8 ms·

David Heinemeier Hansson's Setup

74 points by vijaydev 17y ago

anurag 17y ago
In addition to learning about their setup, it's great to put a face to so many interesting online names. Thanks for putting this together waferbaby. Direct link: http://usesthis.com/ http://usesthis.com/
jgrahamc 17y ago
So how about we turn this into a what's your set up thread? Hardware: I'll get started. I have three Macs: a Mac Pro, a MacBook Pro, and a MacBook Air. I also have an iPhone. The MacPro and the Air were bought by my company, the MacBook Pro is my personal machine. I find myself using the MacBook Air a lot. I can take it anywhere with me. When I'm not using it, I'm using the iPhone. If the Air had a SIM card slot I'd probably use it even more. On the MacPro I have a 24" Samsung monitor. All the other machines I use with their native screens. I also have a Kindle. Software: I use emacs for writing and coding. I use a mixture of Firefox and Chrome for most everything else since so much of my computer life is in the cloud. Bits of software I love are: Dropbox, Notifo, Evernote and TweetDeck.
- cperciva 17y ago
  Dell XPS M1530 laptop; FreeBSD 7.3; KDE 3.5.10. Konqueror for websites where it works, Firefox when necessary. Thunderbird for email. Text editing in kwrite unless I'm in the middle of doing something in a Konsole, in which case I'll probably use nano. Backups via tarsnap, of course. On servers, mostly FreeBSD 8.0 (a few boxes are still 7.x), along with djbdns, qmail, ezmlm, apache, stunnel, and tarsnap. On my android phone: Twidroid, ConnectBot, NetCounter.
  - iuguy 17y ago
    Upvoted for XPS M1530 - what an amazing laptop. For work I use an XPS M1530 with Windows 7, VMWare and a collection of images with different OSes for various purposes. Notepad++ for editing, Eclipse + PyDev for development, Ollydbg and Immunity Debugger for vulnerability research, too many tools to list for penetration testing, OpenOffice for documents and spreadsheets, Google Talk, Thunderbird for mail and TSK and Responder for Disk and Memory forensics. We have some servers at work, mostly Mac Mini and Linux (to host VMWare, various images from Beos to Sco Unixware), Solaris Sparc box and an old Vaxstation running VMS. At home I use a 9 year old Vaio SRX-51P/B with a P3 850, 256mb of RAM and Arch Linux. I mostly use Mutt, Chromium, Irssi, centerim, Vim, MC and snownews. At home I use an Ubuntu 8.04 server mostly for media, printing, DNS (was using djbdns but switched to dnsmasq after a rebuild) and backups and a separate Arch Linux desktop as a MythTV Front/Backend.
    - cperciva 17y ago
      XPS M1530 - what an amazing laptop. Actually, I rather dislike the M1530, at least compared with my previous laptop, a D600. The M1530 tends to get very hot.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- twism 17y ago
  My primary hardware is an HP mini. But in all actuality, it's a slicehost ubuntu server running GNU Screen that I can SSH in from any device that can run a descent SSH client, including an iPhone. http://www.twitpic.com/19sc7e http://www.twitpic.com/19sc7e The terminal app on a jailbroken iPhone is remarkably good at inputing complex emacs keyboard shortcuts once you map the gestures right and it becomes second nature. Can't wait to jailbreak the 3G iPad. If that works out exactly like it does on the iPhone it could become my primary hardware.
- pclark 17y ago
  MacBook + 24" Dell Monitor at work. 24" iMac at home. I have an iPhone (for being mobile) and Kindle (for reading), too. And a moleskine squared notepad which I take everywhere. Software: RubyMine, Sequel Pro, Dropbox, Adobe Photoshop & Google Chrome. And GMail.
- GeneralMaximus 17y ago
