After missing a blog post last week I have officially screwed up my Project 52 status. I posted every week for 15 weeks, on it's own that's still a pretty good achievement. Alas, I am a programmer, not a weekly writer; so it's time I set myself a new challenge.

One Week App

Next week I conveniently have a whole week off college, so I decided to use this free week to create a web app. I already know what I'm going to build and have an extremely rough idea of how it'll all work out. But until Monday hits, I won't be writing any code or creating any pretty designs. To be brutally honest, this app is fairly simply so I don't expect it to take a whole week. I expect most of the week will be spent polishing it all off and making it look kinda sexy.

More libraries

I'm hoping that building an app in such a short space of time will help me think of new libraries to create and release to the community. I already have an idea that I'm looking to try out on this app, and possibly release if it's any good. There's probably something out there like this already. There's plenty of room for everyone in this community, that's what makes it great, there's so much choice and so many options!

Future projects, and the master-plan

I hope to make a few more web apps in the future. Now, when I say web app, please don't think 37signals. I won't make anything nearly that awesome in a week, I'm simply going to create stuff I think I could make awesome and see if it flies. It it dives then I'll leave it and move onto the next idea. Of course if I get some interest and people feel it could be useful, I'll start to add things and make it look better until I am happy with it, and the users are happy with it. If/when that happens, well, we'll have to see how it goes won't we? Hopefully everything I create will be valuable to somebody out there so everything gets used and I can get a nice, warm fuzzy feeling that I've helped someone perform a task.

This months Shropgeek was awesome as always, but due to a beer festival we were all out in the cold instead of our usual quiet back room!

Being outdoors was good for us all though. We found out the lights outside the Admiral Benbow aren't operated by clapper (hehe) or sensor, there's simply a button to push on the wall. Of course, I still acted like I was using a clapper, when actually I just clapped when someone was going to push the button. The effect worked rather well, even if I did look like an idiot!

Topics of discussion this month was very different to any other meetup I've been to.

• Digital Economy Bill: this months shropgeek featured a short discussion on the #debill – mostly on why it's a load of old todge, why we were unhappy about it; and @jamiebiddle brought in a letter from his MP regarding #debill, it turned out to be exactly the same as the letter @zbeauvais had from his MP, it's not even the same MP, they live in different constituencies!
• iPad: With the iPad being released in the US, we had to talk about it, we are geeks after all! Same conversation as usual, are you buying one? is it any good? I think it looks awesome, etc.
• iPhone OS 4: I had been trying to get my hands on OS 4 all day ready for shropgeek and, well I failed. I didn't get my iPhone Developer Program activation email until Saturday morning. So we had to simply talk about it, rather than play with it on my phone. Although now that I have it we'll be able to play with it on my phone next month!
• Top 10 Pubs in Shropshire: Two of the guys who come to shropgeek, @martinchilds and @cpritch, run a local website shropshirelive.com. They ran a competition to find the top 10 pubs in shropshire, I tried to find out the winner before hand as my friend runs one of the pubs on the list but they simply wouldn't tell me!
• Radio traffic reporting: For some reason I decided to ask if anybody remember the Street Hawk, a guy who went round Shrewsbury on a motorbike reporting weather for a local radio station. A few did remember; it was my Dad! I also told them he wouldn't go out in the mornings as traffic was always the same, turns out @cpritch did the same when he reported the traffic too! It's surprising how much you don't know about what goes on behind the scenes.

It was almost a week ago now so I don't remember every tiny detail of what happened so I'll wrap it up here! Shropgeek was awesome as always and I can't wait for May's Shropgeek!

I am on the market for a new machine; of course it has to be a Mac, I couldn't live without TextMate and I'd rather not go down the hackintosh route (I won't go into why as it could be a whole blog post on it's own!). I am now stuck between two different set ups, an iMac and an iPad; or a MacBook Pro and an Apple Cinema Display.

My current setup

Here is my current desk. I have my Late 2007 2.0Ghz MacBook connected up to a Samsung SyncMaster 923NW, along with my Samson C01U condenser microphone. My MacBook has served me well but it's battered and bruised and I will need a new machine when I go to University in September.

27" iMac & iPad

The first option for me to go down is to buy an iMac and an iPad. Please note: I really want an iPad so I'm already pretty much sold on this set up already. If I am buying an iMac, I'm getting a 27 incher; no way I'm forking out £1,000+ for a 21.5 inch screen. I'm also getting a Core i5 model, this would future proof the iMac for at least 5 years. I won't be opting for the Core i7 model as it's too much money for the gains you get. Anyway on to the next setup!

MacBook Pro & Apple Cinema Display

This is a lot like my current setup, just with a much better laptop and a much better screen.

My needs & future needs

My current needs are simple, I need a machine to sit on my desk. My MacBook hasn't moved from my desk in well over a year (not counting the times I've had a clean up etc). However, my future needs differ immensely. Of course I need a machine to use when I'm at Uni in my room. I'll also need a device to take notes on. I was thinking I could have an iMac and then use an iPad to take notes on.

One thing I just thought about, which I didn't think about before. When I go home for a few weeks at Christmas if I have an iMac I can only bring the iPad on the train. If I wanted to do some coding over Christmas I wouldn't be able to on an iPad. Unless I keep my MacBook (I doubt anybody would buy it in it's current state, and I reckon it's worth more to me as an extra machine anyway.)

Final setup?

iMac for heavy lifting at Uni; iPad for note taking, content consumption etc. MacBook for use at home for stuff like web development etc. Is this my perfect setup? Probably. I mean the MacBook works fine, it's just a bit rough around the edges. Let me know what you think in a comment / on twitter / on facebook. Try and sway me either way. I'm still not 100% but writing this post has led me to think that an iMac / iPad / MacBook setup would be just so sweet.