#kerbertech

photo credit: Eric Rowley/Juice

Jake Kerber

CEO, Locusic

President, KerberTech

Who are you, and what do you do?

I'm Jake and I'm the founder and CEO of Locusic, a local music streaming service. Our purpose is to give free exposure to local bands, encourage attendance at live shows, and support local businesses. You open the app, pick a genre, it detects your location, and music plays from the local scene.

I'm also the president of KerberTech, a custom software development company - focused on B2B. I design and build web-based (and other) applications to solve complex problems.

I live in Ankeny with my wife and our twin baby girl and boy.

What hardware are you using?

For most tech work, I use an HP Pavilion dv7 laptop with a huge screen.

When working at a client's site, I use whatever hardware they have for me to use.

I have a Mac Pro that I got a couple years back. It was pretty high-end at the time (dual quad core Xeons if I remember right). I was going to use it for a lot of audio and video production, but that never really happened. Now I just use it as a test machine and to play movies during late night coding sessions.

For a mobile phone, I'm using my original Motorola Droid. I'll probably upgrade soon.

For mobile entertainment, I use a Zune. I also have an iPod touch, but I mainly just use that for testing.

I also use a ton of paper (sorry trees). I take a bunch of notes and do a lot of thinking and design on paper. I'll use about any non-spiral 8.5x11 notebook that's available. I think I've filled up about 6 while working on Locusic so far. I use mechanical pencils. I can't stand using pens. Lately I really like the Pentel Forte .5 mm - they're cheap so I can keep several at my desk at home and a few in my Targus laptop bag that I take with me everywhere.

And what software?

I use Google apps pretty heavily - specifically gmail.

Chrome is my browser of choice.

I use an old version of Photoshop for image editing.

I mainly develop with the Microsoft stack, so when writing code, my Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. I use SQL Server Management Studio for database work.

I use the standard MS Office suite for docs and spreadsheets. For shared documents that other members of my team are collaborating on I use Google docs.

What would be your dream setup?

My dream setup would be more about people than devices. I'd love a PA that could file all my paperwork and keep my office de-cluttered. And I'd love more smart people who are passionate about local music (and tech) to join the Locusic team.

For tech, I guess in a dream world, I'd like everything to be always on, always connected, with super fast access, and no concerns about privacy or malware.

Also, I wish the iTunes interface was more like the old Musicmatch. I don't like the UI of iTunes so I don't use it. And I know I'm missing out on all kinds of inter-connected-ness because of it. I also wish mainstream portable entertainment devices would just let you drag/drop files to them just like any other external hard drive - like I used to do with my ancient Archos Jukebox - circa 2001. Geez, I sound like a grumpy old man! "I don't like things now compared to the way they used to be!" So my dream setup would perhaps include more open standards and platforms.