The Joomla! Setup is a series of interviews with developers in the Joomla! community, talking about the tools they use to get the job done, inspired by the setup. Can you tell who it is?

Peter van Westen: Not A Number

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Peter van Westen — sole developer of NoNumber! (www.nonumber.nl). I’m 31 years old, am married to Daniëlle and have a 3 year old daughter Marissa. I live in a modest apartment in Wormer, a town in The Netherlands (just above Amsterdam).

I most enjoy working on my Joomla! extensions I offer on my websites (www.nonumber.nl). A lot of them are listed in the top 100 on the JED (Joomla! Extension Directory) and as a result in June I was given an award for “Outstanding Personal Contribution” at the JandBeyond 2010 J!oscars.

Unfortunately, this activity takes up more of my time than is good for me, so it’s a constant struggle to not get to lost in it and reserve some time for my social life, but also for billable projects. Unfortunately I haven’t developed an extension that pays my rent and provides for my family yet.

Stuff I enjoy besides programming is listening to and playing music, spending time with my daughter and doing nothing. The kind of nothing only men can do: actually think of nothing.

My days usually look like this: wake up, eat breakfast, do computer stuff, eat when my wife pulls me away from the computer, do more computer stuff, eat again, watch telly or something with my daughter, do a little more computer stuff and finally go to sleep. Yeah, very adventurous!

The weekends are a bit more relaxed. Usually time to meet people in real life. Sunday morning is church time (time to get my bass guitar out every other week).

What hardware are you using?

I do all my work on an Asus K72J laptop. I don’t use much other hardware apart from the usual (printer, bunch of external hard drives for backups, etc).

And what software?

Windows 7 setup with the following programs I use a lot:

• ProgrammingWriting code: NetBeans, NotePad++, Winmerge
• FTP: Filezilla
• Local Server: Xampp
• Design: Adobe stuff, IrfanViewBrowsers: Firefox (with Firebug, Web Developer Toolbar, AutoFill Forms, Screengrab, IE Tab Plus), The others browsers for testing
• Backup/syncing: SyncBack, Syncplicity, Dropbox
• Time Management: Office Time
• Social Media: Digsby, Skype
• Music: foobar2000

What would be your dream setup?

I don’t think it would be very different to what I have now. I am pretty used to the way I work and happy with it. There are some repetitive tasks I’d like automated. And of course, speed of hardware is never high enough.

The only thing I would really like is a computer that can float above my bed and that can read my mind so I don’t have to type or use the mouse. Or better yet, have the screen projected on the inside of my eye lids. But I haven’t got the funds to buy this yet.