Minigrooves — Racconti brevi

July 30, 2013
by Riccardo Mori
Mele e appunti

Aggiornamento, Luglio 2016

A metà luglio 2016 ho pubblicato simultaneamente la II edizione del primo Volume, e il secondo Volume di Minigrooves. Entrambi presentano un layout nuovo, più leggibile e più omogeneo, decisamente più amichevole verso il lettore. La prima edizione del primo Volume (originariamente pubblicato a luglio 2013) è stata rimossa dall’iBook Store. Tutti i link in questo articolo che puntavano alla prima edizione sono stati aggiornati in modo da puntare alla nuova edizione. Ecco la nuova copertina del Volume 1:

Minigrooves Volume 1 updated

 

 

L’articolo originale del 2013

#alttext#

Ve la cavate bene con l’inglese? Avete un dispositivo iOS o un Mac? Vi piace leggere storie brevi, approfittando magari di quei 10–15 minuti liberi? Allora potrebbe interessarvi l’ebook che ho da poco pubblicato sull’iBook Store.

Il libro comprende un primo ciclo di 42 racconti, più una serie di contenuti Extra:

  • Annotations — notizie e curiosità su molti dei racconti inclusi nel libro.
  • Fragments on writing — alcuni frammenti ed estratti in cui parlo dello scrivere.
  • Alternate takes — versioni diverse o bozze originali di alcuni dei racconti pubblicati.
  • “One more thing…” — un piccolo bonus per chiudere degnamente il libro.

Origini

Il progetto Minigrooves è iniziato nel marzo 2012. L’idea originaria è scaturita da una semplice osservazione: stavo esaminando alcuni disegni di un illustratore scoperto assolutamente per caso navigando il Web, e mi colpì l’immediatezza del processo. Mi era bastato osservare pochi lavori e già avevo un’idea abbastanza precisa dello stile di quell’illustratore, di cosa lo ispirava, eccetera. Qualcosa di simile accade quando si scopre un musicista. Ho pensato: perché non offrire una simile esperienza in un campo a me congeniale, la scrittura? Ecco quindi la miniatura scritta, l’acquerello tracciato con le parole, il ‘minigroove’[1].

Il formato della serie televisiva

All’inizio l’idea era quella di pubblicare online due racconti alla settimana e stare a vedere come si sviluppava il progetto (soprattutto se si sviluppava e in che direzione andava). Mi sono imposto un ritmo di produzione così impegnativo per stimolare la mia creatività attraverso una disciplina forte, cosa che non avevo mai veramente sperimentato con la mia scrittura. Vedere che il progetto stava decollando fu una bella soddisfazione, e quando si trattò di iniziare a organizzarlo, l’ispirazione arrivò subito. Avrei distribuito i racconti come episodi di una serie televisiva, ovvero ‘trasmettere’ i racconti in cicli (‘stagioni’), poi, al termine di un ciclo, riunire tutti i racconti e pubblicarli in un ebook. Ogni ebook avrebbe compreso una sezione di contenuti aggiuntivi — proprio come il Blu-Ray o il DVD di un film o di una serie televisiva — con racconti inediti, commenti dell’autore, versioni differenti di racconti pubblicati, e così via. In questo modo, anche chi avesse seguito fedelmente l’emissione dei racconti online, avrebbe trovato un senso (e un valore) nell’acquistare il libro.

Un lavoro non indifferente

Ufficialmente, il primo ciclo (‘stagione’) di racconti terminò a novembre 2012. Creare l’ebook non è stato un semplice processo di copia e incolla. Durante l’importazione dei materiali in iBooks Author ogni storia è stata riletta, rivista, controllata e corretta con tutta la meticolosità possibile (in fin dei conti l’inglese non è la mia lingua principale, anche se la conosco molto bene). Poi c’è stata la preparazione dei contenuti Extra. Poi c’è stata la (minima) burocrazia legata all’apertura di un account iTunes ‘Publisher’: dato che era mia intenzione proporre contenuti a pagamento, ho dovuto richiedere al fisco statunitense un Employer Identification Number (EIN), il che ha significato compilare un modulo, inviarlo via fax e… attendere la risposta. Che nel mio caso è arrivata dopo quattro settimane circa.

