My digital life: David Appel

What is your favourite website?

Professionally, I use eatyourCAD.com (right), which has a good slant on CAD management. Personally, I tend not to use websites other than friends’ blog sites. For instance, Kit Stormont has been writing a very amusing blog on kitstormont.info about the five houses he has moved around over summer and the various families living there.

What are you currently tracking on line?

I’ve been messing about with the Batcar since it went on sale at eBay for £100,000.

It’s a brand new, fully working Batmobile. We also use eBay in the office for secondhand IT equipment.

What’s in your digital holster?

We have recently moved everyone in the office on to iPhones, and these are great for crossing between office and personal use. The iPhone also has an application store, which gives live updates of train arrivals and departures and can access eight different versions of the Bible.

What social networking do you do through the internet?

I use Orkut on Google (orkut.com), which is much bigger than Facebook in Asia, and I have a lot of friends in India.

What’s the most recent book you have bought online?

I went to India last year, so I bought City of Joy, an old book from the seventies by Dominique Lapierre. It’s incredibly evocative of slum life in Kolkata.

Which TV programme have you downloaded recently?

I’m still watching the live Olympics broadcasts I downloaded in August.

Which sounds do you like playing on iTune?

Mostly Radiohead – the Kid A album – and Michel Thomas, who has an enjoyable style of teaching French to foreigners.

What digital games do you play?

CubeRunner, an iPhone game where you have to fly and avoid objects, Sudoku and iGolf, where you use the iPhone just like a golf club.

What advice do you give architects about using IT?

Architects often get bogged down in the use of IT rather than seeing it as just another design tool. So I encourage them to behave like children – just jump in and explore.