  Computer 1: 13" plastic MacBook running Snow Leopard. Software: Emacs, Quicksilver, Firefox, MacIrssi, Adium, Terminal and (even though I hate its guts) iTunes. Computer 2: Dell 1520 running Windows 7. I also run Haiku in a VM. Software: Emacs, Launchy, Firefox, XChat, Pidgin, PowerShell and (praise be upon its sweet soul) Winamp. Web applications: GMail and Etherpad. I'm not big on webapps. I think there's a pattern here :)
- stuff4ben 17y ago
  At work, I use a Dell Optiplex 755 running Ubuntu 9.10 with a 22" HannsG and 19" Dell LCD. At home I use a 15" MacBook Pro (1st Gen "lap burner") connected to a 22" Acer 1080p LCD when I'm at my desk. Software-wise, I usually run either Eclipse when I'm at work doing Java development or Intellij Idea 9 when I'm on the Mac at home doing Grails development for side projects. I usually keep an instance of VirtualBox open when I'm at work so I can run Windows XP and Microsoft Outlook since Evolution on Linux is a POS. At home I use Mail since I can check both my work Exchange account and GMail account and it just works. I bought Snow Leopard for just that reason.
- kirubakaran 17y ago
  http://imgur.com/NuKqC.jpg http://imgur.com/NuKqC.jpg T61, [22"]*2, Ubuntu, Emacs, Chrome + Firefox.
  - ciupicri 17y ago
    Are you using D-Sub/VGA or DVI from a docking station?
    - kirubakaran 17y ago
      One monitor is connected to VGA and the other to DVI. I use URandR to control the displays. It is awesome.
- dugmartin 17y ago
  Hardware: Dell Vista box with 24" and 22" monitor and Mac Mini with 22" monitor with single wireless Logitech Wave keyboard/mouse via Synergy. Dell Mini 9 netbook with Ubuntu Remix also hooked to Synergy when its at my desk. [EDIT] Here is an older picture of the setup: http://imgur.com/iAqED.jpg http://imgur.com/iAqED.jpg [/EDIT] Software: use Window's box for dev work - Notepad++ for editing, FF/Chrome for browser, and Mac for communications - Adium for IM (AIM and internal Jabber) and Colloquy for irc (wmassdevs on freenode) and FF for gmail/google apps/co-op/basecamp/etc. If I had more desk space I'd have more monitors. I'm moving soon and may end up either attaching monitor arms to the walls or building a shelf for the second set of monitors.
rmorrison 17y ago
Cool site. If you want a laugh, check out RMS's: http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com
- giu 17y ago
  pg presented his setup, too: http://paul.graham.usesthis.com/ http://paul.graham.usesthis.com/
  - johns 17y ago
    Re-reading that makes me think pg is thrilled about his iPad (which I'm assuming he bought)
    - borism 17y ago
      I bet he isn't thrilled about iPad - can't connect it to HD screen and he wasn't such a big fan of iPhone OS either.
  - code_duck 17y ago
    Wow. What? I have now realized that all this time, I had absolutely no idea what Paul Graham looked like!
  - frederickcook 17y ago
    "I'd like it if the Air was about half the size. I don't know why Apple won't make something in between the Air and an iPhone." I'd have thought this was a joke if it was published a couple months ago, but I'm pretty sure March 2009 was before the iSlate rumors ever started. Good call, pg.
  - MarkPilgrim 17y ago
    Mine: http://mark.pilgrim.usesthis.com/ http://mark.pilgrim.usesthis.com/ HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1089512 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1089512
- dzlobin 17y ago
dzlobin 17y ago
Spoiler Alert: It's all Mac.
- waferbaby 17y ago
  It's not actually all Mac, fwiw. I try to find interesting people more than interesting setups, and this is what they tend to use. :)
  - julio_the_squid 17y ago
