In the continuing series of Marmite-related blog posts, here is a version to commemorate Margaret Thatcher, who recently passed away. It’s true, you either love her or you hate her.

The story continues on Creative Review »

Recently, an article entitled Seven Rules for Managing Creatives* appeared on the Harvard Business Review blog in which the author, Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic writes a well-meaning but ultimately misguided manual for managers on how they can cope with creatives in their organisations. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Dr. Tomas is a psychologist and has been seen in the media, including on Channel4 during the short-lived Big Brother On The Couch series. There, at least, his insights were quite fascinating and astute, but it seems that the industrial psychology of creative professionals (the subject of my own forthcoming PhD studies — date unknown) hasn’t quite gone as mainstream.

Anyway, let’s get to it. Here, I will feature Dr. Tomas’s article, and insert my commentary stating why I think he’s a bit short-sighted, and more importantly, what well-intentioned managers can actually do to get the most out of their design pros. The article will appear in block quotes, and my commentary in normal text.

Moody, erratic, eccentric, and arrogant? Perhaps — but you can’t just get rid of them…

Let me stop you right there. If you are a manager and you have someone — anyone — in your organisation who is moody, erratic, eccentric, and arrogant, they need to go. (ok, maybe not eccentric because aren’t we all?) Would you want your receptionist to be erratic? Would you want your CEO to be moody? How about an arrogant janitor? Bosses, you are allowed to get rid of people who don’t perform or who bring negativity and drama to your office.

…In fact, unless you learn to get the best out of your creative employees, you will sooner or later end up filing for bankruptcy. Conversely, if you just hire and promote people who are friendly and easy to manage, your firm will be mediocre at best. Suppressed creativity is a malign organizational tumour. Although every organization claims to care about innovation, very few are willing to do what it takes to keep their creative people happy, or at least, productive. So what are the keys to engaging and retaining creative employees?

Ok, that paragraph is basically just rambling.

1. Spoil them and let them fail: Like parents who celebrate their children’s mess: show your creatives unconditional support and encourage them to do the absurd and fail. Innovation comes from uncertainty, risk, and experimentation — if you know it will work, it isn’t creative. Creative people are the natural experimenters, so let them try and test and play. Of course, there are costs associated with experimentation — but these are lower than the cost of NOT innovating.

To the essence here, I actually agree, but it’s clumsily worded. In my opinion, innovative, bold, daring work — whether it be design, writing, even planning and strategy, takes some experimenting. No one, even a seasoned pro, can create on-demand and at the same time come up with something truly unique. This means you as a manager have to build in some planning, research, and concept time into a project. Allow for multiple concepts to be explored and presented. Discuss and iterate on a few ideas before giving the green light to one. Understand that in order to create something new and useful (and profitable), most of what creative professionals work on will end up on the cutting room floor. Call this failure, call it experimentation, call it part of the process. In my opinion it’s not spoiling, it’s the nature of creative work.

2. Surround them by semi-boring people: The worst thing you can do to a creative employee is to force them to work with someone like them — they would compete for ideas, brainstorm eternally, or simply ignore each other. That said, you cannot surround creatives with really boring or conventional people — they would not understand them, and fall out. In line with this, recent research indicates that teams made up of diverse members who are open to taking each others’ perspective perform most creatively.

The solution, then, is to support your creatives with colleagues who are too conventional to challenge their ideas, but unconventional enough to collaborate with them. These colleagues will need to pay attention to details, mundane executional processes, and do the dirty work: Messi needs Busquets and Puyol; Ronaldo needs Alonso and Ramos.

First, I’m not actually sure what a semi-boring person is. Someone who is boring to you might be awesome to me. I guess there’s a middle ground. But more importantly, this remark seems the unfortunate effect of the author never having experienced the benefit of a truly productive partnership with other creatives. Much like math class in school, an implied, mostly-harmless sense of competition with our peers makes us all better. It pushes us, ever so slightly, to do better work. A rising tide floats all boats.

Teaming up with other creatives, especially those in complementary disciplines (copywriter/art director, interface designer/programmer, speech writer/politician, etc. etc.) can be tremendously productive. Sadly, there is no magic formula to creative success. Two people, no matter how much they excel as individuals, might not get along. Test partnerships and adjust the relationships as needed, rather than force two people to work together.

3. Only involve them in meaningful work: Natural innovators tend to have more vision, research I’ve done indicates. They see the bigger picture and are able to understand why things matter (even if they cannot explain it). The downside to this is that they simply won’t engage in meaningless work. This all-or-nothing approach to work mirrors the bipolar temperament of creative artists, who perform well only when inspired — and inspiration is fueled by meaning. This rule can also be applied to other employees: everyone is more creative when driven by their genuine interests and a hungry mind.

As novelist John Irving said, “the reason I can work so hard at my writing is that it’s not work for me”. At the same time, in any organization there will be employees who are less interested in, well, doing interesting work; they are satisfied with simply clocking in and out, and are incentivized by external rewards. Companies should ensure that trivial or meaningless work is assigned to these employees.

A true creative professional — that is, someone who understands commerce and the nature of day-to-day work life — knows that the bulk of any project is not terribly sexy. You easily could brainstorm and come up with some ideas in an afternoon, only to spend the next three months fleshing them out and building a prototype. Finalising a design or product is persnickety work — it makes for terribly dull television, and it rarely gets written about. Everyone who is vaguely artistic wants to be doing something else — something more exciting — but the real pros who will add value to your business know how to sink into a productive working rhythm and deliver the goods. Need a metaphor? Your team will eat lots of salad, but there should also be dessert. Or to put it another way: don’t hire moody artists assholes. Hire creative professionals.

