Mike FogusInterview
Software developer, author
Adapted from Mike Fogus's interview on Uses This, published 28 February 2013. 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
For a long time I had multiple home computers, a cell-phone and separate PDA, a work computer, a conference computer (the wonderful Dell Mini-9), a couple iPods and various portable drives.
Likewise, my wife got me an iPad with Retina display that has eliminated the need for a separate conference laptop and my iPods, and takes over the remaining PDA-like tasks that the iPhone doesn't already cover.
I also have a Kindle DX, but have find myself using it less and less now that I have the iPad.
My main computer is a fairly old MacBook Pro 17".
I like the built-in keyboard very much, but whenever I have the chance I plug in my IBM model M keyboard and type with it.
Can you imagine doing that with a throw-away Dell keyboard or one of those barely-usable Apple wireless keyboards?
Almost as old as my Model M is my Microsoft Intellimouse, the best mouse that I've ever owned.
When I'm at my desk I usually write in the National notebook using a simple Pilot G2 Pro pen with a modified Mont Blanc Rollerball ink cartridge.
For when I'm on the go I like to carry around a pocket notebook like the Moleskine Cahier and a Zebra F-301 pen with the finest point that they sell.
Communication
I think the main reason is that on a glance org-mode seems incredibly complex, but in reality the stock text markup is not much more complicated than Markdown.
For the occasions when I need to work on a presentation, an Office-like document or send an email I use Google Apps.
Productivity
I almost never read a blog post at the site of publication but instead use Instapaper to archive it and then occasionally download a .mobi file to read blog posts on my Kindle or iPad.
Browser
When I'm not in Emacs I'm usually in the Chrome browser.
Notes
For a long time I used Circus Ponies Notebook to keep notes transferred from notebooks (I like to digitize some of the notes I think I'll need to reference later).
Coding & Development
When I'm at the computer I'm usually working inside of Emacs.
I store everything in the "cloud" between Dropbox for my digital notes and Git via Github.
Storage
Other
I've only recently discovered the power of Wolfram Alpha and am looking for a way to integrate it into my work-flow.
I read a lot of books, papers and other material from blog posts to dead articles on the Wayback Machine to obsolete computing manuals archived by the Software Preservation Group.