    I was surprised to see the woman that works for Microsoft Research talking about her iPhone, Mac and so on. Or is that not surprising?
    - petercooper 17y ago
      Not too surprising: http://www.macrumors.com/2010/03/15/10-of-microsoft-employees-using-iphones/ http://www.macrumors.com/2010/03/15/10-of-microsoft-employee...
jpcx01 17y ago
I second the SSD recommendation. It's a must have on any Macbook Pro.
axod 17y ago
Is it just me who expected to see a list of hair styling products? ;)
- tjogin 17y ago
  Does DHH stand out as a person who uses a lot of it, or are you not used to men using any at all?
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- dhh 17y ago
  Currently, American Crew medium hold/shine. Occasionally, Bubble & Bubble #5. But of course the real secret is in how you apply just the right swirl.
  - axod 17y ago
    Thanks. Might have to check those out :) I always end up with half my hair like its been dipped in honey, and the other half dry as a bone when I use anything. I'm probably making some n00b error though :/
    - run4yourlives 17y ago
      Rub it into your hands first and then apply it to your head. And don't use so much.
rmoriz 17y ago
DHH in California? what's going on there?
- staunch 17y ago
  Living it up in Malibu, like Iron Man.
bvi 17y ago
Totally off-topic: What font is that?
- acangiano 17y ago
  Droid sans. Don't you have Firebug installed?
  - telemachos 17y ago
    Following the links to the CSS stylesheets works well, too: http://david.heinemeier.hansson.usesthis.com/stylesheets/screen.css http://david.heinemeier.hansson.usesthis.com/stylesheets/scr...
ananthrk 17y ago
And it has _why's as well (including a photo of him??) http://why.usesthis.com/ http://why.usesthis.com/
- mdg 17y ago
  reads link Wait - what?!
  - ananthrk 17y ago
    Check the date (Feb 2009)
edw519 17y ago
I really admire dhh and what he's done. His talk at SUS '08 was phenomenal. We had a chance to chat and he seems like a cool guy. He's one of my many sources of inspiration. That being said, who cares what anyone's setup is? It's not like, "Set up like this guy and you will perform like this guy." There is about zero correlation between setup and performance. A better post would be, "What dhh does and why he does it." As for me, I have a single monitor with 2 sessions, one with lime green code on a black background in textpad and the other a test session in a browser. Both are full screen. Alt-tab is my friend. I prefer an underpowered box. If I can make it work there, I can make it work anywhere. Is this the secret to my success? Of course not. Put 10 programmers in a room and get 11 different setups. Use whatever setup works best for you. If you want to find out what makes someone else successful, dig a little below the surface for the wisdom waiting to be extracted by those not so obsessed with the superficial.
- ulf 17y ago
  I think the point of the site is not really to imitate someone's setup. It rather serves as a kind of anecdote at best, and in some cases (like RMS) gives interesting insight. "As for me, I have a single monitor with 2 sessions, one with lime green code on a black background in textpad and the other a test session in a browser. Both are full screen. Alt-tab is my friend. I prefer an underpowered box. If I can make it work there, I can make it work anywhere." That too, is be kind of interesting to read, especially the ending. I will not go on and imitate your setup now, since i got my own, but the underpowered-box stuff is good enough to remember.
- GeneralMaximus 17y ago
  Actually, I'm usually interested in what productivity tools people use. It doesn't matter if you're famous or not, I just like watching how people get things done.