4. Don’t pressure them: Creativity is usually enhanced by giving people more freedom and flexibility at work. If you like structure, order and predictability, you are probably not creative. However, we are all more likely to perform more creatively in spontaneous, unpredictable circumstances — because we cannot rely on our habits. Don’t constrain your creative employees; don’t force them to follow processes or structures. Let them work remotely and outside normal hours; don’t ask where they are, what they are doing or how they do it. This is the secret to managing Don Draper, and why he never went to work for a bigger competitor. This is also why so many top athletes fail to make the transition from a small to a big team, and why business founders are usually unhappy to remain in charge of their ventures once they are acquired by a bigger company.

There’s a lot wrapped up in this one, and it isn’t entirely wrong. True, creative pros aren’t factory workers. A rigid, unforgiving system is not the best environment for creative work because it doesn’t allow for individual thinking or on-the-fly adjustments to the traditional workflows. This goes double for anyone entrepreneurial, who is eager to test and employ his own big-picture ideas about work and business. However, no successful studio can function without some structure. You need workflows and processes and systems that make sense for that type of work. You can’t run an ad agency like a bank. A fashion house is not an industrial farm. You can’t produce the next great novel masquerading as IRS agent. Instead of letting your creative/design team run wild, investigate the sorts of systems that encourage productivity among teams. How can we bring out the best in one another? How can be keep our client needs front and center? How do we monitor budget and time constraints? Not by letting the lunatics run the asylum, that’s for sure.

Note, this is basically what I’m going to write about next, so stay tuned

5. Pay them poorly, Don’t overpay them: There is a longstanding debate about the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Over the past two decades, psychologists have provided compelling evidence for the so-called “over-justification” effect, namely the process whereby higher external rewards impair performance by depressing a person’s genuine or intrinsic interest. Most notably, two large-scale meta-analyses reported that, when tasks are inherently meaningful (and creative tasks are certainly in this condition), external rewards diminish engagement. This is true in both adults and children, especially when people are rewarded merely for performing a task. However, providing positive feedback (praises) does not harm intrinsic motivation, so long as the feedback is perceived as genuine. [Editor's note: This is clearly a controversial point; Dr. Chamorro-Premuzic has expanded on it in his new article, "Does Money Really Affect Motivation? A Review of the Research." In line with his comments in the thread below, we've also updated the header on this section to be more accurate.]

The moral of the story? The more you pay people to do what they love, the less they will love it. In the words of Czikszentmihalyi, “the most important quality, the one that is most consistently present in all creative individuals, is the ability to enjoy the process of creation for its own sake.” More importantly, people with a talent for innovation are not driven by money. Data from our research archive, which includes over 50,000 managers from 20 different countries, indicates quite clearly that the more imaginative and inquisitive people are, the more they are driven by recognition and sheer scientific curiosity rather than commercial needs.

I don’t buy the psychobabble here. If you want top performers in your organization, you need to pay them accordingly. Professionals or any sort known their market and what constitutes a competitive salary. If they bring value to your company and clients, they earn their worth every day. A better strategy is to offer a fair, if not competitive pay package, and then hold your people accountable. Make them prove their worth. Force them to track their productivity and effect on your business. Ask them to show how they bring value every day to you and your clients. If they indeed have, and they’ve made a convincing argument based in logic and facts, then they deserve even more pay. Isn’t that how it works in every other profession?

6. Surprise them: Few things are as aggravating to creatives as boredom. Indeed, creative people are prewired to seek constant change, even when it’s counterproductive. They take a different route to work every day, even if it gets them lost, and never repeat an order at a restaurant, even if they really liked it. Creativity is linked to higher tolerance of ambiguity. Creatives love complexity and enjoy making simple things complex rather than vice-versa. Instead of looking for the answer to a problem, they prefer to find a million answers or a million problems. It is therefore essential that you keep surprising your creative employees; failing that, you should at least let them create enough chaos to make their own lives less predictable.

I agree that creatives, perhaps moreso than other members of the workforce, desire variety and new challenges. But we really don’t like being blind-sided or surprised while trying to take care of business. Like everyone else, we are more productive in a creative rhythm, a workflow and work environment that we can tweak and reconfigure over time, not a chaotic, unpredictable minefield of surprises. Bosses, help your creatives think of new challenges and new projects which can help your organisation stand out. Very few of them will say “no thanks.”

7. Make them feel important: As T.S. Eliot noted, “most of the trouble in this world is caused by people wanting to be important”. And the reason is that others fail to recognize them. Fairness is not treating everyone the same, but like they deserve. Every organization has high and low potential employees, but only competent managers can identify them. If you fail to recognize your employees’ creative potential, they will go somewhere where they feel more valued.

This actually has nothing to do with design or creative professions. If you are a manager, you’ve got to treat your people well. Celebrate the little victories, thank them for doing the daily grind, show appreciation continually, in small increments, rather than some grand gesture which can be construed as insincere. In my experience, it’s the ego of the person, not the profession, that makes one desire import. Again, the real professionals — the ones you want to hire — are humble. They will tip their hats to the accountants and office managers and understand that these folks are just as important as anyone who calls himself creative.

A final caveat: even when you are able to manage your creative employees, it does not mean that you should let them manage others. In fact, natural innovators are rarely gifted with leadership skills. There is a profile for good leaders, and a profile for creative people — and they are rather different. Steve Jobs had better relationships with gadgets than people, and most Google engineers are utterly disinterested in management. One of the reasons for the rapid plateau of start-ups is that their founders tend to remain in charge. They should learn from Mark Zuckerberg who brought in Sheryl Sandberg to make up for his own leadership deficits. Research confirms the stereotypical view that corporate innovators — intrapreneurs — exhibit many of the psychopathic characteristics that prevent them from being effective leaders: they are rebellious, anti-social, self-centered and often too low in empathy to care about the welfare of others. But manage them well, and their inventions will delight us all.

I’m so fucking sick of hearing about Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs. These men, and the companies they built, are super-rare exceptions on so many levels it’s almost not worth mentioning them at all. There is no way to replicate their success. I agree that not all creatives are managers, and I will assert that the same is true for all professions! In fact, not everyone with a management job title is a natural leader or gifted boss. An MBA does not automatically make people like you and rally behind you. Neither does a masterful command of fonts or fabrics.

