Without fail, when you tell me about a new productivity system, editor, or typeface, I will drop everything I am doing and give your new productivity system, editor, or typeface a whirl. This happens weekly. It’s a problem. The majority of these excursions are brief and can be summarized thusly: Install the thing. Use the… more
The first story I wrote for myself was a piece of fiction about God being sent to high school. I was, not surprisingly, in high school at the time. What was surprising was the vein of writing I found in myself. I sat down at the computer and the story just showed up — seven… more
The brother-in-law lives in the ‘burbs and needed five trees removed. Not big trees — 10 to 15 feet tall, six-inch trunks. Not a problem. I live on the edge of a redwood forest in Northern California. There are sturdy oaks, playful maples, lovely madrones, weed-like bay laurels, and, of course, giant redwoods. But the… more
I’m coming up on five years of steady Mac OS X usage and anniversaries are a time of reflection, so I went back to read my first significant article about Mac OS X. There’s something missing from this first analysis. See, there was one killer app that I’d been dying to try out on the… more
The creation of a Rands article goes like this. First, the idea strikes me at some random part of the day… usually in the car to or from work. I spend anywhere from a day to a month fine-tuning this idea in my head until it’s something I want to start writing about. It’s entirely… more
Your text editor is religion. You start ignorant… wondering what all the fuss is about and then you either discover or are forced into a particular editor. In time, you grow comfortable with it, like your favorite type of pen, and that’s it… you’re done. You are the wizard of Emacs or the king of… more
Today the last vestige of the PC left the building. I replaced the old Dell 500Mhz machine at home with a Dual G4 and a 20″ flat panel monitor. This means that all of my primary machines are now Macs. <insert little dance here> I’m quite comfortable on the Mac. With Panther adding the groovy… more
I’ve got this huge black notebook that I bring to meetings when I feel the Titanium Powerbook is not appropriate. 11×14 sketch book. I usually get long stares when I plop it on the table and the occasionally, “That’s a big notebook”. Glibly, I reply, “I’ve got big thoughts.” The 17″ Powerbook is vast like… more
