For those chomping at the bit for a setup that doesn’t belong in a magazine, here is a real-life setup submitted by my real-life friend, Josh Farmer. Josh is one of the best dads, husbands, writers, and editors I know. He also has a flare for the sarcastic.

Josh’s Setup:

1. What does your desk look like?

It looks like my kitchen table. After a Church’s Chicken tornado.

2. What is your current Mac setup?

PowerBook G4 15″ laptop and a 500 GB backup disk somewhere in my house . . . really need to find that thing.

3. Why are you using this setup?

Because in my 900-square-foot home, it’s all I’ve got right now (besides the bathroom, which is apparently my fault). I have four children under the age of 5 (no twins), I’m in full-time school, work part-time, do editing and ghostwriting projects on the side, and consume all things related to Apple, Macintosh, and LOLCats. w00t!!!!!11!!

4. What software do you use on a daily basis, and for what do you use it?

Safari for the Web; iTunes for music; iPhoto for pictures; Word for, um, words; InDesign for editing .indd files (upgraded from MS Paint recently). Tinker Tool handles any UI system changes I want to make, but that usually comes down to changing fonts. (Right now I’ve got Hobo, Arial, and Comic Sans in various places. They are extremely legible because each letter is different.)

I have also found that keeping all my applications open makes them readily available and cuts down on their startup time. But I have to keep my iTunes kinda loud to drown out the funny sounds my drive sometimes makes — it’s a difficult balance during the kids’ naptime.

5. Do you own any other Mac gear?

I have an original iPod (called a Walkman). Oh, yeah, and I also have a 4GB iPod. It’s blue because I like blue. But it’s so difficult to use. I can’t even get it to play. Every time I hold it, I push the hold button to let it know what I’m doing, but it still won’t work. I have a puppy named Macintosh, so that should count I think.

6. Do you have any future upgrades planned?

You already forgot my answer to question #3, didn’t you? Seriously, though, if something breaks I’ll obviously have to replace it. They say necessity is the mother of all loans, right?

More Sweet Setups

Josh’s setup is just one in a series of sweet Mac Setups.