Here we actually have the tip of a large iceberg about creatives, and when, if ever, they should step back from their core creating duties and become teachers, bosses, or business owners. To make it extremely brief, some people have big dreams of leading a team, and some are content being a practitioner and doing the work themselves. There isn’t necessarily a rule to live by. A bold move for you, business owner, is to ask your creative professionals what their aspirations are. It isn’t automatically a bad thing for a young designer to reply “I want to be a freelancer in a year or two” or for a fashion designer to say “I’d like to run my own label.” If anything, this means that they will bust their ass to learn as much as possible in a hurry. It also means you can concentrate on other people who are more long-term, who may be interested in becoming your future partner, rather than your competition. The bigger focus of your day should be how to get the most out of your team and be a good boss, rather than who will or won’t suck when they are promoted to manage the department. Ideally, the natural leader will emerge, solving the problem for you.

The article is now concluded, but I will add a quick link. Everyone — both creative worker and the bosses who manage them — should read Paul Graham’s remarks on Maker Schedule, Manager’s Schedule. This, I feel, is at the heart of most creator-boss tensions. The essence is this: Managers have the ability to work in small increments, say, 20 minutes at a time. They take quick meetings, write an email or notes, make phone calls, and continue to do so throughout the day. Creators, on the other hand, need extended blocks of time to sink their teeth into a project. Whether it be programming, writing, design, drafting, or anything else, a maker needs a good 3 or 4 hour block to slip into the zone and produce something meaningful. So, dear business owner, please resist the urge to interrupt, to “check in” or “touch base”, and to otherwise force your creatives to work on your stop-and-go schedule.

What are your opinions about these 7 points, or about Maker Schedule vs. Managers’s Schedule? When have you had an excellent boss or a disastrous one? Share in comments below.

In part II, I will discuss tools for staying organised and the problems of a day-to-day design department [as it relates to my current job.]

* The post has since been renamed “Seven Rules for Managing Creative-But-Difficult People”, vaguely admitting that not all Creatives are difficult. Whatever.

This announcement might seem rather mundane, but it’s been a tough year regarding jobs and working. It’s been about twelve months since I proudly announced that I would be leaving me role as self-employed, one-man agency of Starship Design, and joining MakerBot. That didn’t last, as our department was laid off before too long. After this, I reconnected with a creative director I worked with in 2007, but he had us working until 5 am, and that role (which was freelance, but essentially open-ended) quickly sputtered out. Come October, I found myself working at a small agency. Unfortunately, this too proved to be a mis-match, and I had no choice but to look elsewhere. I am grossly understating the subtleties of each of these jobs, but even a quick read will allow you infer, correctly, that it’s been exhausting. I’ve earned several black eyes in quick succession, and witnessed some appalling behaviour on the part of bosses, and staggeringly outdated workplace philosophies in a variety of organisations.

But as the post title indicates, I’m starting over. This time, the biggest variable is known. Reconnecting with a former boss (who, by the way, is awesome) means we can skip the awkward-yet-important first phase of getting to know one another’s work style. I’m walking in to a situation where I am trusted, where my work has a track record, and where I am joining a team, not merely another company. Clearly, I don’t have the ability to see the future, and with any job you take it one day at a time. But I’m hoping that the frustration of the past year is a thing of a past, and will not soon be repeated. Onwards and upwards, dear friends.

(cue Elton John’s I’m Still Standing)

The only other aspect to this is that with this new role, I’m hoping to achieve a much better work-life balance (if I may use that terrible term). I’m going to do my best to resume blogging regularly, as well as working on side projects and other design-related developments that, frankly, I didn’t have the energy for being in situations which were absolutely draining. I’m hoping to actually get busy on the redesign of this site, which I started but never finished in the early days of 2012! I’ve been planning it, but of course the thing is to actually do it. Watch this space!

(and don’t worry, I’m going to be setting up a new Mac installation when I arrive at my new job. Luckily, it’s fresh on my mind.)

Ok, true story. A few weekends ago, my computer stopped working. It just wouldn’t load the OS, instead greeting me with a black screen. Long story short, I had to reinstall the system and everything on my main drive. I usually do this once a year or so, on purpose, such as when the new operating system is released, but considering I’d only just moved and set up my desk, this wasn’t planned for at all. In fact it was most inconvenient.

As a computer geek first and a designer second, I run a very customised and configured system. I install a ton of tweaks and hacks, and run a bunch of applications on a daily basis that aren’t part of the stock installation. I remarked that it would be two weeks of customising and installing before I truly felt comfortable and productive. Friends encouraged me to blog about it, listing the apps I use and ways that I customise my system. So in the spirit of starting over, here’s a look at what’s going on.

Drivers

The first thing I install on a new system is my Wacom Tablet. I really can’t use a mouse anymore, and not having the Tablet installed is a handicap that must be remedied before anything else. Soon after, I need to install Drobo Dashboard so I can access my network-attached storage like any other drive. I also need to install the drivers for my printers, an Epson R1900 and an HP LaserJet 5000N (remember those!), as well as my Epson Perfection 3170 scanner. Luckily, these drivers are built into the system so it’s not as dramatic as it once was.