- axod 17y ago
  It's "celebrity" gossip fodder at best.
jodrellblank 17y ago
David HH's lamborghini http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/11/coyotes-pulitzer-and-dhhs-lamborghini.html http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/11/coyotes-pulitzer-an...
- jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
  Side note: White Lamborghinis with pearl paint are actually absolutely beautiful in a minimalistic way. You have to have it coming from behind at a fast speed to really see what I'm talking about.
- mixmax 17y ago
  I went to a DHH talk in Copenhagen when he left Denmark for the US. One of his major stated reasons was the insane Danish car tax (180%). He would probably not have been able to afford it had he stayed behind :-)
  - stretchwithme 16y ago
    That explains the robust Danish automobile industry.
dylanz 17y ago
That was short and sweet. I had never heard of the SnapSnap... it looks fantastic. It definitely has a better positive/negative review ratio than most products I've ever checked out on Amazon.
n8agrin 17y ago
The one thing I'm surprised about is the external SSD for the 27" iMac. I can't see how it would be faster running the whole system through the Firewire bus. Here are some throughput benchmarks of SSD drives I found from OWC (a well known Mac accessory online retailer): 7200 rpm external drive: eSATA - http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQM7500GB16/HIT0A72335/eSATA.png http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQM7500GB16/HIT0A... FW800 - http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQM7500GB16/HIT0A72335/fw800.png http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQM7500GB16/HIT0A... SSD external drive: eSATA - http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQMSSD050/eSATA.png http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQMSSD050/eSATA.p... FW800 - http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQMSSD050/fw800.png http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQMSSD050/fw800.p... Summary: Via eSATA, the 7200rpm drive tops out around 100MB/sec while the SSD drive hits > 200MB/sec. Via FW800 both drives only max out around 80MB/sec which is the approximate upper limit of FW800 I believe. DHH, if you're reading perhaps you can provide a more subjective take on the real-world performance? I'm curious as I have a 27" iMac and would love to be able to get the SSD speed boost without taking off the glass and voiding warranties.
- dhh 17y ago
  The main speed benefit of SSDs is not throughput, but random access speeds. That's what makes it feel so magically fast. SSD over FW800 still gives you that.
  - orangecat 17y ago
    Very interesting. I've considered putting an SSD in my Mac mini, but opening them is a pain and I was under the vague impression that latency would suffer over Firewire. Glad to hear it works well, what enclosure are you using?
  - n8agrin 17y ago
    I think I may give it a shot. Thanks for the feedback.
tippy 17y ago
Cool site! I wonder what stuff are most popular among these brilliant guys so i # curl "http://www.usesthis.com/ http://www.usesthis.com/ | egrep -o "http:\/\/.\.usesthis\.com" | xargs curl | egrep -o ">[^<]+<\/a>" | sed -e "s/>\(.\)<\/a>/\1/g" | sort | uniq -c | sort -nbr | less 20 MacBook Pro 20 Firefox 18 Safari 16 iTunes 15 iPhone 14 Mac Pro 13 Tweetie 13 Mail 12 TextMate 10 Twitterrific 10 Photoshop 10 iChat 10 iCal 10 Gmail 10 Dropbox 9 Twitter 9 Time Machine 9 Terminal 9 MacBook 9 Google Reader 8 Xcode 8 Things 8 iMac 7 Quicksilver 7 NetNewsWire 7 LaunchBar 7 Flickr 7 Coda 7 Adium 6 Transmit 6 Instapaper 6 Illustrator 6 Google Chrome 6 Evernote

