Spicy Web Designer Interview with Guilherme Zühlke O´Connor (Part 2)

In part one of my interview with Guilherme Zühlke O´Connor I talked to him about his experiences in web design, his experiences in architecture before he started into computer science and his involvement in the “Designers that Blog” site. Here is a link back to the original article if you are curious about “Gui” (that’s the nickname he goes by) and here is part 2 of my interview with him.

1. How has your move been to London?

London is one of the most interesting cities I’ve ever been to, if not the most interesting. It is not top in the list as the most beautiful one, although is certainly on the list, but is just its urban character that is so charming. It also helps that London is one of the best places to be if you are a web type, but the choice has been mostly personal.

2. What is your computer setup like for the web development work that you currently do and what programs do you use day in and out?

At home, I have a dual 20″ widescreen iMac with MacOSX leopard and at Work a MacBook Pro with an external 24″ monitor. Most of the programs I use are free. Software I use includes Textwrangler or Textmate for coding, Cyberduck for FTP and a myriad of support applications like Quicksilver to enhance desktop usability, etc. Also, there is the Adobe Suite, notably Photoshop and Illustrator and VMware fusion.

3. I see that you design for WordPress and that you’ve built a few plug-ins. How did you first start using WordPress? And do you design add-on features for other CMS, ecommerce or other software platforms?

Back when I started my blog I wasn’t working with web development, I was working at Sony Ericsson Prototype lab and I wanted a blog as a hobby and a web-related pet project, the original niche was cooking. It started on blogger and, because of my technical nature, the platform soon became shorter and WordPress seemed the best choice at the moment. I was immediately hooked by its adaptability and, although it may have its defects, developing for it is easy and fun, that’s why there are so many people making extensions for it, just like me.

I have developed (and I do on a daily basis) for several platforms, some open and some proprietary, among the open platforms, I have already worked with Zope and Django, but only ad hoc solutions, no downloadable goodies. I’d be interested in developing something on Django in the future, though; it is an amazing platform and has a fantastic template system.