because I’ve got sooo much width (brag brag brag eh?) I also keep the bookmarks side-bar always open.

So to conclude: when I’m working, because I’ve got so much width, I have adjusted my desktop and Firefox to use vertical menus and tool-bars, instead of the horizontal by default. At home, I’ll still use Chrome, because I haven’t got the width and I can always scroll for more height. The point is I still don’t have to side-scroll.

Vertical tool-bars and wide screens – it’s the future :P

This website and everything else in my life in under construction

It couldn’t be more accurate!

Blog-wise I’ve got ten topics waiting to be penned. Seven will require screen-grabs, two will need photos and three of them are going to be Linux tutorials. So what am I waiting for?

For one, madnessJack desperately needs a re-brand. Even just some form of brand will do. (That’s eleven topics now! :P) I need to sort it out!

However, if I didn’t work full-time, handle private projects, play in and direct bands, commute by public transport and drink so much I would probably get this blogging thing down!

Expect more, just not right away :P

I’ll let my profile on my family’s website introduce this one [warning: very outdated information can be found on this page - I'm talking about 6 years out here!].

John Christopher Nigel Gutteridge was born September 26 1988 5:30am. [...]. After a long debate by the family he was named John but informally called Jack.

My actual name is John. If I’m being formal, I’ll use John. So at work, my colleagues call me John for example. If I’m talking to my bank, registering something (you get the idea :P).

So let me set this straight, I’m called Jack but my actual name is John, right? My parents called me Jack, my family called me Jack, my friend called me Jack. Simple, right?

This used to prove very confusing to pupils in the same class as me back in the day. In Primary School it was okay, because I only had to explain the situation to one teacher a year. However, by Secondary School and into College I was having to explain myself to a tutor about once a week.

My fellow learners would be amazed and bewildered by this two-named freak :P

But it’s completely justified! All these morons thought I had some weird naming complex. Even the Wikipedia article on “Jack” agrees with me:

In English it is the diminutive form of the name John [...]

It was used back in the day (I’m talking around the Great War here) by a father called John calling his son John, but to avoid confusion would use the nickname Jack. Yeah?

So there! Get over it :P

Image source: BBC News Magazine – 7 questions on baby names

I used to use Windows XP as my main OS. I used Internet Explorer 7 to browse the net and was very happy doing so. It was sleek, the interface was good and performance wasn’t a problem. I tried Firefox 3 and like it’s approach to things.

But in no way would I dream of using it for casual browsing because it was slow to load up had a clumsy user experience (I wont get into why I think it does). I thought that the slow Firefox start was Microsoft’s fault but since migrating to Ubuntu Linux I’ve found this not to be the case and I’ve no idea who let the Ubuntu version look like that. I’m using a PC that I consider to have a reasonable spec – a Pentium 4 3GHz with a gig of RAM. I think it’s a shame (but I’m sure I could optimise my system a lot more).

However, at work I need to analyse web pages. Firebug is a dream. You’ve also got the Web Developer Toolbar by Chris Pederick that can do anything you can think of. I wish the functions and interfaces weren’t so fragmented but that’s what you get with an open customisable application like Firefox. As for doing the job it’s good. Aside from the 5 minute startup wait it’s a seamless experience (and this is at work with a Dual Core Xeon and twice the RAM!).

I’ve got my list of add-ons. Each one helps me almost daily. As you can probably see from the window-shot above I’ve made the interface as minimal as I can.

Then there was Google’s Chrome. As you may know Chrome makes me happy. I can develop with it but not as well as with Firefox. Once Firebug and Web Developer work for it it’s goodbye Firefox. Until then, I’m more than happy working with websites using Firefox. In my eyes it’s not a browser, it’s a powerful tool.

It’s fast. Oh it’s so fast. I still use Firefox for work because of the addons but Chrome shows it up big time. Google released it because there was a giant great big gaping hole in the market where folks were either defaulting or giving in to geek propaganda.

Honestly, Firefox is the slowest application to start up that I use. I use heavy applications like InDesign and Photoshop and they do powerful intensive stuff. Firefox is just slow and eats RAM even when closed down.

But this isn’t about that. I’m happy because now I can use a browser without having to take a strole while it starts up. I bet I couldn’t blink before Chrome starts up. [EDIT: Just tried, no I can't - but I am really tired :-P]

Look at it’s sleak interface with minimal fuss and size. Oh I love it. If Google release an OS like this Linux (as we know it) can pack it’s bags. Actually, maybe people with real lives using computers might catch on. :-P

So I’ve migrated to WordPress and I’m happy. I nearly had a theme down but I changed my ethics half way through and ended my love affair with Microsoft. But we’re delving into geek territory here. More on that later.

For now I leave you with this. It’s my very subtle office workstation. Didn’t want to settle with one monitor see.