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So, here we all are in lockdown and, wherever possible, working from home.
The Guild has always been 100% capable of being run remotely, so this hasn’t been a major issue for us.
As it happens, I had already started an article when I was on holiday last year. An opening couple of paragraphs were:
I get bored quickly whilst on holiday and we’re currently in 40+ degrees heat so walking too far to explore is too much energy for a holiday. So, my wife and I are spending much time on the terrace of the swim up pool which is equally awesome!
In a determination to only do essential work, it’s been on my mind for a while to write a totally different article that has nothing to do with letting or property.
Little did I know back then that the article I started, but never got time to finish, would be potentially useful and perhaps more interesting than it otherwise would have been!
This article is all about our home and office setup (which is all at home currently) and the hardware alongside the apps we use to assist in running the Guild and automate tasks.
How perfect for us to brush off the dust, update it a little and get it onto the website.
With all that in mind, here is the completed article. hopefully, some might find it useful for working at home.
As well as loving our job of helping other landlords and agents with their rental property-related needs, I have an absolute love for all things technology, including all things Apple.
In my spare time I read a number of Apple and technology news feeds so as not to be always reading about new proposals and legislation affecting the private rented sector.
Over the years, here at the Guild, we’ve developed some cool ways to be super productive, and during this lockdown period, the Guild is being run entirely from home.
For this article, I’ve been inspired by various posts like Macstories (we subscribe to their club membership) and The Sweet Setup, where people explain their setup of computers, accessories and apps they use day to day.
When very young, I had a Commodore 64 computer which had 64k of RAM (yes, that’s “k”, not megabytes!), and it was brilliant. I even dabbled in coding very primitive games in the BASIC language but looking back; they were pretty rubbish even for the standards of the day! No matter, it was great listening to the modem dialling up to CompuServe and waiting about an hour and a half for Attack of The Mutant Camels to load on the tape machine.
Then, it was time to move onto a PC which I built myself with friends in those days. We were paying crazy money for more memory (about £25 per meg, which was a LOT of money back then).
After time and when running our first letting agency and getting involved with parent's property, it was time to nip down to PC World (pre-Curry's) and buy a machine out of the box.
A week later, the machine was totally out of date, though! This move to a desktop PC meant the Joy (sarcastic) of Windows. Oh my gosh, it was awful at first. All the software (now called apps) just kept getting bigger and bigger, requiring more storage and memory, and you just couldn’t keep up.
Windows was so unstable and required constant rebooting, ages to load up, and I don’t know how many hours I spent in the command line tool trying to fix things. The main problem with windows (and I think this is still true) is that every action needs some kind of confirmation.
Me: “Print page”, Computer: “are you sure” me: “yes”, Computer “are you really sure?”, Me: “yes, just print the b@&!dy page already”.
Windows XP was fairly stable and almost tolerable (my friend still runs this on one of his work machines), but it still crashed and needed constant rebooting.
After about 2 years, the machine had got so clogged with rubbish that it either needed reformatting or upgrading to a new machine.
The cycle of computers felt endless. One day, when it crashed again and was slow to boot up, we decided to try an iMac.
This would be about 10 - 12 years ago. We've never looked back. I cannot stress how amazing these machines are. Even back then, it was fast - really fast.
Everything just works, and there is no unnecessary confirmation prompts to do things. The networking is instant with no setting up - still a massive problem for windows machines from what I hear. All brands of Mac (laptop or desktop) just work out of the box.
There's no need to buy new updates to the core, they're all free, and all business apps you need are built right in, such as word processing, presentation and spreadsheets. And, yes, it's all Microsoft Office compatible (and further, yes, Office 365 is available on Mac and iOS).
Since that first Mac, we've only had to buy one more about 4 years ago, which is still running as fast as the day it was bought. I upgraded to an SSD (solid state drive), one of the best decisions made, and also maxed out the memory, which you can do yourself without breaking the machine open.
I will accept they are much more costly, but we can say with certainty that over 10 years, it will actually work out cheaper.
After a brief try of a blackberry phone, we've had an iPhone since the very early days. Once copy and paste were added, which was fairly soon after launch, that's when I purchased, and as the Mac, I have never looked back.
The simplicity of synchronising with Mac is crazy simple (in that you do nothing, and it just works). Similarly, we've had an iPad since the early days, which I think has only become useable as a computer with the introduction of iOS 11. T
There were massive changes in iOS 13, and now, it could replace a laptop if you wanted it to after iOS 13.4, which has trackpad/mouse support.
At the time of writing, I have the following hardware setup:
Alongside the iMac, I have a magic keyboard and Logitech mouse. The Magic Mouse was annoying because it couldn't be used whilst charging, and the Logitech has a better scroll wheel. Not sure if the newer Magic Mouse is different.
There's a 1TB SSD attached via USB to the iMac for backups and a hard backup of all photos (which are in iCloud).
We could almost run the Guild entirely off an iPad, but the iMac gives a sense of doing actual work sitting at a proper desk with a big screen.
It's generally used all normal working hours (or longer if working on something big).