Backup/Cloud

These days, more and more of our data lives in the cloud. I don’t yet have a fully online existence, but I do use a few services which have already proven invaluable. One of the first things I install on a new system is Dropbox. Here is where I store my current design projects, important documents, a few key photos, and a number of files I need to reference on the go. Lately, Dropbox is keeping track of more and more settings for other applications, allowing me to keep multiple computers to stay in sync. It’s become part of my computing life in such a dramatic way that I can only compare it to the first time I used a Wacom Tablet, or the first time I saw a colour screen. It’s that big a deal. If you’re not using Dropbox, sign up right now, and you will thank me later. For continual online backup, I use Carbonite on my data drive, which contains my photos, music, design files, and other very important stuff (note, this was not lost as it was stored on a separate drive). Two little apps which live in my system menu bar are Dropmark and Cloud. Dropmark is like a personal Pinterest, where I can quickly store images into separate collections. Cloud is great for screenshot-sharing or shortening URLs with one simple keystroke. Authorising these apps on my new install instantly recalls my past activity and settings, which is most convenient. To keep track of all my passwords and accounts, I use a database app called Wallet. The database is backed up on Dropbox, allowing me to get back up to speed with a few clicks and an authorisation. If I wasn’t using Wallet, all my logins and passwords would have died with the hard drive. To automate backups on my local network, essentially to batch copy them, I use an app called FolderWatch which continually watches certain folders and copies any changes instantly to an external drive. Very handy for maintaining a copy of something which you need to be always-current. Apple’s own iCloud service is part of the OS, and I actually authorise my account during the installation process. For me, this doesn’t bring a ton of data, but it does sync my calendar, address book, and Safari bookmarks, which are three useful things that would otherwise need to me manually restored from backups. (and yes, I do manually back these up at least once a year).

System Mods

While the impression that Mac is less hackable and customisable than Windows is still generally true, there are plenty of system-wide hacks and mods which I’ve come to rely on. These are not for the weak, as some can be tricky to install, require some mucking around in the otherwise-prohibited system folder. Lion Tweaks and Mountain Tweaks are applications which allow you to take control of some of the new “features” in Apple’s recent OS versions. Many expert users, like me, have had a hard time accepting these new tricks and gimmicks, and prefer them be silenced. You’ll definitely want to check them out, even if you only opt for one or two edits to the default. I install Little Snitch to keep track of my network connections. I have a list that is once again backed up to Dropbox, allowing my computers to keep the rules in sync. I try to keep my computer from “phoning home” as much as I can; I don’t mind manually updating my software if it means a faster user experience in general. Default Folder X is a system add-on that brings a number of features, mostly to the Open and Save dialog boxes. If you’ve never given them much thought, you’re not alone, but once you start using DFX, you’ll realise how much better it is. You can now click-to-target open folders, which is a feature from the OS 9 days, where instead of the default location to open or save, you can target an open folder by clicking it’s silhouette in Finder, even though you’re operating in, say, Photoshop. It’s hard to explain, but trust me, it’s awesome. Similarly awesome is XtraFinder — a Finder add-on which gives you tabs in Finder, and a few other things besides. In systems past, I would use an application called DockSwitcher to skin my Dock, and to remove the shiny chrome tray effect, swapping it for a more subtle (and faster-to-render) black bezel. These days, this has to be done manually, replacing contents from the Dock.app within Core Services. Perhaps this is a tutorial to be left on its own for now. If you know what I’m talking about, perhaps I can lead you.

By now you’ve likely heard of Alfred, the app launcher and shortcut application. It’s amazing, and with version 2.0 just around the corner, you really need to try it. I always install ClipMenu, which allows the system to store a number of recently copied items to the clipboard. For example, if you copy a phone number, but then copy a URL, you may need the phone number again in ten minutes, but oops, when you paste it, it’s already gone. ClipMenu should be built into the operating system, as should TextExpander. TextExpander allows you to create short codes which will replace with longer bits of text. For example, if I want my name, I can either type the whole thing, Prescott Perez-Fox, or just type the short code I created, “PPFF”. I’ve got three paragraphs of dummy text at my fingertips, plus a whole bunch of HTML snippets. It’s life-changing.

After I’m done installing the majority new apps and add-ons, I run Monolingual to remove unneeded languages from my system. Why I need Help files in Gaelic or Afrikaans, I’ll never know, but for some reason they’re installed by default. You can usually save gigabytes by removing extraneous languages. I use CleanMyMac to do much of the same work, and can usually save a few hundred MB by removing similarly superfluous crap. I like to do the same with fonts, but much more manually. Like the languages, I don’t need 400 fonts installed and loaded just to check my Twitter feed.

System Maintenance

Obviously, one has the need to maintain a good clean system. I like MainMenu to run weekly and monthly cleanup tasks. DiskWarrior is for more serious problems relating to the hard drive, but it’s good for maintenance as well. Onyx is a good utility that does much of what MainMenu does, but with a more OS X-native interface. (check out this screencast to see a few examples in action). I like TinkerTool to make some additional customising and optioning.

Audio/Video Apps

I watch a lot of videos on my computer(s) so it’s rather annoying that QuickTime 7 Pro is no longer included in later system of OS X. But It can be restored from older system disks, copied from any other Mac with this version of Quicktime sitting in the Applications folder, or downloaded from the Apple Site. This, in my view, is still the better version compared to QuickTime X because it allows playback speed controls, cutting and trimming, and a number of other features. Some tools like Join Together won’t work without it. However, my media player of choice is Movist. Like Quicktime, it’s the older versions of Movist that feel more comfortable, and I prefer v0.6.8 to the newer (and not-free) versions in the Mac App Store. Unfortunately, Movist can’t handle everything with the Quicktime codec (thanks to a documented flaw in how AC3 decoding works in Mountain Lion) so I use MPlayerX and VLC as complements. With these, I can play damn near anything the world can throw my way. I use two converter applications to transcode any media I need; Smart Converter takes care of most things, but there’s always Handbrake for heavy lifting and specific settings.

Audio/Video Plugins

While the players mentioned above take care of most video and audio files right out of the box (so to speak), there’s a few plugins that are asked for a eventually. I like to install Perian, even though it’s no longer supported, and Divx plus, although it’s not terribly popular. There’s also Java for the desktop and some other stuff here and there.

