Flourish KlinkInterview
Story-teller, lecturer, IF writer
Adapted from Flourish Klink's interview on Uses This, published 18 June 2012. The kit is drawn from their answers and each reason is an excerpt, lightly edited. Shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full interview ↗
Is this you? Claim this kit →Hardware
My primary computer is a MacBook Pro from about a year ago - a 15-inch Intel core i7.
Performance Mouse MX+ 9 others
I also use a Logitech Performance Mouse MX when I'm at my desk.
It backs up to a 750 GB Seagate Freeagent GoFlex external hard drive.
For portability, I also use a white Acer Aspire One ZG5 as a netbook (I would rather have had Linux on it, but it was a gift); it has an extended capacity battery which makes it much longer-running.
I carry my iPhone 3G with me at all times - it's the first 3G model, so it's pretty old by now.
I absolutely could not live without my Discovery 975 Plantronics Bluetooth headset - whenever I'm on the phone, it's in my ear, and I have two charging cases for it so I can go 15 hours of constant use without having to plug anything into a wall.
(It's the same model as Nick Fury uses in the Avengers, by the way.) I use ancient foldable Skullcandy headphones or the regular Apple ones - I'm no audiophile - and when I work out I have a little gold 2gb iPod shuffle.
Until recently I was a FitBit devotee - I ran mine through the wash recently and haven't gotten a new one yet, but they really help me remember to take breaks and stand up instead of working at my desk all day.
I do a lot of my reading on a Kindle Keyboard (mine doesn't have 3G).
I also rely on a Nooka Zub Zot watch to tell the time most days, especially when I'm teaching and don't want to pull out my phone to look at the time.
Communication
I am slowly trying to wean myself off Google, so I always have Mail open.
Skype is almost always open so that I can speak with my colleagues in California and Brazil - we're working on getting a FlourishCam installed so that I'm virtually in the LA office at all times.
Productivity
I use NewsFire as an RSS feed reader.
I also use Keynote very frequently - at first, I hated making decks, but now I see how useful they can be for communicating things best shown graphically.
Mostly if I need to use a spreadsheet it has to be shared with other people (ex: conference budgets) so then I just swallow my Google-grudge and use Google Docs.
Browser
Notes
I also use Final Draft to read and work on scripts - it's the industry standard.
Coding & Development
I have a goal of running my own mail server sometime soon and doing things through the Terminal, but I'm not there yet, so it's sort of hobbling along.
For long-format writing, I usually use Scrivener, which is a complete godsend - seriously, if you are a fiction writer and you're not using Scrivener, what's wrong with you?
If I'm coding something I use TextWrangler.
Media
Preview is good enough for my PDF viewing and annotating.
I also find myself taking lots of photos in Photo Booth for some unknown reason.
Other
I'm hoping to soon catalog my and my partner's 3k+ books and movies using GCStar.