Infine ho nuovamente verificato i contenuti in iBooks Author, preparato le schermate e le risorse da inserire in iTunes Producer (il software Apple atto alla distribuzione di contenuti), creato un campione gratuito di 15 pagine, caricato il tutto sui server Apple, e atteso il controllo qualità. Finalmente il libro è ora disponibile.

Per me è importante

Questo progetto per me significa molto. È un piccolo ma importante traguardo a seguito di un periodo di forte crisi creativa, e di esperienze lavorative decisamente negative. 

I 42 racconti di Minigrooves sono piuttosto variegati. Ognuno ha un proprio ritmo, una propria personalità. Molti hanno a che vedere con lo straordinario (l’extra-ordinario), altri sono brevi ‘impressioni’, altri sono storie di fantascienza, di spionaggio, e c’è perfino un umile tributo ad Arthur Conan Doyle e al suo Sherlock Holmes. Ogni racconto è a sé stante, quindi si può cominciare il libro in qualsiasi punto. Certi racconti si leggono in dieci minuti, altri sono più lunghi e richiedono un po’ più di tempo. Insomma, credo che ve ne siano per tutti i gusti.

Con la pubblicazione di questo libro vorrei davvero entrare finalmente in una fase in cui la mia scrittura creativa possa contribuire al mio sostentamento. Se in questi anni avete gradito quel che ho scritto online nei vari blog più o meno tecnici che ho mantenuto, se volete dimostrare il vostro appoggio e fare una donazione via PayPal non vi sembra appropriato o non è nel vostro stile, considerate l’acquisto del libro. Se non potete acquistarlo perché non avete un dispositivo compatibile (per ora il libro è utilizzabile solo su iPad e iPad mini), spargete la voce, passate parola, specie se conoscete persone a cui piace leggere su iPad e pensate possano apprezzare i miei racconti. 

Il marketing per me è una scienza occulta. Da un lato vorrei che più persone possibile siano al corrente della presenza del libro, dall’altro vorrei evitare di diventare troppo insistente, altrimenti finisco per sortire l’effetto opposto: alienare le persone. Ho iniziato ad annunciare la disponibilità del libro su questo sito, su Twitter e App.net, e naturalmente sul tumblelog di Minigrooves, ma sono aperto a idee e suggerimenti.

Grazie

Grazie innanzi tutto a quei pochi che mi hanno incoraggiato sin dagli inizi del progetto, più di un anno fa.

Grazie a chi ha dimostrato interesse nel mio lavoro e nell’ebook, e che ha già iniziato a spargere la voce nelle reti sociali.

Grazie a coloro che hanno acquistato l’ebook o che hanno davvero intenzione di acquistarlo. Se volete manifestare il vostro supporto nei confronti della mia scrittura, questo è un ottimo modo per farlo.

Potete scrivermi impressioni, commenti e suggerimenti a comments(at)morrick.me o scrivere tweet a @minigrooves. Se siete attivi su App.net, potete scrivermi a @morrick.

 

 

  • 1. Letteralmente ‘mini-solco’, in quanto fa riferimento al microsolco di un disco in vinile, ma anche ‘mini-ritmo’, in quanto ogni racconto ha un proprio battito, un proprio groove, appunto. ↩

 

The Minigrooves Project and Volume 1

July 26, 2013
by Riccardo Mori
Et Cetera

Update, July 2016

In July 2016 I simultaneously published the second edition of Volume 1, and Volume 2 of Minigrooves. Both feature a new and improved layout, definitely more reader-friendly. The first edition of the book has been removed from sale. All links in this post pointing to the first edition have been updated to refer the new edition. Here is the new cover for Volume 1:

Minigrooves Volume 1 updated

 

 

The original 2013 post

Minigrooves

Finally

A few days ago, I finally reached an important goal with regard to my literary project, Minigrooves. The first cycle of short stories — 42 in total — has been published on the iBooks Store.