Productivity

Once I’ve got the system configured, it’s time to actually install some proper apps and get to work. Bean is an excellent minimal text editor that is way less complicated than Microsoft Word, but a little richer than the system-standard TextEdit. Texts is another alternate word processor you can try, but it’s not for me, exactly. I usually install the Adobe Creative Suite soon after and import my Adobe Settings, which I’m careful to back up on Dropbox and onto external drives. Keyboard shortcuts, Window locations, plugins and scripts, and other customisations are annoying to recreate but easy to restore. I prefer Numbers to Excel, even though the iWork suite hasn’t been updated since 2009. Seriously. For font management, I prefer Suitcase Fusion 4, with a database restored from backup. Since this database can be well over 2GB, it’s a little too big to stash on Dropbox so instead it goes right to my Drobo.

iTunes

Say what you will about iTunes, I still use it. However, I hate the icon (and I’m not the only one) so I will replace it with a custom icon I made. I wrote a tutorial a while back about how to change the sidebar icons back to colour, but it seems that this is moot with the recent version 11 of iTunes. Most people don’t use any iTunes scripts, but I have a few, such as the aforementioned Join Together. And to use these scripts, I’ll create some custom Keyboard Shortcuts in the System Preferences panel under Keyboard.

Aesthetics

Everyone like his or her system to look nice so I don’t waste a lot of time in bringing back my favourite wallpapers, icons, and screen savers. Sooner or later I bring in my photo collection, although as of this writing I’m seeking to move from iPhoto to Lightroom for the management of my photos.

Browsers

For a number of reasons, I prefer Safari, but I always install Chrome as a second browser, and Firefox as a third. Safari now has a number of Extensions which make the experience more pleasant and, as you can guess by now, I restore these from their backed-up position on Dropbox. I always go through the Preferences for each browser to ensure that Tabs and other operations feel the way that is comfortable for me.

Email

This could be a whole blog post on its own, but here’s my quick take on desktop email. I use an app called Postbox. It’s based on the now-retired Thunderbird, and feels lightweight and smooth compared to Outlook. It has social integration and ties in to the Address Book nicely. Without talking too specifically about my personal workflow, I have tried a number of titles and Postbox is the only desktop app so far that does certain things which I like, such as allowing me to reorder my multiple inboxes. However, I’m open-minded and I’ll be willing to try new ones to see how they handle. For example, I’d love a different method of storing messages where the app didn’t build up a massive lump of data measuring 3GB or more. I’d also like a more straightforward way to export preferences, filters, account settings, etc., maybe even via Dropbox. I’m afraid that I struggled with these aspects in the recent reinstall because I wanted a clean start, not simply to copy the clunky mess from another Mac.

Wow, this is getting long, but it seems we’re getting there. Surely, you can see the point — little apps and hacks, many of which provide one or two functions, make a huge difference. A computers configuration is so key to one’s productivity, and being a particular and eccentric person, my situation is even more acute. This shit matters to me, and the time and energy required to bring things up to standard aren’t wasted, they’re invested.

The reason I titled this post “Part I” is become I have some other things to mention in the upcoming days. It’s less to do with computers, I swear, but it seems apt to make it a two-parter.

If you have any questions on the above apps, leave a comment below or hit me up on Twitter or email. If you have any other tips or tricks, let them be known — perhaps you’ve been using something awesome that has evaded me for years.

It would seem obvious to say “I got busy”, but more accurately, I got busy several times with several new endeavors. It was the continually-starting-over nature of this past year that took me away, and turned me sideways a bit. I’m a little disappointed with myself that I never managed to write about the 2012 Olympics, considering I’d been sniping at that stupid logo for the previous 5 years, and considering I wrote a three-part review of the 2008 Beijing games. Opportunity missed.

The year started with me redesigning my site and posting videos as I go, but with an influx of client work, I had to put that aside. I’m ashamed to admit that I never revived the effort, and since July I really haven’t thought of it. Just didn’t fit in with everything else.

But the defining strangeness of the year was my starting a new job … three times. In February, I accepted a full-time job, but our department was dismantled a mere three months after it was assembled. My job was eliminated, and me along with it. A few weeks later, after a much-needed trip to Montreal, I got reconnected with someone I worked with in 2007, and returned as a freelancer to an agency I worked with all those years ago. It was shit. We worked until 5:00 am twice in two weeks. Not cool. With a few more late nights and a general air of awkwardness and disorder, I said adieu and went back to doing my own thing. Even though I was only a freelancer (as was nearly everyone there), it had the same effect of being a momentum-stopper and felt like a second false start in as many months.

This was about the time that my Mac basically died, and instead of getting a new one, I built a Hackintosh. That was something I’m proud of, even though it took me another three months to actually get that system into the rotation as my main computer.

About ten weeks ago I started my latest full-time role. I’m still there and taking it one day at a time. Still finding the balance between time and energy and focus, and seeing where — if anywhere — my blogging can fit it. This latest role came with the added hysteria of moving to Manhattan, after so many years of hoping to do so. The move itself was complicated by a little thing called Hurricane Sandy.

The Hurricane was a complete mess. My apartment was without power for 13 days, during which I we also had no heat. Gas for the stove and for the hot water returned after 6 days, but the whole affair was superbly inconvenient. Had to pack up my apartment by candelight. Had to take the ferry into the City to get the keys for my new place. Had to sleep at my friends’ place to avoid the cold snap. And needless to say, I didn’t do much blogging during that time. I did, however, finally manage to lose the weight I gained during that aforementioned first job (about 10 lbs.)

The new year is usually a time to take stock and make goals, but this year in particular desires a “shake it off” approach from me. Even though the toughest years of the recession were back in 2009-10, it seemed that 2012 created the perfect combination of stressors to really knock me off my stride. I’m looking forward to 2013. I’m looking forward.