As mentioned above, we have a hard on-site backup to a 1TB SSD, but everything is backed up to Dropbox and iCloud. It’s effectively a triple backup system.
Some form of regular off-site backup is highly recommended. Very useful, especially if you store all your tenancy agreements and other important documents electronically.
The iPad Pro is amazing. Slick and light but super powerful. However, I do have some regrets: I actually bought this for my wife, Rachel, the Christmas before, but she's not keen on iPads generally. Long nails don't help with the screen, and I prefer a keyboard and mouse. Therefore Rachel continues to use the MacBook Pro.
I've replaced my old iPad with this 2018 pro version (there is now a 2020 version). Because it was bought for Rachel initially, it's not fully specked out. It was only going to be needed for internet browsing, so no storage or anything flashy was needed.
I wish I'd just bought the biggest one because that also has an increased processor, which I would have benefited from. Also, due to the number of apps I continually install, more storage would have been handy (although still lots free at the moment).
Looking at the latest 2020 version of the iPad Pro, there doesn’t look to be a huge difference other than the camera (which I don’t use on the iPad), so I might wait another year before upgrading.
Accompanying the iPad is the Brydge keyboard which is a great keyboard. It makes it feel like a MacBook Pro. I even find myself trying to find the trackpad! The keyboard is much better than the Apple Smart Folio, in my opinion.
The only downside is that it adds some serious weight to the iPad, but I don't take it out much, so that doesn't matter. Now that there’s full mouse and trackpad support since the iOS 13.4 release, we will get the new Magic Keyboard when it becomes available in May 2020 (update: this has been pre-ordered and arrives sometime before 19 May).
I also have the latest Apple Pencil for the new iPad Pro. This is much improved, being able to charge magnetically on the iPad. I use the “double tap” function to change between eraser and pen when writing or sketching website layouts which are just fantastic.
The iPhone Pro has a clear case which has saved the screen many times! I don't bother with a screen protector anymore because they never seem to go on for me and, after time, start peeling or chipping on edges.
I've recently purchased the new AirPods Pro, used when walking Toby, our dog, travelling to meetings (when they start up again) and whilst on holiday. The noise cancellation is fantastic.
When choosing apps, we try and ensure they are available on all devices, including the Mac. This isn't always possible or needed, but I like consistency throughout. This is also why we can so easily run the Guild from an iPad and from home - because the apps are consistent and data synchronised.
I'm always trying new apps and have far too many installed, although right now fairly settled with the main ones.
The main apps we use are:
Above, we’ve talked about writing in “Markdown” many times. In our view, this very simple language is so simple yet productive that it should be taught in schools. The problem with Word processors such as Word is that there are so many distractions when you're writing. The menus seem endless, and what do they all do? You can be writing, and then you start fiddling with the heading size and font. Every time you want to make something bold, your hands are removed from the keyboard, onto the mouse, highlight the text, find the icon and click “bold”. With Markdown, none of this is an issue because your hands never leave the keyboard. Almost all editors that support Markdown are distraction-free, meaning there are no menus, icons, or anything else. Many people love applications like Word, and that’s great; no need to change what you know and do. This is just an alternative way to get writing done. When Markdown is used with a compatible editor, all the formatting and adding clickable links can be done without leaving the keyboard. In reality, we only use a few very basic elements of Markdown: A “hashtag” and space at the beginning of a line will create the same as a heading in word. If I type “# Heading 1,” that becomes:
The number of hashtags determines the heading number (as found in Word, for example). So, if I type “#### Heading 4”, that will become a heading number 4:
Italics are achieved by simply adding a star symbol before and after so if I type “this is italics” that becomes this is italics. Bold is two stars “this is bold” becomes this is bold The other one we use lots is bullet points which can be achieved by typing the star symbol and space (you can also use minus sign and space):
To add a clickable link inside a document, surround the text to display with square brackets and then the URL in normal brackets like this “my website” will become: my website And, that’s it.
We rarely use the other more complex options, such as adding images or tables. Just the basics above are sufficient to write a normal article for the website.
Most, if not all editors will export as a Word document or HTML for use on a website. Apps like Drafts mentioned earlier allow you to quickly write replies to an email (which might need to contain links to website pages) and with one click, convert the Markdown into Rich Text which when pasted into the reply part of the email client, will display properly. It’s all very clever, and this, combined with all the automation we have set up, allows us to be much more productive than we would otherwise be.
As most know, in addition to running the Guild, we are landlords too. We use all the same apps listed above for running the rental business. For example, Omnifocus will be used for project management a refurbishment, and Live Agent will be used for communicating.
When using each app, we generally have different folders integrated to distinguish between the different businesses. The primary app we use for managing the rental properties though is an app we’ve developed ourselves called Tenancy Manager. Years ago, a version of this was provided to Guild subscribers, but keeping it up to date became difficult. However, this new version is in the cloud, so much easier to keep updated. We have also employed dedicated IT to develop and support the app.
We hope this article has been interesting and useful. Apologies for it being so lengthy! Hopefully, you might find at least one app that might be of interest and make your day-to-day work just that little bit easier. Stay at home and stay safe! Thank you, NHS.