Origins

The project started back in March 2012, the originating idea being very simple: to offer short stories that can be enjoyed in a relatively short amount of time, like during a break from work, while commuting, while sitting in a waiting room, and so on. The idea came to me while admiring the work of some illustrators I discovered by complete chance while browsing the Web. I noticed how powerful was the immediacy of ‘getting’ their style, their taste and inspiration simply by examining a few samples of their work. It happens with musicians as well. I thought I could try to do something similar with what I do best — writing. Hence, the short story format, the watercolour-with-words, the ‘minigroove’.

Delivery: the TV series model

At first the idea was to simply publish a couple of stories per week and see where the project would go. I deliberately chose a demanding pace to stimulate creativity through discipline, something I had never really tried before with my writing. And boy, did it work. When I realised the project was really taking off, I thought about some way of organising it, and again the eureka moment came quickly. I would deliver the stories like the episodes of a TV series, i.e. ‘airing’ the stories in cycles (‘seasons’), then gathering all the stories of a cycle and publishing them as an ebook. Each ebook would have some ‘extras’ (just like when you purchase a DVD/Blu Ray edition of a movie or TV series) — bonus stories, author’s commentary and notes, alternate takes, etc. This way, even those people who followed the stories during their ‘airing’ period would find something of value by purchasing the ebook.

A long process

The last story of the first cycle of Minigrooves was published online in November 2012. Assembling the ebook hasn’t been a simple ‘copy and paste’ task. When importing the stories in iBooks Author, I went back and re-read each one of them, performing further editing and proofreading as meticulously as possible (in the end you have to consider that English is not my first language). Then there was the matter of preparing the Extras section, which has been a mix of choosing specific bits, translating certain fragments from Italian into English, and writing new material. Then some more time was spent essentially taking care of opening a Publisher iTunes Connect account. Since my intention was to provide paid content, I had to apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN), which meant sending a form to the United States’ IRS via fax and patiently wait for their reply. Your mileage may vary, I had to wait for roughly four weeks. Finally I wrapped things up in iBooks Author, created all the necessary assets, filled all the necessary information in iTunes Producer (the software that creates the package to be distributed through the iTunes Store), created a 15-page free sample of the ebook, uploaded everything to Apple’s servers, and waited a few more days for the ebook to pass the required quality standards… And finally here we are.

It means a lot

I’m not new to publishing and self-publishing, but you cannot imagine how I felt when I checked the status of the ebook and saw that it was “available on 51 stores”. The thrill of being able to share my humble work with so many people is exhilarating, no matter how many will actually end up purchasing the book. I’m in a moment of my life where I badly needed a feeling of accomplishment, especially after a prolonged creative drought and some rather negative work-related experiences.

This little project means a lot to me.

The 42 stories are quite varied and should appeal to a wide audience. Each of them has its particular ‘groove’, each of them has its mood, and since each story is self-contained, you don’t even have to read them sequentially. Some stories are longer and more complex than others (they were published in parts when they first ‘aired’ online), and therefore you’ll likely enjoy them more when you have more time to read.

With the publication of this book, I really hope to enter a stage where finally my creative writing could help me make ends meet. If you have enjoyed what I’ve been writing online these past years, and wanted to support me but a PayPal donation seemed a bit awkward, now you can show your support by buying my Minigrooves ebook, or at least by spreading the word, by talking about it with people you know love short stories and their format.

Marketing is an obscure practice to me. I have started announcing the ebook on social networks like Twitter and App.net, and of course I’ve mentioned it on this site and on the Minigrooves official site, but I’m open to suggestions and advice. I’d like to spread the word properly, so that people are aware of the project and the ebook’s availability, but at the same time I don’t want to end up being too annoying and too ‘in the face’ of my audience. I don’t want to alienate people.

Thank you

Thank you to all those who have encouraged me ever since the Minigrooves project started, gave feedback and linked to it via Twitter.

Thank you to all those who showed interest towards my stories, and who have already started spreading the word about the ebook publication.

Thank you to those who have purchased the ebook or genuinely plan to. If you want to support my writing, this is a great way to do so.

You can leave feedback and suggestions by writing an email to comments(at)morrick.me or a tweet to @minigrooves. If you’re on Mastodon, you can drop me a line — I’m @morrick.