So what, specifically, am I hoping to do? Looking to establish a better routine in my new Manhattan apartment. Although it’s cold, that means figuring out the right times to go out socially, to exercise, to hit up cultural spots like museums, and to have people over. I’m looking to get more into side projects, especially in making posters and other artwork-ish products like wallpapers and calendars that I can give away or list for sale. I’ve created one so far. I’m looking to be more purposeful in my social media use, but spend less time. Learn to pop in and pop out, especially with Pinterest (where I devote most of my time spreading show-and-tell style posts that once were the focus of this blog), and Twitter (where the witty remarks and useful links of others can eat up a whole day). I’m planning to bring to a close Your Business Card Sucks, which has withered a bit from lack of attention, and start a few other mostly-useless side projects.

Watch this space, folks. Thanks for an interesting 2012. See you next year.

Also, don’t forget to back up your files! Maybe tomorrow during the day off.

Years ago, I created a simple calendar which I creatively called “Simple Calendar”. This was the calendar that I wanted, but did not exist anywhere in the world. A 7-seven week grid allows me to see what’s coming up in the early weeks of next month, and a bit of what came before. This solves the recurring problem of “what’s the date for next Thursday?” Why calendars cut off so soon, I’ll never know. Not like we live our lives on month at a time and then everything else just cuts off. I mean, what the fuck. Also, I prefer the European-style display where the weekends are lumped together on the right side, rather than the American style of having bookends. (In addition, there exists an Israeli-style display where Saturday begins the week and the thus two weekend days are capped at the beginning.)

Anyway, I finally got back to making a new version for 2013! This is the same design, but updated with the appropriate dates. American holidays are listed in a simple underline. And it’s available for your downloading pleasure, right here. I’ve also included the InDesign file so you can remix and create your own. Add colour, change the fonts, make it horizontal — whatever. The usual rules apply — if you make a new version, let me know so I can give you props! And it would be nice if you shared a link back to my site.

Download Simple Calendar 2013 (PDF, 81 KB)
Download Simple Calendar 2013 (InDesign CS6, 2.7 MB)
Download Simple Calendar 2013 (InDesign CS6 Markup, 146 KB)

My recommendation for printing is that you use the back of some already-printed paper. Thicker stock works better. Then just use a binder clip and hang the calendar at your desk, or in your kitchen, or wherever it’s more appropriate.

Sheesh, this post is at least 6 weeks overdue so I’m going to try my best to recreate the thoughts and feelings I had when finishing up the Hackintosh. Sorry for the delay.

I knew that the software setup and installation of OS X would be the tricky part, and it was. Or at least it didn’t work on the first try, and I had to get a little help from Bill and the Internet. But in the end I got it.

This is what an error message looks like. Not very helpful, actually.

Before I attempted to set up this new computer as a Mac, I first installed Windows to make sure the hardware working. I had an old Windows 7 CD knocking around and so this was fairly straightforward. Unlike the Mac, Windows didn’t fully function properly until I installed the drivers for my video card, after which it was smooth sailing. I watched a few YouTube videos to make sure the sound was working and soon set my sights on the Mac.

First step in all this was to create an installer on a USB thumb drive, following the directions on TonyMacX86.com. This required me to run a quick bit of software on my existing Mac which utilised the download of OS 10.8 which I had purchased on the App Store. This was probably the easiest step, actually, because I did it all from an actual Mac, so there’s really no guess work.

Getting to the Mac OS installer didn’t happen on the first go, as I hoped it would but realistically knew it wouldn’t. In using a UniBeast USB drive installer, there are a series of arguments which often help users like me reach the installer. It was a matter of trial and error to determine which ones I needed. Turns out that I required both “GraphicsEnabler=No” and “PCIRootUID=0″. Safe mode didn’t affect the process, I think.

But it still took me a while to reach the installer because the system kept getting caught up somewhere in the boot process. I couldn’t figure it out, but figured that it was a hardware conflict. I started disconnecting extraneous drives and trying different USB ports, and Bill provided the helpful tip that I remove the wi-fi card that comes with the motherboard. Apparently those things don’t yet work on this Hackintosh environment. In the end, with the Superdrive and secondary hard drive disconnected, and with the USB drive plugged into the back of the system on one of the USB 2.0 ports, I was able to reach the installer … and to install the OS. Success!

Hardware conflicts lead to stalls in the booting process

Tough to tell what, exactly, is the problem.

With the OS installed, I could boot as a Mac, but not without the use of that same USB drive as a loader. I needed to install the Multibeast software to create a fully self-sufficient Mac. The only trick here is that each installation of Multibeast needs to be configured for your specific hardware. Instinct didn’t serve me in this case, as I couldn’t quite find the exact combination of options that would lead me to a self-booting machine. In the end, Bill pointed me to a link where Tony posted a screenshot of a very similar hardware configuration. Acknowledging that I am totally outgunned in terms of nerdness, I copied his installation options and boom, we’re in business.

The settings used which finally granted me success

That’s a screenshot of OS 10.8 running and my installing Multibeast.

Looking back, the installation wasn’t that bad. I had help from someone who’d done it before, and the feedback of a community who is going through it too. But for a minute there I was a little flustered in not knowing what to do next. Everyone who considers himself a computer geek has been through it before, and this wasn’t nearly as stressed as I have been in times past, like, say when you’re trying to get a DOS application to work and there’s an IRQ conflict on your sound card (circa 1996, of course). That is some fucking stress, people.

My system settings. Yep, it’s a Hackintosh.

Here’s a photo of my Hackintosh running OS 10.8. It’s aliiive.

This saga requires one more chapter, but one I can’t write for a while longer: living with a Hackintosh. Believe it or not I still haven’t switched over to my Hackintosh full-time. This is for two reasons: first, my Mac Pro — which I thought was ready to die at any moment — continued to work fine. With my continued workload during mid-late summer, the time never seemed quite right to shut down completely for several days while I rearrange my room and reinstall all my software, etc. Second, I’m moving very soon. The move seems like a great excuse to start fresh since I’ll be packing everything up anyway. So very soon my Hackintosh will become my primary machine. Reports will follow.

The Hackintosh project continues, albeit slowly. I actually put the box together last weekend but with the hectic work week to contend with, I’m a bit late in this post.

