TheAppleBlog

Today I’m talking to a longtime friend of mine and my favorite hipster tech girl, Sara Robertson. I asked Sara to share some of her day-to-day Mac experiences at Warner Bros. Records, the workflow for her personal projects and in the greater entertainment industry.

Travis Vocino for The Apple Blog: Hello there Sara. We’ve been friends forever. So naturally, I know what you do because we probably have a constant iChat window open at all times. For the other people, though, can you tell us a bit about what you do over at WBR? What kind of environment is it as far as the pace of technology?

Sara Robertson for Warner Bros. Records: I’m currently managing the web production of our artist sites, most of which are on the Drupal platform. We have around 90 active sites, and probably 20 more currently in active development. It’s an extremely fast paced world, with fluid and flexible technology being the cornerstone of our ability to get anything done. Ours is the only major record label with a dedicated tech department, and our whole department runs Apple technology. In addition to WBR, I work full time on my pet project Melodramatic.com, and participate in any number of contract and freelance Internet projects.

TV: I’m always surprised when I hear about the lack of true technology departments in larger companies. It’s definitely the case though, and I don’t think a lot of people realize just how true that is.

So, what’s your current setup and what was your first move into the wonderful world of using Apple hardware full time?

SR: I run a Macbook Pro, upgraded from my Powerbook (and first Mac machine) about a year ago. I have a 23 inch Apple monitor so I run a dual-screen setup at work. I switched to Mac in 2005 when I went to work for an entertainment industry dotcom, and they were an all-Mac shop. The other developers teased me for my attachment to Windows, and I was pretty much peer pressured into switching.

Making the switch was difficult, but made easier by the “Switch 101″ documentation that Apple provides to converted ex-Windows users. It provides tutorials and walkthrus on how to convert your old Workflow to the new one, and it made my transition so much easier.

The argument that convinced me to make the switch to Mac, was the “Unix subsystem” included with Mac OSX. To an active web developer, that means a custom compiled Apache, PHP, database, and everything else you could run on a real server, right here on my primary machine! An environment I could only dream of on a Windows platform. Of course I started by custom compiling my own software, but then found that there is plenty of support for Mac software already bundled together to run perfectly.

In addition to my Macbook and my Powerbook, I’ve got an iPhone and iPod (with NikePlus!), Airport Express, and we just setup a new AppleTV at work that I’m really looking forward to playing with. As Travis once told me, “Life is so much easier once you’re 100% Apple technology.”

TV: Honestly, you wouldn’t generally associated the Switch 101 tutorials as something that would be used by higher-end developers like yourself. That’s really not the case though and they should probably be a tool to put in the arsenal when trying to convert some diehard PC users.

What about inside the MacBook Pro? What are your daily application that you live with and facilitate a smooth workflow for your professional and personal projects? Is there anything you just couldn’t live without?

SR: Apps I keep open all day long: MAMP Pro, svnX, BBEdit, Safari & Firefox, a billion Terminal windows, Skype, Transmit, Entourage, Adium. Sometimes I pop open my VMWare to do some Internet Explorer testing.

MAMP Pro is the greatest thing of my web developer life. It quickly replaced my attachment to Apache, and enables me to run hundreds of virtual hosts locally, all pointing at different codebases. I couldn’t live without my MAMP Pro, and I highly recommend the Pro version over the free one because of the amazing virtual host support that it includes. SVN is also a pleasure to work with on a Mac system. I had to upgrade the default version that ships with the OS, and svnX the GUI interface is lacking in some functionality, but thankfully full svn command line functionality is available because of the unix subsystem.

It took me quite a while to decide on the core applications that I liked the most, and I experimented with many of them before settling on what I run. Some of the apps are lacking, I always have to boot out of Adium and into iChat for screensharing and video conf support, I always have to go back to the command line for additional SVN functionality, and I occasionally have to manually edit conf files for my MAMP Pro, but I am happy to do those things since the tradeoff to working on Windows was infinitely more painful.

TV: I would say your setup is probably mirrored by a lot of developers, including myself (Except I use Textmate, couldn’t get into BBEdit).

What about the enterprise level though — what’s the landscape like at WBR? Do you find it difficult to “interface” with the PC scourge?

SR: WBR is a Windows company, our mail is run on Exchange servers, our security and authentication is managed through Windows NT. We had to fight the good fight to convince them to support our Mac preference, but in general companies are okay with letting developers have whatever technology they require in order to get their jobs done. The biggest issue we faced was the requirement that we all convert to using Entourage for our mail so that we could interface with the Exchange servers. And I still can’t figure out how to get my Exchange mail to work on my iPhone, and I still hate Entourage. Interestingly, even though Windows is the company wide standard, we still fill our lobby with iMacs and pretty Mac monitors. I think it’s just more stylish and impressive than a bunch of Windows boxes to greet our guests.

TV: Have you noticed most companies in the entertainment industry are pretty much Apple on the front (more for a certain associated panache) even though they have lingering Windows-based infrastructure in the back?

SR: I’ve worked at a few different entertainment companies in Hollywood, and what I’ve noticed is that artists and developers agree that Mac technology is the best for what we do, and it’s the “in between” people who are still stuck on Windows… HR, Accounting, Front Desk, and other jobs that don’t require heavy use of technology are perfectly happy to run on Windows, and can’t imagine the benefits of a Mac. People in the film industry would laugh at the idea of editing on a Windows box.

I recently had the pleasure of participating in an independent feature film titled “Speakeasy” (pictured: right), and the director was a very un-tech-savvy individual, but he knew his way around his Macbook, Final Cut Pro, and raved about the ease of connecting video peripherals to Apple technology. I really love that idea, that the interface is so easy to use that people with no technical skills are comfortable in it, but the underlying software is so enterprise-level that seriously technical people are also comfortable working in it. Of course, my dad still threatened to disown me when I made the switch, but we’re working out our differences. I think I just need to send him his very own Macbook and he’ll finally accept my life choices.

TV: What about the personal passion projects of Sara? A lot of times we sort of adopt the technology and apps of the more corporate world in order to mesh well with their workflow. Is your development workflow the same for your more personal projects, like Melodramatic.com, as it is for Warner Bros. Records? For example, using SVN or project collaboration, etc.

SR: My implementation of MAMP Pro, svnX, Transmit, and Terminal, has made it extremely simple for me to switch development from WBR to Melodramatic.com to whatever else I’m working on, without feeling too disjointed. Even though Melo runs an entirely different code architecture and database, developing for it feels exactly the same as developing for WBR projects.

I think that’s what I enjoy the most, the elegant and flexible suite of developer applications provide a unified interface to whatever projects I’m working on, whether they’re in PHP, HTML, SQL, Python, Ruby, it all feels the same, and so there is no down time when switching from one project to the next. And being able to fluidly switch what I’m working on is a huge requirement when managing 90+ sites.

TV: I couldn’t agree more. Once you can get your tech workflow to sing and you do that early round of testing every little Mac app out there, it really makes everything just a tiny bit more enjoyable to work on.

Well Sara, it’s always a pleasure. Thanks for providing us with a little window into you and your technology environment. Of course, I’m sure the Mac community will rest a little easier tonight knowing some of their favorite recording artists are safe in your capable hands.

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