And as always, Thank you for reading.

My moderate scepticism about the Post-PC era

July 24, 2013
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

There is a fairly good definition of ‘Post-PC era’ on Wikipedia. This passage, I think, is especially relevant:

When introducing Apple’s iCloud service in 2011, Jobs explained that the new platform would replace the PC as the ‘hub’ for a user’s devices with the cloud — all of a user’s devices, including a PC, would be able to automatically synchronize and access media and other files between platforms. Apple’s current CEO Tim Cook continued to elaborate on the concept that a PC would no longer have to be the center of one’s digital life, and explained that mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones would be “more portable, more personal and dramatically easier to use than any PC has ever been.”

Note that, in this scenario, the personal computer is not left entirely out of the picture, it is simply demoted and gets to be ‘just another device’, along with the tablet and the smartphone and any portable device whose screen size either makes it an oversized smartphone or a small tablet.

An increasing number of people, from what I’ve observed, like to imagine this Post-PC era as a stage in technological progress where the personal computer progressively becomes so irrelevant as not to be needed anymore. A scenario where we basically do everything on touch-based ultra-portable devices. Over the past months I have read quite the number of articles written by tech enthusiasts raving about being able to do actual work on their iPads and nothing else, their MacBooks just collecting dust on their desks.

All the talk about ‘going iPad-only’ has been admittedly rather intoxicating for me, since many of these geeks are essentially writers. Having to deal primarily with text is an activity I always found quite flexible, and as a writer myself I thought Yeah, why not, let’s try this little experiment. So I tried to go iPad-only for as long as I could. It lasted three days and a half.

Before you jump to conclusions, let me clear up something right now. I’m not saying that it’s impossible or unfeasible to do actual work by using just an iPad. Many people out there manage just fine. What I’m saying is that it’s unfeasible for me, for at least a couple of reasons.

1. A cramped workspace — The iPad’s screen real estate is simply not enough for me. And it gets worse when I use the iPad’s virtual keyboard in landscape orientation. I write the occasional piece and I happily take notes using great apps like iA Writer, Daedalus or Phraseology; but after a 30-minute session in any writing app, I simply start getting claustrophobic. I grow impatient. And if I need to switch between a few other apps, all that shuffling of apps taking the foreground starts getting cumbersome quickly. When I’m at my main machine — a 15-inch MacBook Pro connected to a 23-inch display, an external keyboard and mouse — pressing Alt-Tab to switch between open applications is way faster, and even if the flow may be similar (I keep a lot of applications in full-screen mode), on the Mac I have more space and I work much more comfortably.

2. Spatial arrangement — Apart from certain iOS text editors/word processors with an integrated Web browser, working on the iPad means uni-tasking. While this is a great concept in theory — ‘distraction-free writing environment’ and all that — in practice I feel a kind of constraint which I usually don’t feel when I’m working on the Mac. When I do translation work, in particular, I simply need to have the main screen split at least in two areas, one with the original document, the other with my translation. These two areas may be just two windows inside the same application or, more often, two separate documents open in different applications. Arranging such workspace on a Mac is trivial. On an iPad, not so much. And even if other tablets allow for such screen-splitting, and even if such a feature becomes common in future releases of iOS and other mobile OSes, I think the workspace will always be a bit more awkward, due to the smaller screen real estate of a tablet. In other words, I still very much need an interface with multiple overlapping windows, because while it’s not ‘multitasking’ in a machine sense, it’s just that kind of ‘human multitasking’ where you need to keep an eye on multiple elements appearing simultaneously on a (big) screen.

Don’t get me wrong, the iPad is an amazing device, and it’s been a great improvement for my ‘digital life’ ever since I bought one. For light work sessions, especially out of the office, is more than enough and I don’t need to always bring a laptop with me. It’s also fantastic for ‘spur-of-the-moment’ activities, like editing an image, checking RSS feeds and news, and so on. For me, it fits perfectly in conjunction with a personal computer. In my setup, it often participates in the spatial arrangement I was mentioning above, because I can ‘outsource’ to the iPad a few background tasks so as to limit the app switching on the Mac. When I need to monitor my email or some feeds, I just keep the iPad with Mail open by my side. Same when I want to quickly check a video on the Web. Often the iPad works as a digital dictionary when I’m translating and don’t want to switch too often between my translation workspace on the Mac and an online dictionary site like Wordreference.com.