Where to begin? As I mentioned, I’ve build computers before, but that was 8 or 9 years ago. I remember building my parents a PC my final year in college, but that, like most of the computers I built in my teen years, was assembled from spare parts I had lying around, using my old hand-me-downs and maybe a new hard drive, or whatever. This is a bit different since all the components are from an entirely new generation of PC parts. Frankly, I had to reeducate myself on the new configuration of ports and plugs and whatnot.

The components for my Hackintosh, all in boxes

Once I got started, it was a bit like riding a bike. At the core it’s still the same procedure — put all the components in the case, give ‘em power, connect ‘em to each other where necessary. Make sure everything is tight and tidy, and close her up.

unboxed components, ready for assembly

Before I talk about the assembly itself I have to do a quick review of the case, and share my thoughts. Strangely, it’s not only the outside of the computer, but it’s also the frame around which everything is built — an exoskeleton, if you will, rather than simply the skin. (Are there computers with a “skeletal system”? That might be interesting). I ordered the Corsair Vengeance C70 which sports a rugged military-style design. I chose the Arctic White colour scheme which gives me some of that Storm Trooper aesthetic which is generally pretty cool. It has a tool-free opening for both side panels, and an appropriate compliments of front-panel USB and audio ports. Unfortunately, I quickly learned that this case was designed mostly for style, and in actual practice the case isn’t super-rugged or any more sturdy than the PC cases I remember.

Corsair Vengeance C70 case, photo via AnandTech

Obviously I’m comparing it to the case for my Mac Pro, which this Hackintosh is serving to replace. And side by the side the Mac Pro case is far superior. In fact, this is an understatement. The Mac Pro case compared to this Corsair feels like Mercedes sedan compared to a Hyundai pickup you’d rent from U-Haul. The Mac Pro case is constructed entirely from 1/8″ milled and molded Aluminum, with the minimum of joints and edges. It’s sturdy as shit and feels entirely tank-like. When it sits on a desk or floor, you can barely move it with your hands, and certain can’t bend or wobble individual sides. In comparison, Corsair feels flimsy, thin, and decidedly non-luxurious. The metal is about 1mm thick, about 1/3 that of the Mac Pro exteriors. The Corsair like the Mac features tool-free latches, which work rather well, and also uses hard drive sleds which make for easy load in and out, and the ability to fast-swap drives if need be. But these sleds are the thinnest plastic I could imagine, and feel as if they are about to break in my hands. The case has fan points all over, which is nice, except that the fans hide access to the front panel release latches and the the screws which bind in the hard drive sub-assembly.

It’s annoying, but not the end of the world. I guess this just illustrates the point that I’ve making for years that Apple makes, in essence, luxury computers — the consumer electronics equivalent of high-thread-count sheets. Someone people think it’s a rip-off, others will dig deep for a quality product.

This poster was included with my video card. I wondered for a second if I had purchased a .30-cal machine gun instead of a computer part.

A small library of manuals. Together, it all seems rather intimidating, but most of it is Chinese translations of the warranty.

Ok, so now to the actual assembly. The first part I put in was the motherboard. Clearly, it’s an important piece of the puzzle, so I wanted to take my time, examine every component, read the instructions, account for every screw and be careful. In the end it was really a matter of placing it and screwing it down, making sure not to over-tighten. This being a full-size ATX motherboard, it fits perfectly. The back panel with all the ports fits snug in the case cut-out, and everything looks good. I was glad to see that all the ports on the motherboard are labeled — in English — with their function. A surprising logical approach, and I dunno why I was expecting some silliness.

Here’s a trick you can use: tape the screws in their little plastic bags next to their spot on the inventory list.

With the motherboard in place, I next installed the processor. After rescuing the chip and fan mount from the shockingly flimsy packaging, I again read the instructions very carefully and made sure not to touch the underside of the chip. Oils from the fingers can seriously mess up heat flow, and I’m not one to tempt fate with something so delicate. The chip itself looks like the Pentiums, etc. of my younger days — maybe a bit smaller — but a chip is a chip as far as I’m concerned. I did take a moment to marvel at the fan and cooling-fin apparatus, which is pretty cool in its radial design. I’m not afraid to admit that I held it up to my chest and pretended I was Iron Man, just for a second.

Making a mess as I put everything together. Tools, manuals, parts, hardware, and some much needed desk light.

The circular rig for the processor cooling fins and fan

The circular rig for the processor cooling fins and fan

Next was the power supply, which slid into place with little drama. A few screws and that thing is secure. The power supply is a bit like the engine room of the whole computer — it’s not sexy, but it’s big and sturdy and reliable. Located on the bottom of this case, it adds some serious weight, but also helps give some peace of mind that the thing is now a solid machine, not a box of plastic do-dads.

I installed my old SuperDrive from my Mac Pro into one of the front slots and screwed it into place. Strapped the hard drives into their sleds, and put them into place. RAM pops into the motherboard no problem.

Installing the graphics card was also pretty straightforward. As with the other parts, I read the manual and made sure I followed all the suggestions to the letter. Here, I did make a blunder of installing the card at the bottom, near the power supply, but actually they recommend that I install it in the first PCI slot, which is nearer to the processor. The difference is that the graphics card now fills the space and cuts right through the center. It doesn’t look great, but I worry too that it will block air flow and force me to add fans only in certain areas. But graphics are more important than my own OCD, so I’ll follow the guidelines.

Next is wiring. And lemme tell you, there’s a shitload of wiring to be done. Here is where the Mac really outshines PCs because the cases are custom-designed for minimal wires, instead using slots that slide together perfectly. For example, on the Mac each hard drive slides right into place without the need to touch a single wire. On the PC case, each hard drive needs a power cord that runs back to the power supply and a SATA cable which connects to the motherboard. Some of the SATA can be daisy-chained, meaning multiple drives are connected on a single cable, but it adds up quick. With only two hard drives and the optical, there are already a ton of wires. The front panel has numerous very small cables that connect to the motherboard to run the power switch, etc., and all the fans also have cables that need to attach to the motherboard.

