rcmnd

Matt Might

Computer science professor and author of The Illustrated Guide to a Ph.D.

19 things

Kensington remoteHardware

loved

You can pry my Kensington remote from my cold, dead, ergonomic grip.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

OmniGraphSketcherSoftware

loved

For charts (like this one), OmniGraphSketcher for OS X is a joy to use.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

GraphVizSoftware

loved

For rendering graphs based on data, GraphViz creates beautiful images.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

OmnigraffleSoftware The Omni Group

loved

For graphs constructed by hand, OmniGraffle is perfect.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

FirebugSoftware

loved

For debugging web sites, I love firebug.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

Western Digital ElementsHardware

liked

Every computer has a large dedicated external hard drive for backups. Currently, I'm partial to the Western Digital Elements series.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

ShiftItSoftware

liked

My only regret in switching from Linux to OS X is giving up the raw efficiency of tiling window managers like ion. ShiftIt makes up some of the difference.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

Marcy Recumbent Mag CycleOther

liked

I can't afford time off work to exercise, so I attached a Table Mate II couch desk to a Marcy Recumbent Mag Cycle, and moved it next to the desk in my home office. Honestly, I'm more productive on the bike than off.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

KeynoteSoftware Apple

recommended

It is worth investing the time to master Keynote animations and transitions, so that style and substance in your talks reinforce one another.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

Linksys E2500Hardware

uses

I use a Linksys E2500 Dual-Band router, with SSH and VNC port-forwarded to allow remote access to the home network.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

LinodeService

uses

A 512 MB RAM, 36 GB linode powers might.net and my personal cloud.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

MacVimSoftware

uses

To get a sense of what vim was like, I switched last year (MacVim). I haven't switched back, but I've customized vim to accept all of the emacs keybindings in insertion mode.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

LeechBlockSoftware

uses

I use LeechBlock on Firefox and StayFocusd on Chrome to permanently block all timewasting sites.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

StayfocusdSoftware

uses

I use LeechBlock on Firefox and StayFocusd on Chrome to permanently block all timewasting sites.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

OmniFocusSoftware The Omni Group

uses

For task management, I use OmniFocus on my MacBook Air, my iPhone and my iPad. The shared database lives on my linode and syncs over WebDAV.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

EvernoteSoftware Evernote

uses

My hand-rolled personal note-taking wiki on my linode has been replaced by Evernote on my MacBook Air, iPhone and iPad.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

HyperJuiceHardware

uses

When I travel, I always carry a portable power strip for airports and a HyperShop HyperJuice external battery for long plane flights.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

citeulikeSoftware

uses

For creating technical and scientific documents, I use exclusively LaTeX, and manage all of my citations with citeulike exporting to BibTeX.

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

BeamerSoftware

disliked

I used to use LaTeX plus beamer, but this setup makes the right things hard (capturing and conveying the essence of an idea visually) and the wrong things easy (flagellating the audience with unparseable mathematics).

The Setup (usesthis.com) interview: a setup built to make the right things easy and the wrong things hard.

2012-01-06·usesthis.com ↗

Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.

The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.

A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.

The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.

What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:

Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.