And not to re-ignite the trite ‘consumption vs. creation’ debate, but I’d say that my consumption vs. creation usage ratio on the iPad is currently 70:30. Again, I’m not saying the iPad can’t be used for serious work (creative or otherwise); I’m saying that I’m not seeing myself switching to a tablet as my only computing device anytime soon. To do that, such tablet should — ironically, if you want — behave more like a traditional computer, at least in giving me more freedom to arrange my workspace. And a bigger screen wouldn’t hurt, either.

I may sometimes have a conservative viewpoint about technology, and an old-school approach, but I actually like to keep an open mind and try alternative methods to get things done. I prefer flexibility over too ingrained habits and I don’t rely much on fixed workflows. So, it’s not that I can’t use my iPad as my only work tool just because I haven’t tried too hard. I have tried, and realised that I simply cannot work as long and as comfortably on it as I do on a Mac laptop. (And for translation work, at least for how I work, using only an iPad is just too awkward and slows me down considerably.)

Worth mentioning, at this point, is a recent article by Benedict Evans, titled The irrelevance of Microsoft. In the closing paragraph, he writes:

Though it looks like we’ve passed the tipping point, this process isn’t going to be over quickly. PC sales aren’t going to zero this year. But the replacement cycle, already at 5 years, will lengthen further and further, more and more apps will move to mobile or the cloud, and for many people the PC will end up like the printer or fax — vestigial reminders of an older way of doing things.

While I don’t disagree with this assessment, I’m also thinking that the personal computer is still far from exiting the picture or becoming completely irrelevant. Sure, people are buying less PCs and more mobile devices, but what this fact tells me is that today people have a more fine-grained range of products to choose from than, say, 10–15 years ago. For those who purchased a computer a few years back only to use it as a consumption device (music, videos, photos, browsing the Web, doing some email, casual gaming, etc.), now products like the iPad, the Surface, the Nexus 7, the Kindle Fire HD, can be enough for that. These people can go from owning a laptop to just a tablet and never turn back.

A tablet might also be enough (most of the time, at least) for other people whose kind of work involves specific activities and not much app-hopping or switching.

But an interesting portion of other people, I believe, won’t leave the personal computer behind so soon. It’s not only a matter of applications (e.g. “I need to work with this specific software, and there’s no mobile equivalent for it”), but also and more importantly a matter of spatial arrangement and workspace organisation. Multi-touch interfaces and uni-tasking have certainly simplified things for many users, and have made computing way more accessible to less tech-savvy people. But mobile devices and operating systems still have some way to go to achieve the same kind of comfort and versatility of a personal computer’s interface. Advocates of the Post-PC era — or, more properly, the Sans-PC era — claim that PCs will ultimately become a niche market and will be used only by people who need to perform specialised tasks and use sophisticated, resource-intensive applications. I don’t know about that, really. Even for simpler tasks like writing, translating, and photo editing a personal computer is a more comfortable environment, if only for the bigger screen real estate and for the ability to keep an eye on different windows and workspaces without constantly switching from an app or task to another.

Feedback

July 18, 2013
by Riccardo Mori
Handpicked

In a recent article called Flickr and Instagram, Shawn Blanc compares the feedback and activity around his photos in both networks. If I understood correctly, the gist of it is that while Shawn is obviously more satisfied with his Olympus photography workflow (as opposed to his iPhone photography workflow), he is disappointed by the feedback on Flickr — where he posts his best, higher-quality and more artistic shots — as opposed to Instagram, where the everyday iPhone snapshots end up.

On Flickr I have 885 contacts following me. On Instagram I have 2,235. Yet my Instagram photos get far more than just 2.5 times the activity than my Flickr photos.

[…]

In short, my Instagram snapshots spark far more feedback, interaction, and conversation than my Flickr photos do. And I bet anyone reading this who has an Instagram and a Flickr account would say the same thing.

