
Mark Pilgrim on The Setup - shmichael
http://mark.pilgrim.usesthis.com/
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GHFigs
This one is well worth reading. He doesn't just list his kit, he has quite a
bit to say on writing and some very interesting ideas about a "dream setup".

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jrockway
_This may become a factor in choosing a publisher for future books: the
ability to avoid Microsoft Word altogether._

I can relate; writing a book in Word (or OOWriter) is an absolute nightmare.
Never again.

(I am also having trouble imagining working on a computer while sitting in a
Poang armchair. Your body is not at the right angle to look at something in
front of you, really.)

~~~
abecedarius
Eric Drexler is said to have hung a monitor from his ceiling so he could read
it reclining. Back in the CRT days. (I don't remember the source.)

~~~
abecedarius
(I always thought of that as the CRT of Damocles.)

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RK
I like the Poäng chair from IKEA, but I don't know how anyone can sit in it
all day long at a desk. It's a lounge chair.

~~~
MarkPilgrim
And I don't know how anyone can sit in a desk chair all day long.

Here's how it works: wireless mouse on a table next to me. Keyboard on my lap
(with the wire plugged into a front-side USB port). Feet up on the matching
Poang footstool. Monitors about six feet away from me on a regular desk.
Appropriate text sizes in Emacs and terminal, and appropriate zoom levels in
Chromium. (Chromium remembers per-site zoom levels automatically.)

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gotmarko
I'd love to see a photo of Mark in setting at his desk working from the chair
in front of those monitors.

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mstevens
The bit that has surprised and interested me with usesthis.com is how few
people they've talked to use Linux, and how many people use OS X.

I mean, I knew OS X was big in the geek market, I just didn't quite realise it
was this popular.

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dylanz
Not even near being a designer, but the font on that post is awesome.

~~~
mikedouglas
Museo Sans. Looks like some of the weights are free-as-in-beer, too.

<http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/exljbris/museo-sans/>

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garnet7
He writes in raw HTML? Hm.

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jmckib
Could you (or someone else) possibly expand on that? Is writing in raw HTML
generally discouraged? I am totally ignorant in this area, but I am curious
about it since I admire Mark's formatting and he seems to get a lot done.

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telemachos
I can't speak for the person you're commenting on - that is, I have no idea
what the 'Hm' meant. Also, I don't think it's generally discouraged. Lots of
people write raw HTML (in some contexts).

But _I_ certainly wouldn't want to write an entire book in HTML - it forces
you to type a _lot_ of brackets and tags. I'm sure your editor could take a
lot of work off your shoulders, but even at that you end up typing a ton of
macros (I would think). In any case, it seems easier to me to type the bulk of
it in Markdown (or the like) and only occasionally drop down to raw HTML. To
each, his or her own though.

~~~
doty
Might be a nice step up from docbook, though.

