Show Me Your Dock Series! Part 28

Matthew Dawkins

Matthew Dawkins is a web designer based in Somerset, UK. He runs a small web business catering for small businesses, and is passionate about CSS, PHP and MODx. He manages and develops the enormous Diocese of Chelmsford web site and has a client base spread across the UK.

I asked Matthew if he would give us the lowdown on the applications he relies upon as a designer on a daily basis.

The Intro…

I have always had a soft spot for Macs, even going back to the good old Classic days. Now with a G5 PPC running Leopard, and a Mac mini running as a private web server, and an iPod in the drawer for good measure, I can confidently call myself a Mac-addict! My Dock is fairly organised at the moment, with additional folders set up on the right hand side with categorised apps, which keeps things tidy. I also split my workflow onto two Spaces, with one set up for my personal stuff and one for work.

The Dock…

Matthew Dawkins Mac Dock

  • Quicksilver – This is one of those apps that sits quietly in the corner, apparently not doing much, but boy do you miss it if it’s not there! I use this most frequently to launch applications that aren’t in my Dock and to quickly scale images prior to putting onto web sites.
  • Adium – This sits on my personal Space, and elegantly allows me to keep in touch with all my friends. Not only is it multi-protocol, but it’s also good-looking too.
  • Twhirl – Simple Twitter client that looks after my personal Twitter account. Tidy, no fuss, simple, but without looking too minimal.
  • Gmail – Actually this is cheating slightly. I’m using Fluid to display Gmail as if it were a desktop application. Simple, but it means I’ve been able to move away from Mail.app completely and rely on Gmail solely to handle my mail, without other sites getting in the way.
  • Skype – Skype provides me with my business phone number and voicemail, which is really useful and so much cheaper than getting a physical line installed.
  • Tweetie – Another Twitter client, but for my work Twitter account instead. Elegant and stylish, I wish I had more followers/followees just so I could use it more often!
  • Firefox – My main browser, used for development purposes. I have the usual range of developer tools installed too, and I’m using one of the Foxdie themes to make it look pretty and keep me visually inspired all day long.
  • Safari – For when I want a bit more speed. I also use this browser when I’m not working, just to keep things separate.
  • MAMP – Actually I don’t use this much any more, now that I have my old Mac mini set up as a web server, but MAMP used to allow me to develop web sites locally, and worked very well indeed.
  • Sequel Pro – A cunning little tool for managing MySQL databases remotely (server permitting). Beautiful interface, and so much nicer to use than phpMyAdmin.
  • Cyberduck – I typically use this FTP/SSH client several times a day. It’s primarily drag-and-drop, unlike the more ungainly FileZilla, which means it ‘fits’ into my desktop more cleanly.
  • Address Book – I have groups set up to keep my business contacts separate from friends and family, and have extra fields set up for clients’ web sites.
  • Google Calendar – Another Fluid app giving me an iCal replacement that I don’t have to worry about synching.
  • iTunes – I can’t work without music playing in the background, and iTunes usually sits on my personal Space in Mini-Mode.
  • iPhoto – For managing all my photos. I particularly love the Events feature.
  • Adobe Illustrator – I do all my design work in Illustrator. I’ve tried designing in Photoshop and Fireworks, but Illustrator allows me to more easily group objects together, align them in various ways, and put different pages and components on different layers, and just makes for a design workflow that I find easiest.
  • Adobe Photoshop – My workflow doesn’t usually call for me to slice designs, but Photoshop is fantastic for per-pixel editing and special effects, and is also used pretty much daily for various tasks.
  • Adobe Dreamweaver – I use this for all my coding. I don’t use the WYSIWYG editor, but the code highlighting and code completion are useful additions that make it perfect for my coding workflow.
  • Smultron – A simple little text editor, not as fancy as Dreamweaver, but it integrates with Cyberduck to allow me to effectively edit files over FTP/SSH without having to download them first (sort of).
  • Browsers folder – Contains all my web browsers: Camino, Firefox, Flock, OmniWeb, Opera, Safari and Stainless.
  • Development Tools folder – Contains various technical apps: Activity Monitor, Calculator, Cyberduck, Dreamweaver, iSVN, MAMP, MPEG Streamclip, Sequel Pro, Smultron, Terminal, TextEdit.
  • Adobe CreativeSuite folder – Handy links to my CS3 apps: Acrobat Professional, Fireworks, Flash, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, Dreamweaver.
  • Web Apps folder – Shortcuts to my Fluid apps: Gmail, Google Docs, Google Reader, Google Calendar.
  • Office Apps folder – Various desktop publishing programs I use: Bean, Google Docs, iCal, Keynote, Excel, Powerpoint, Word, NeoOffice, Numbers, Pages, TextEdit

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A huge thanks to Matthew for taking time out to take part in the Dock Series.

If you would like to be featured in the Dock Series simply:

  • Download the Dock Series Template.
  • Email it along with the necessary images to: hi [at] gracesmith.co.uk.

Check out the other creatives in the series.

With more amazing creatives lined up, make sure to check back every Tuesday for the latest Dock Series installment.

Related posts:

  1. Show Me Your Dock Series! Part 9
  2. Show Me Your Dock Series! Part 10
  3. Show Me Your Dock Series! Part 24

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