The conundrum, for me, at least, is that my Flickr photos — my best photos and the ones I am most proud of — are the shots I want to share with people so we can both appreciate them together. These are the ones I most want conversations to spark around, and yet these are the ones which get the least interaction.

[…]

At the end of the day, Flickr is the only place I’ve got to put my best photographic work. But it doesn’t feel like the right place. As much as I love the service, it’s just not cutting it. And I suspect I’m not alone.

My experience is a bit different. I’ve been on Flickr since October 2005, and I was on Instagram from its inception roughly until it was acquired by Facebook. I remember trying to do a similar comparison of the feedback I had been receiving on these two networks, but I soon realised it was a sort of trap. Yes, both are ‘photo sharing’ services, but in my opinion they have two very different underlying vibes. Leaving aside the most egregious exceptions in both services — pro photographers posting quality images on Instagram, and users mindlessly uploading dozens of dull everyday smartphone shots on Flickr — I always found Flickr to be the archive/gallery place to post one’s good-to-best photos at a slow, leisurely pace, and Instagram the place for, well, insta-uploading all kinds of here-and-now, impromptu snapshots, more frequently and at a more lively pace.

I’ve also found different audiences and different demographics in Flickr and Instagram. On Flickr I have interacted with more people who take photography seriously (some very seriously, some even too seriously); I have talked lenses and photographic gear in the forums; I have exchanged ‘pro tips’ every now and then. You get the idea. On Instagram everything and everyone are more casual; ‘hearts’ are given more lightly, in a more spur-of-the-moment way. Sometimes, ‘hearts’ are given for reasons that have little to do with how technically good a photo is. Rarely an exchange has gone further than “Nice shot!” – “Thanks!”

To sum up: different vibes, different people, different expectations, different kinds of feedback. 

Personally, over the years I’ve found feedback on Flickr more difficult to obtain, but generally more rewarding. When some Flickr contact or friend (and I have a few serious photographers among them) faves one of my photos or leaves a positive comment — or even a negative one if it’s constructive criticism — it often means more than the few ‘hearts’ I used to receive when I was an active Instagram user. I’ve always had the feeling that on Flickr, feedback had to be earned, in a sense. I’ve always felt the Flickr community to be a place of peers, and that you just can’t expect to upload a few photos you like and wait for the faves and the comments and the conversations to follow. 

Maybe things have changed a bit, lately, especially since the ‘rejuvenation’ of the Flickr mobile app, but I remember that the Flickr community has always demanded a little more participation from its members. When I had more time to devote to the social side of Flickr, I used to leave a lot of thoughtful feedback to many of the people I followed; I even wrote emails to newly-discovered people, telling them how I’d been perusing their photostreams and appreciating their work. This kind of participation and activity always paid, in the end. And although I haven’t received an overwhelming amount of feedback on Flickr over the years, I’ve always been satisfied with the quality of what I received, statistics be damned.

On workflows and automatisation

July 17, 2013
by Riccardo Mori
Tech Life

First things first: this piece is not intended to be prescriptive. Nor does it subtly criticise other people who love their workflows and automate as many things as possible as frequently as possible by using the appropriate technological tools. But in recent times there has been a lot of talk about ‘workflows’ and software solutions that help you automatise processes in the quest for the holy grail of frictionless-ness. And I’ve tried to jump on this bandwagon in an attempt to achieve more efficiency and productivity, but generally speaking my experience so far has turned out to be a waste of time.

The fault doesn’t really lie in the tools themselves; perhaps it’s the way I work, or my needs, or certain habits I’ve developed over time that simply make me largely ‘incompatible’ with automatisation. By watching how other tech-savvy people work, or by reading about their workflows when they discuss them on their blogs, I’ve deduced that the simpler and the more stable one’s device setup is, the easier is to come up with smooth workflows and automated solutions. When you only (!) have one computer, one smartphone and maybe also a tablet, configuring and perfecting workflows (especially across devices) still takes some work, but it’s certainly easier than working on a bunch of different computers and devices. This is a perfect example of how minimalism really helps on the road to Frictionless Land.