74 points by vijaydev 17y ago

In addition to learning about their setup, it's great to put a face to so many interesting online names. Thanks for putting this together waferbaby. Direct link: http://usesthis.com/ http://usesthis.com/

jgrahamc 17y ago

So how about we turn this into a what's your set up thread? Hardware: I'll get started. I have three Macs: a Mac Pro, a MacBook Pro, and a MacBook Air. I also have an iPhone. The MacPro and the Air were bought by my company, the MacBook Pro is my personal machine. I find myself using the MacBook Air a lot. I can take it anywhere with me. When I'm not using it, I'm using the iPhone. If the Air had a SIM card slot I'd probably use it even more. On the MacPro I have a 24" Samsung monitor. All the other machines I use with their native screens. I also have a Kindle. Software: I use emacs for writing and coding. I use a mixture of Firefox and Chrome for most everything else since so much of my computer life is in the cloud. Bits of software I love are: Dropbox, Notifo, Evernote and TweetDeck.

cperciva 17y ago
Dell XPS M1530 laptop; FreeBSD 7.3; KDE 3.5.10. Konqueror for websites where it works, Firefox when necessary. Thunderbird for email. Text editing in kwrite unless I'm in the middle of doing something in a Konsole, in which case I'll probably use nano. Backups via tarsnap, of course. On servers, mostly FreeBSD 8.0 (a few boxes are still 7.x), along with djbdns, qmail, ezmlm, apache, stunnel, and tarsnap. On my android phone: Twidroid, ConnectBot, NetCounter.
- iuguy 17y ago
  Upvoted for XPS M1530 - what an amazing laptop. For work I use an XPS M1530 with Windows 7, VMWare and a collection of images with different OSes for various purposes. Notepad++ for editing, Eclipse + PyDev for development, Ollydbg and Immunity Debugger for vulnerability research, too many tools to list for penetration testing, OpenOffice for documents and spreadsheets, Google Talk, Thunderbird for mail and TSK and Responder for Disk and Memory forensics. We have some servers at work, mostly Mac Mini and Linux (to host VMWare, various images from Beos to Sco Unixware), Solaris Sparc box and an old Vaxstation running VMS. At home I use a 9 year old Vaio SRX-51P/B with a P3 850, 256mb of RAM and Arch Linux. I mostly use Mutt, Chromium, Irssi, centerim, Vim, MC and snownews. At home I use an Ubuntu 8.04 server mostly for media, printing, DNS (was using djbdns but switched to dnsmasq after a rebuild) and backups and a separate Arch Linux desktop as a MythTV Front/Backend.
  - cperciva 17y ago
    XPS M1530 - what an amazing laptop. Actually, I rather dislike the M1530, at least compared with my previous laptop, a D600. The M1530 tends to get very hot.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
twism 17y ago
My primary hardware is an HP mini. But in all actuality, it's a slicehost ubuntu server running GNU Screen that I can SSH in from any device that can run a descent SSH client, including an iPhone. http://www.twitpic.com/19sc7e http://www.twitpic.com/19sc7e The terminal app on a jailbroken iPhone is remarkably good at inputing complex emacs keyboard shortcuts once you map the gestures right and it becomes second nature. Can't wait to jailbreak the 3G iPad. If that works out exactly like it does on the iPhone it could become my primary hardware.
pclark 17y ago
MacBook + 24" Dell Monitor at work. 24" iMac at home. I have an iPhone (for being mobile) and Kindle (for reading), too. And a moleskine squared notepad which I take everywhere. Software: RubyMine, Sequel Pro, Dropbox, Adobe Photoshop & Google Chrome. And GMail.
GeneralMaximus 17y ago
Computer 1: 13" plastic MacBook running Snow Leopard. Software: Emacs, Quicksilver, Firefox, MacIrssi, Adium, Terminal and (even though I hate its guts) iTunes. Computer 2: Dell 1520 running Windows 7. I also run Haiku in a VM. Software: Emacs, Launchy, Firefox, XChat, Pidgin, PowerShell and (praise be upon its sweet soul) Winamp. Web applications: GMail and Etherpad. I'm not big on webapps. I think there's a pattern here :)
stuff4ben 17y ago
At work, I use a Dell Optiplex 755 running Ubuntu 9.10 with a 22" HannsG and 19" Dell LCD. At home I use a 15" MacBook Pro (1st Gen "lap burner") connected to a 22" Acer 1080p LCD when I'm at my desk. Software-wise, I usually run either Eclipse when I'm at work doing Java development or Intellij Idea 9 when I'm on the Mac at home doing Grails development for side projects. I usually keep an instance of VirtualBox open when I'm at work so I can run Windows XP and Microsoft Outlook since Evolution on Linux is a POS. At home I use Mail since I can check both my work Exchange account and GMail account and it just works. I bought Snow Leopard for just that reason.
kirubakaran 17y ago
http://imgur.com/NuKqC.jpg http://imgur.com/NuKqC.jpg T61, [22"]*2, Ubuntu, Emacs, Chrome + Firefox.
- ciupicri 17y ago
  Are you using D-Sub/VGA or DVI from a docking station?
  - kirubakaran 17y ago
    One monitor is connected to VGA and the other to DVI. I use URandR to control the displays. It is awesome.
dugmartin 17y ago
Hardware: Dell Vista box with 24" and 22" monitor and Mac Mini with 22" monitor with single wireless Logitech Wave keyboard/mouse via Synergy. Dell Mini 9 netbook with Ubuntu Remix also hooked to Synergy when its at my desk. [EDIT] Here is an older picture of the setup: http://imgur.com/iAqED.jpg http://imgur.com/iAqED.jpg [/EDIT] Software: use Window's box for dev work - Notepad++ for editing, FF/Chrome for browser, and Mac for communications - Adium for IM (AIM and internal Jabber) and Colloquy for irc (wmassdevs on freenode) and FF for gmail/google apps/co-op/basecamp/etc. If I had more desk space I'd have more monitors. I'm moving soon and may end up either attaching monitor arms to the walls or building a shelf for the second set of monitors.