The unavoidable rats nest of cables inside the computer. The C70 tower makes an effort to contain them, but it’s a tough job.

I did my best to make things tidy. The C70 case has some cable management built in. Rubber portals allow access to the back side of the case, which has a few clip-in bars under which I can tuck the cables. There are also some slots throughout, which I can use to attach small cable ties and pin down the cables, especially the permanent ones like those for the front panel and for the main motherboard cables (the big honkin’ ones that come attached to the power supply). It’s a tight fit, and when all was done, the thing barely closed because of all the cables. I imagine if I’m adding any drives in the future (maybe a Blu-ray, who knows what the future will bring), I’ll have to redo the wiring to accommodate the extra wires! This, more than the case sturdiness, is where I miss the custom case design of the Mac.

And there we have it, a Hackintosh assembled. At this point it’s nothing more than a self-built PC with no operating system installed, but it looks good. And it’s heavy — probably a bit heavier than my Mac Pro, even with the lighterweight metal used in the case. All in all the build took me about 4 hours, and that length was due to a number of factors. First, I was unfamiliar with all of the hardware. I was unboxing, unwrapping, and reading directions for each component as I went, making it a bit slow. I was also watching TV in the background so occasionally I’d turn and look around. It was night time when I put this together, making light a bit of an issue. Even with my headlamp, there were some angles where I just couldn’t see, and so I had to turn the box every which way in order to see the screw or cable I was trying to reach.

Next up, installing the operating system and attempting to make this thing an actual Hackintosh.

A while back, I listened to an episode of the On Taking Pictures podcast, featuring my photographer pal Bill Wadman. Bill described how he, and many more around the Internet, are building their own Macs from standard PC components. A Hackintosh, if you will. The reasoning is two-fold. First, Apple hasn’t exactly kept up with new products in the pro desktop market. Their Mac Pro is generations behind by PC standards, leaving many designers, photographers, video guys, and other artists twiddling their thumbs with old hardware. Second, it’s much cheaper to assemble it yourself rather than buy from Apple. After all, Apple’s products are a luxury.

Listening to Bill gave me some confidence. With the increasing number of components compatible with the Mac OS, and an ever-growing community of Mac-builders, it seems like the time is right. Also, my Mac Pro — which was physically damaged by an enraged ex-roommate — has been giving me problems. In fact, I’m very worried that the entire thing could crap out in a moment’s notice.

Bill isn’t the total source for this stuff. There is a thriving forum over at TonyMacX86.com, where Tony makes recommendations, reviews hardware, provides instructions, answers questions, and most importantly, publishes the software required to transform a normal PC into a Mac. The site is very in-depth; I’ve only scratched the surface in reading the forums, but I have made use of the CustoMac recommendations. These are essentially shopping lists of approved hardware that, according to Tony, plays nicely together and with the Mac OS. Very helpful all-around.

There’s also a Hackintosh sub-Reddit on Reddit, the beautiful catch-all for Internet resources (and sillyness).

Not that I’m some kind of Rockefeller, but I took a bit of pride in ordering modern components, and buying the parts with those one or two extra features. Here’s the parts I purchased, all of which were recommended by Tony and listed over at CustoMac.com:

The components for my Hackintosh, unassembled

• Processor: Intel IvyBridge Core i7-3770K
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5-TH
• Graphics Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 680, 2GB
• Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16 GB (2×8 GB), 1600 Mhz, DDR3
• Case: Corsair Vengeance C70 (Arctic White)
• Power Supply: Corsair 650 watt
• Hard Drive 1: SanDisk Extreme SSD – 2.5″, 240 GB
• Hard Drive 2: Seagate Baracuda HDD – 3.5″, 1 TB, 7200 RPM
• Optical Drive: Pioneer DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW aka the existing SuperDrive from my Mac Pro!

I also bought a few extra fans, some USB thumb drives, and some USB extension cables for my scanner and printer, but you probably have those lying around. I’m planning to use my existing monitors, keyboard, and Wacom tablet, since those are still in fine working order. All in, these components ran about $1800. Not exactly cigarette money, but much more affordable than any Mac Pro system on the market.

Next steps are assembly and setup. Assembly shouldn’t be too bad — I’ve put together PCs before and consider myself mechanically inclined (I do have a degree in Mechanical Engineering, after all) — but the setup is likely to be very interesting. In any event, it’s uncharted waters for me.

Have you built a Hackintosh? Would you consider it? Lemme know your thoughts in the comments below.

In a quick follow-up to last week’s post, I have installed Mountain Lion on my laptop (which isn’t my primary design system) and have quickly discovered that two of my wishlist items have been granted.

The new application Contacts has replaced Address Book, and with it, returned to us the three-column interface. It still features that bloody stupid stitched-leather effect, but at least now it’s usable. My goodness.

New Contacts app in Mountain Lion. You can see the three-columns at work. Click for a larger view

iCal has been replaced by Calendars, which seems mostly the same but with the iCloud integration improved and with the added bonus of small calendar thumbnails for both the current and following month. This is actually very significant, especially as the month approaches its finale. MacWorld has a nice review of Calendars, which is worth a read.

Unfortunately, the grey aesthetic of Lion has persisted, and I will now undertake various steps in an effort to reclaim the interface to my liking. Hopefully, most of the existing ones for Lion will also work in Mountain Lion (I almost typed Snow Lion! Ha.) I’ve got some poking to do to really experience what’s new in Mountain Lion from a day-to-day usage point of view. On the surface, it feels pretty much exactly like Lion. Fair warning, some rants may make their way onto this blog.

Not to repeat my mistakes from the last upgrade, I’m going to wait a few weeks before upgrading my main machine to Mountain Lion. Hopefully, nothing will break in the meantime and force me to upgrade (which is what happened last time around).