My setup is the opposite of minimalism. My setup is… baroque, for lack of a better word. In my Home Office, I use the most recent and most powerful machine I own, a 15-inch (non-Retina) MacBook Pro with the latest version of Mac OS X installed. At its side, the faithful Power Mac G4 Cube, which I use as a sort of extended desktop to monitor RSS feeds and other information, thanks to its huge 22-inch Cinema Display. When I’m out and about, I may carry with me one of many different vintage Mac PowerPC laptops, from a clamshell iBook G3/466 with Mac OS X Tiger, to a 17-inch PowerBook G4 with Mac OS X Leopard. (You can have a look at my different ‘mobile office’ configurations on my VSCO Grid, to have an idea.) In short, I use two different architectures, three different OS X versions (not to mention Mac OS 9 and earlier, when I fire up some of my pre-OS X vintage Macs, like the Power Mac 9500), and an array of tools which may be available on just one of these Macs, either because they’re architecture-specific (Intel-only or PPC-only), or because their most updated version only runs under Tiger or under Leopard. To use a popular expression, my setup tends to show signs of fragmentation.

And if this weren’t enough, consider that the Macs I use have also different keyboard layouts (US, Italian and Spanish), so even common keyboard shortcuts have to be carefully planned if I don’t want to perform the wrong action on the wrong Mac.

I’m pretty sure that a setup like this would drive a few nerds crazy. I’m sure some of my readers are wondering why I don’t simplify my setup, and why I keep using so many different (and old) machines, especially since my activities are limited to document and text management, image editing, photo retouching/management, a bit of graphic and type design, and a touch of audio editing. 

I keep using a bunch of different Macs because I like to keep things spatially arranged. If my work and my files are a city, each Mac represents a sector, a district of that city. When I need to unearth and examine old Word files created/received during the 1990s and the early 2000s, I work with the iBook G3 because I can use Office 98 in the Classic Environment to open those files without losing the original formatting, and, if need be, I can re-save them in a more modern format that can be picked up by more modern software. When I need to work with PDFs in deeper ways than just opening and reading them, I still use an older version of Acrobat Professional (which cost me an interesting amount of money when I purchased it, and I have no need or money to upgrade to an Intel version of the same software), and since I usually need a generous screen estate, I either use the Cube or the 17-inch PowerBook G4. When I need Photoshop, I still rely on version 7.0 on the Titanium PowerBook G4, or the CS1 version on the 12-inch PowerBook G4.

These are just very simple examples. Without leaving the city metaphor just yet, what are the ‘roads’ connecting all those different ‘districts’? Two synchronisation tools which luckily still work under Mac OS X Tiger and the PowerPC architecture: Dropbox and Notational Velocity. They represent the only bit of automatisation in my baroque setup.

I don’t mean to say that I like to manually take care of boring tasks my Macs should perform and are quite able to do so. That would be silly. If I have to batch-convert 300 JPEG files into PNG files, I certainly won’t do that by hand, one file at a time. A simple and tedious task like that is what computers do best, and I’m happy to leave it to them. But I’m not a fan of complex scripts which, after being invoked by a certain keyboard shortcut, start opening files in one application, import them into another, do another dozen actions, to finally send something in a pre-packaged email as a ZIP attachment. Just pressing the key combination by mistake could lead to potential disaster. When I tried to rely on such scripts or services, I ended up wasting more time afterwards because I couldn’t refrain from checking whether the automated workflow did everything correctly.

As I said, some may find this extended and elaborate setup maddening, and even limiting — like working with mutually incompatible tools. Some may object that I don’t rely on fixed workflows and automated processes simply because I can’t. Again, maybe I’m just accustomed to working like this, so I end up being efficient and productive in spite of all the added friction. The truth is: I feel less dependent on specific tools, processes and workflows. This, in turn, makes it easier for me to adjust to new tools, to adapt when a particular configuration, operating system or setup changes. Friction makes me stop and think about what I’m doing, inspires me to look for alternative ways to achieve something, keeps my mind alert and not asleep while the vehicle is on autopilot, so to speak.