rmorrison 17y ago

Cool site. If you want a laugh, check out RMS's: http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com

giu 17y ago
pg presented his setup, too: http://paul.graham.usesthis.com/ http://paul.graham.usesthis.com/
- johns 17y ago
  Re-reading that makes me think pg is thrilled about his iPad (which I'm assuming he bought)
  - borism 17y ago
    I bet he isn't thrilled about iPad - can't connect it to HD screen and he wasn't such a big fan of iPhone OS either.
- code_duck 17y ago
  Wow. What? I have now realized that all this time, I had absolutely no idea what Paul Graham looked like!
- frederickcook 17y ago
  "I'd like it if the Air was about half the size. I don't know why Apple won't make something in between the Air and an iPhone." I'd have thought this was a joke if it was published a couple months ago, but I'm pretty sure March 2009 was before the iSlate rumors ever started. Good call, pg.
- MarkPilgrim 17y ago
  Mine: http://mark.pilgrim.usesthis.com/ http://mark.pilgrim.usesthis.com/ HN discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1089512 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1089512
dzlobin 17y ago

dzlobin 17y ago

Spoiler Alert: It's all Mac.

waferbaby 17y ago
It's not actually all Mac, fwiw. I try to find interesting people more than interesting setups, and this is what they tend to use. :)
- julio_the_squid 17y ago
  I was surprised to see the woman that works for Microsoft Research talking about her iPhone, Mac and so on. Or is that not surprising?
  - petercooper 17y ago
    Not too surprising: http://www.macrumors.com/2010/03/15/10-of-microsoft-employees-using-iphones/ http://www.macrumors.com/2010/03/15/10-of-microsoft-employee...

jpcx01 17y ago

I second the SSD recommendation. It's a must have on any Macbook Pro.

axod 17y ago

Is it just me who expected to see a list of hair styling products? ;)

tjogin 17y ago
Does DHH stand out as a person who uses a lot of it, or are you not used to men using any at all?
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
dhh 17y ago
Currently, American Crew medium hold/shine. Occasionally, Bubble & Bubble #5. But of course the real secret is in how you apply just the right swirl.
- axod 17y ago
  Thanks. Might have to check those out :) I always end up with half my hair like its been dipped in honey, and the other half dry as a bone when I use anything. I'm probably making some n00b error though :/
  - run4yourlives 17y ago
    Rub it into your hands first and then apply it to your head. And don't use so much.

rmoriz 17y ago

DHH in California? what's going on there?

staunch 17y ago
Living it up in Malibu, like Iron Man.

bvi 17y ago

Totally off-topic: What font is that?

acangiano 17y ago
Droid sans. Don't you have Firebug installed?
- telemachos 17y ago
  Following the links to the CSS stylesheets works well, too: http://david.heinemeier.hansson.usesthis.com/stylesheets/screen.css http://david.heinemeier.hansson.usesthis.com/stylesheets/scr...

ananthrk 17y ago

And it has _why's as well (including a photo of him??) http://why.usesthis.com/ http://why.usesthis.com/

mdg 17y ago
reads link Wait - what?!
- ananthrk 17y ago
  Check the date (Feb 2009)

edw519 17y ago

I really admire dhh and what he's done. His talk at SUS '08 was phenomenal. We had a chance to chat and he seems like a cool guy. He's one of my many sources of inspiration. That being said, who cares what anyone's setup is? It's not like, "Set up like this guy and you will perform like this guy." There is about zero correlation between setup and performance. A better post would be, "What dhh does and why he does it." As for me, I have a single monitor with 2 sessions, one with lime green code on a black background in textpad and the other a test session in a browser. Both are full screen. Alt-tab is my friend. I prefer an underpowered box. If I can make it work there, I can make it work anywhere. Is this the secret to my success? Of course not. Put 10 programmers in a room and get 11 different setups. Use whatever setup works best for you. If you want to find out what makes someone else successful, dig a little below the surface for the wisdom waiting to be extracted by those not so obsessed with the superficial.

