The Setup

    (an unauthorized UsesThis interview)

What do I use to get stuff done?

Kanen Flowers

Chief Mayhem Officer & Scruffy Thinker

Who are you, and what do you do?

Hi, my name is Kanen (but, I used to be called, "John"). I write software and create media -- like podcasts, movies, commercials and talkies, many of which you may have seen online. You may also know me from such popular films as Aaah Zombies! or my extensive IMDB resume or maybe even from that certain network security company I founded.

I'm finishing almost finished with my own feature film, Jake Forgotten, which will be entering into festivals in early 2012 which will be available on iTunes, Netflix and other streaming services in 2012.

What hardware are you using?

Every single day, I use a 13" MacBook Air, with a Thunderbolt port. I carry it and an Apple iPad in my 30L Thule Backpack. Inside, I also have a LaCie Little Big Disk 1TB Thunderbolt Drive and a Moleskin notebook, along with a Varsity Disposable Fountain Pen or three. I love this backpack, because it holds all my gear and even a Kindle 3, with a keyboard if I need to do any sunlight reading.

I also have a 27" iMac on my desk at work because I really like having two Thunderbolt ports. I also started using an AJA io XT for broadcast quality output, but I am not yet happy with it.

I use the LaCie for all my video editing, audio editing and general media work. It's pretty fast and I love the Thunderbolt connectivity, but I'd love it even more if it was bus-powered and didn't require a giant wall wart, which makes it much less "portable" than it otherwise would be.

I just started using the Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo and I'm totally impressed with the speed, the noise (or lack of noise) and the fact that it is user servicable -- meaning; I can pull and replace the drives on my own!

I use an iPhone 4S and I'm basically in love with Siri. I use it to schedule meetings and set reminders. It's pretty much replaced my need for an assistant to manage my schedule.

I carry around an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and a Mighty Mouse. I use the keyboard on the iPad and the mouse on the laptop. I now carry around a pair of Sony MDR-7506 headphones, thanks to Adam Lisagor - who practically berated me for not using them, when he was on my podcast.

For podcasting, I use a Yeti Blue Mic, which direct-connects over USB to my AirRode Procaster with XLR microphone and connect it to an Avid Recording Studio (which used to be called the M-Audio Fasttrack).

And what software?

Mac OS X Lion, of course.

I use Skype for podcasting and Call Recorder to capture uncompressed audio for all the calls. After that, take everything into Pro Tools 9 I use Adobe Audition -- where I edit out the nearly infinite number of "uhms" and "uhs" so my listeners don't have to suffer through them while driving or listening to the show.

For video editing, I nearly always use Avid Media Composer 6 Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. I sometimes use Final Cut Pro X for quick projects and Motion 5.

I never used to use After Effects because I think the forced installation of Flash and Java (along with the brain-dead licensing manager) on my Air is a very bad thing. CS6 and the Creative Cloud fixed almost all that nonsense, finally.

For general writing, podcast show notes and even writing this page, I use ByWord. It does native Markdown and exports to just about everything. When I write screenplays, I use Final Draft, because the Industry uses it.

I recently started playing with Smoke for Mac and I don't quite yet like everything about it.

For enhancing video projects, I swear by everything made by the great folks at Red Giant Software, I even color corrected the first feature film using Magic Bullet. These days, CrumplePop is getting my support -- their lens flares alone are amazing. For training, I'm deeply in love with Video2Brain -- those guys rock at online training.

When I write code, I used to use TextMate, but I have since switched to BBEdit by BareBones. I really miss the smarter syntax while typing, but I do not miss the slow-as-molasses search through my projects then switched back to TextMate 1.5, because I couldn't get used to some missing features in BBEdit. I write nearly everything in newLisp -- which is this very wonderful, modern Lisp-like scripting language that I've used since 2005. I also code in ANSI C, like an adult.

And, there's Dropbox. I pay for the 50GB version and I use it as my Documents, Pictures and other folders on my Mac. I literally could not imagine my life without Dropbox anymore... it changed everything about how I sync my files.

If I examine my dock and my iPad, I notice I also use a lot of other software, such as:

• Reeder for all my yummy RSS and Google Reader syncing needs.
• PixelMator 2, which I am convinced is better than Adobe Photoshop.
• Levelator for normalizing audio podcasts.
• Transmission for legally downloading stuff from places like fxPHD (great training for VFX and media people).

I use Sparrow Mail. I tried the recent Lion Mail -- which is better and integrated into other applications. I switched from Chrome to Safari because of Apple's syncing across all devices.

What would be your dream setup?

I like being portable and I love the Air, so that's not really an issue. The biggest thing for me would be around control surfaces and displays. My ideal setup would include an Apple Cinema Display with Thunderbolt and other ports, so I could dock my laptop into it.

I'd love to basically have every Control Surface made by Avid so I could color correct and control my audio using a surface instead of a mouse and keyboard. While I'm adding hardware, I'd get the Thunderbolt AJA ioXT or the Matrox MX02 box.

I wouldn't mind having a JVC 24" DT-R24L41DU 1080p reference monitor and a pair of M-Audio BX8 D2 speakers.

But I'd also need a decent desk to put them on, which would require a quiet, private office. My current office is good, but not at all quiet. I recently converted a small room in my place to a private office, purchased the M-Audio speakers and they devour my desk nicely.

I've considered the Promise Pegasus RAID, but that would require me to decide on a model, which I can't seem to do for some reason. It's slow and I use it for backup.

And, if I'm just dreaming, I'd love an external, portable, 2TB Thunderbolt drive that was bus-powered and fit easily in my bag, like the Western Digital Passport does. I'd also like to be able to add more than 4GB of RAM to my MacBook Air and upgrade the internal hard drive to more than 500GB.

Otherwise, I pretty much love my setup.