Violet BlueInterview
Writer, speaker, sex educator
Adapted from Violet Blue's interview on Uses This, published 13 July 2009. 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
I lovingly mistreat my black MacBook 13" (4G, also w/mini-dvi to VGA).
I mainly use my iPod Nano customized with Gelaskins "Bunny Blossoms" print, and take it on the bus with my matching pink Skullcandy headphones.
Before those, I played with a Xacti HD waterproof (on loan from Xacti), I went through a couple of versions of the Sony Cybershot T series (they're durable point and shoots).
My current phones are a Virgin Helio Ocean that I've had for years (it's one of two I own: the second one I use for parts).
If someone gave me a new iPhone -- now that the hardware has caught up to my needs with 3G and video -- I'd actually use an iPhone now (I wasn't interested before), especially because I want to make media with apps my friends have been writing and releasing.
I like to play with Eye-Fi: in fact, I bought two cat-cam kits that I'm going to use to create a camera to mount on my cat's collar and run the Eye-Fi card from the camera into his own stream so when he gets into range of my home Wi-Fi, he'll auto-upload his images to his Flickr stream.
Communication
Productivity
That said, I do most of my writing in MS Word because most mainstream media outlets and my publishers all use Word, plus it's got features that allow me to see who did what to my docs even if they think I can't see changes have been made; also the Track Changes function is essential when I'm arguing a point with an editor.
Otherwise I'd use Google Docs exclusively.
I use Google Sheets to track authors in anthologies, to share work projects with others or teams, and I use Google Docs when I do onstage presentations so I never need to worry about having the right hardware -- all I need to give a talk is to show up (and use their Internet connection and projector).
I use Adobe Acrobat to create my ebooks and files for Kindle publishing.
Browser
My primary work is done through Firefox and I tend to beta whatever they're working on; offline I piecemeal corporate crap for persnickety reasons.
Coding & Development
TextEdit is handy for stripping down text between applications, making txt files for .pdb (Palm OS) ebooks, and making quick notes.
Big files get moved a la Cyberduck.
Design
Like image tools, they're either too simple for my most basic needs or I feel like I'm hunting butterflies with a shotgun (my analogy for my use of Photoshop).
Media
iMovie is serviceable for video editing; I have never been happy with any video editor.
I use iPhoto for general use of my own photos, but I also use Photoshop for more precise work like cropping and compression of other people's images.
Other
I only use YouTube for junk videos I don't care about.
Because I spend most of my days and nights writing, I do not use communication that interrupts me -- I do not use IM, I don't answer my phone (in fact, my outgoing message says not to bother leaving me a voicemail but to text or email me to reach me the fastest), and I purposely don't use things like Growl.