ulf 17y ago
I think the point of the site is not really to imitate someone's setup. It rather serves as a kind of anecdote at best, and in some cases (like RMS) gives interesting insight. "As for me, I have a single monitor with 2 sessions, one with lime green code on a black background in textpad and the other a test session in a browser. Both are full screen. Alt-tab is my friend. I prefer an underpowered box. If I can make it work there, I can make it work anywhere." That too, is be kind of interesting to read, especially the ending. I will not go on and imitate your setup now, since i got my own, but the underpowered-box stuff is good enough to remember.
GeneralMaximus 17y ago
Actually, I'm usually interested in what productivity tools people use. It doesn't matter if you're famous or not, I just like watching how people get things done.
axod 17y ago
It's "celebrity" gossip fodder at best.

jodrellblank 17y ago

David HH's lamborghini http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/11/coyotes-pulitzer-and-dhhs-lamborghini.html http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/11/coyotes-pulitzer-an...

jasonlbaptiste 17y ago
Side note: White Lamborghinis with pearl paint are actually absolutely beautiful in a minimalistic way. You have to have it coming from behind at a fast speed to really see what I'm talking about.
mixmax 17y ago
I went to a DHH talk in Copenhagen when he left Denmark for the US. One of his major stated reasons was the insane Danish car tax (180%). He would probably not have been able to afford it had he stayed behind :-)
- stretchwithme 16y ago
  That explains the robust Danish automobile industry.

dylanz 17y ago

That was short and sweet. I had never heard of the SnapSnap... it looks fantastic. It definitely has a better positive/negative review ratio than most products I've ever checked out on Amazon.

n8agrin 17y ago

The one thing I'm surprised about is the external SSD for the 27" iMac. I can't see how it would be faster running the whole system through the Firewire bus. Here are some throughput benchmarks of SSD drives I found from OWC (a well known Mac accessory online retailer): 7200 rpm external drive: eSATA - http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQM7500GB16/HIT0A72335/eSATA.png http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQM7500GB16/HIT0A... FW800 - http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQM7500GB16/HIT0A72335/fw800.png http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQM7500GB16/HIT0A... SSD external drive: eSATA - http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQMSSD050/eSATA.png http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQMSSD050/eSATA.p... FW800 - http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQMSSD050/fw800.png http://eshop.macsales.com/images/Items/OWCMEQMSSD050/fw800.p... Summary: Via eSATA, the 7200rpm drive tops out around 100MB/sec while the SSD drive hits > 200MB/sec. Via FW800 both drives only max out around 80MB/sec which is the approximate upper limit of FW800 I believe. DHH, if you're reading perhaps you can provide a more subjective take on the real-world performance? I'm curious as I have a 27" iMac and would love to be able to get the SSD speed boost without taking off the glass and voiding warranties.

dhh 17y ago
The main speed benefit of SSDs is not throughput, but random access speeds. That's what makes it feel so magically fast. SSD over FW800 still gives you that.
- orangecat 17y ago
  Very interesting. I've considered putting an SSD in my Mac mini, but opening them is a pain and I was under the vague impression that latency would suffer over Firewire. Glad to hear it works well, what enclosure are you using?
- n8agrin 17y ago
  I think I may give it a shot. Thanks for the feedback.

tippy 17y ago

Cool site! I wonder what stuff are most popular among these brilliant guys so i # curl "http://www.usesthis.com/ http://www.usesthis.com/ | egrep -o "http:\/\/.\.usesthis\.com" | xargs curl | egrep -o ">[^<]+<\/a>" | sed -e "s/>\(.\)<\/a>/\1/g" | sort | uniq -c | sort -nbr | less 20 MacBook Pro 20 Firefox 18 Safari 16 iTunes 15 iPhone 14 Mac Pro 13 Tweetie 13 Mail 12 TextMate 10 Twitterrific 10 Photoshop 10 iChat 10 iCal 10 Gmail 10 Dropbox 9 Twitter 9 Time Machine 9 Terminal 9 MacBook 9 Google Reader 8 Xcode 8 Things 8 iMac 7 Quicksilver 7 NetNewsWire 7 LaunchBar 7 Flickr 7 Coda 7 Adium 6 Transmit 6 Instapaper 6 Illustrator 6 Google Chrome 6 Evernote