Roly AllenInterview
Writer
Adapted from Roly Allen's interview on Uses This, published 27 September 2025. 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
The first was a colleague's 2010 iMac which I stole from my employer when they upgraded in 2015.
I write with the Uniball Eye Micro UB-150 gel pen, mostly in black but with occasional other colours for contrast or beauty when making timelines, spidergrams, diagrams, or flowcharts.
My lovely employers supply me with a 16-inch MacBook Pro.
It's overpowered for my needs, the screen has various shadows where I seem to have applied intolerable pressure on the closed case in my backpack, and I much prefer MacBook Airs.
I installed Freedom a couple of years ago to break a terrible Facebook / Twitter-checking habit.
Productivity
I experimented with Zotero for references and organising my research but didn't get on with it, possibly because no-one showed me how to use it properly.
Coding & Development
Design
Other
When it becomes too old for the current macOS, I'll install Linux again and all being well this will be my last computer purchase as well as my first.