#catchwind

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#WindyCity Tribunal: It's easier for people to #CatchWind of #GoodNews in #Chicago! #STEELYourMind #InkWellSpoken #ChicagoTribune #Elgin

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photo credit: Anna Jones

Brian Hemesath

CEO, Catchwind

Co-Founder, VolunteerLocal

CTO, Tikly

Minority shareholder, NotifyWorks

Who are you, and what do you do?

I'm Brian Hemesath, a self-taught developer who enjoys sales and business development. Can't really say if I like any one thing more than the other. I love being busy and having more on my plate than I should. I've been called a serial entrepreneur, but I'd call myself more of an accidental entrepreneur. I see opportunities and leverage them to build cool stuff and bring people together.

What hardware are you using?

I'm overdue for new hardware. I have a 5 year old Dell XPS at home with 2x 23" monitors. My buddy was the CEO of BFG, so I got a kick-ass deal on 2 8800 GTS graphics cards, which I can run in SLI mode to play games when I procrastinate. At the office I'm on a 4 year old Dell Vostro laptop, running Windows Vista. I believe I am the only person who actually liked Vista. I have a Lenovo U400 all picked out as soon as I can convince myself I need the upgrade. I bought a Galaxy Tab 10.1 the day they came out and absolutely love it. I have a rooted Samsung Conquer on Sprint.

And what software?

I'm pretty old school about my software. I hand code in a program called EditPad Pro, which is Notepad on steriods. I use 3D-FTP for file transfers, but recently tried FileZilla. I do a lot of command line stuff for both the OS and database, so AbsoluteTelnet is an important part of my day. I don't do much with graphics, but I use a 13-year old version of Paint Shop Pro for basic slicing and editing. It works great, but I do break out Photoshop for more serious stuff. This isn't software, but Stack Overflow is my go-to for JQuery questions. I develop on the LAMP stack.

What would be your dream setup?

It is hard to call this a "dream" setup, but I suppose that Lenovo U400 with a device to support dual monitors. We're talking less than $1K, here, so I realize I'm dreaming pretty small. If I had money to burn, I'd like to have a tablet that ran on 3G/4G vs. just WiFi. I like to keep things simple.