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Chrome lets you create new CSS rules right inside the DOM inspector. I used to be able to then view all those rules in the Resources pane, but now that view instead shows the document source. This could have been a conscious decision – perhaps people want to see their changes to the HTML in addition to the CSS – but it’s clearly favoring one output over another. Perhaps what I’m looking for was moved, or deemed irrelevant? I wish I knew.

I’ve been writing as a means for self-reflection and public expression for around 12 years. At first, it was in a private diary, but then one of my parents read it without my permission. For a teenager who wrote as a way to find perspective in the crazy, unbalanced world that is adolescence, that was a violation of a most intimate level of privacy.

So, from then on, I figured I might as well do this writing publicly, where I had no expectation of, or need for, privacy. I had a few flings with various blogging services before running my own blog on WordPress, which directly led to my career today as a WordPress and Drupal professional.

Blogging all the way through high school and college was an immensely rewarding experience. My blog was where I stopped to reflect during periods of self-discovery when I lived in Spain and spent a couple of mornings meditating atop Saharan sand dunes. I used it to cover the mundane parts of school (griping about classes) and the significant (reconciling huge cultural and thematic gaps between my Business Administration courses and those in Information Systems).

All the while, as I continued in my blogging habitpractice, social web applications went through rapid evolutions and adoptions: MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Google [Buzz, Wave, Plus] all introduced more highly social variations of the blogging theme. These all encouraged a much more terse, knee-jerk reaction kind of sharing, and preferred the memetic over the long and well-thought-out. But as a lifelong lover of online relationships, I embraced them anyway and felt all the better for it.

Now, I find myself in the body of a man who is older, wiser, fatter, more confident, and less naïve than the Zeke who exists in my old blog posts. I’d like to think that I don’t have more responsibilities, but the second email inbox labeled “Work” and the bills in my snail mail box (my own!) refute that fantasy.

But who I am now is just a new part of life’s journey. My blog was a great way to openly explore and share about earlier times in my life. So, why is it so hard to do now? I find two big things have changed:

1. More responsibility increases the need for discretion. This does _not_ mean a reversal towards a closed and private lifestyle, but rather a more discerning approach when it comes to expressing my most extreme, spontaneous, or just irrelevant thoughts. In other words, I still am “being myself” with my world, but I try not to overload new acquaintances with an attempt to express to them the entirety of my identity before we’ve even talked about anything of substance.
2. I’ve strongly favored more shallow, talkative, low signal-to-noise communications over proprietary social networks. These networks are great at building and maintaining lots of social connections, but they also lack a lot of bandwidth for deeper, more conscientious communications.

For the last six months, it’s been one big change after the next in my life. I want to return to this blog and use it like I used to. But can I be as open about my personal quandaries and endeavors? If I’m writing about romantic relationships, or wanting to move or make a career change, or considering a move to another city, or a stint in the Peace Corps, I feel more hesitant to discuss it openly.

This forces me to confront a struggle inherent to online publishing today: writing a public blog makes it accessible to everyone. To share more privately – say, among a smaller group of people – I have to tie it into some cumbersome digital wall which keeps others out. This just isn’t worth it to me. I admire extremely open and public Internet personalities like Leo Laporte and Robert Scoble: their lifestyles are based around the embrace of digital expression. But even they have boundaries when it comes to family and other important personal topics – some of which I want to write about freely!

Digital communications media started from scratch about 70 years ago, and have since rapidly evolved in their amplitude and capacity for expressiveness. Culture is doing its best to keep up, but technology is rapidly exposing us to new connections and new audiences which force us to consider the context of our speech in new ways. Does this mean I should embrace the changes and try to live as openly as possible? Does it mean I need to seek new tools to better differentiate between my communications between acquaintances, friends, family, coworkers, and lovers?

I find myself wishing for an easy answer. But my growing years of experience suggest to me that instead, the answer lies in using my awareness of all these trends to derive some path through the gray area in between the extremes of openness and privacy. Maybe I’ll write each post before deciding whether to keep it to myself or make it public.

I’m sure teenager Zeke would think I’m a total sellout.

Her older brother served in the U.S. Army for two years, including a tour in Afghanistan. Then he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He served this country before it was his country.

Daniela wants to be a heart surgeon.

A federal immigration judge says she needs to leave the country, instead.

Daniela didn’t do anything wrong. She was brought to America illegally when she was only four years old. In the 14 years since, she has been the archetype of American ideals, bringing the best of her heritage into our own community and giving only her best. It costs us nothing to afford her the opportunities many of us take for granted, but instead our government chooses to reject her for being of the wrong origin.

What does Daniela have to say about this injustice?

“I consider myself an American no matter what.”

Daniela is true to herself and her country. Her country should be true to itself, too.

Link: Miami Herald

Watching the chaos unfold as an unwitting public awoke to many popular websites going on strike in protest of SOPA and PROTECT IP just made my day. Searching for tweets containing both the words “fuck” and “Wikipedia” was hilarious at first. I opened @whatthefuckwiki to curate the most hilarious results. But as the hours and hours of self-entitled teenage venting went on, my usually oh-so-optimistic faith in humanity started to wear thin.

What follows is an overview of the kind of reactions that sped through Twitter all day.

The initial shock was catastrophic:

whoa the fuck Wikipedia ain’t working WHOAAA

January 18, 2012 3:01 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@Tucks_Winning

♚Tuck

aight… which one of you did it? who fucking did it? who the FUCK turned off wikipedia??

January 18, 2012 12:23 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@JayohOWA

Jordan Class

pardon, why the fuck isn’t wikipedia working when i need it for fuck sakes bullshit

January 18, 2012 5:31 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@JessicaByreiter

Jessica Byreiter

FUCK MY LIFE. FUCK MY LIFE. GUYS, NO WAY. DUDE, WIKIPEDIA DIED. HOW AM I GONNA. FML. guys, im gonna fial my frnech project.

January 17, 2012 11:29 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@mimi_1997

Carol Porter Malik(;

No wikipedia is already killing me, trying to do my daily research FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!!!

January 18, 2012 12:23 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@cmykcolours

Mark Elzey Jr

OMG WHAT THE FUCK OMGOSH ARGGGGGGH THERES NO WIKIPEDIA I THOUGHT YOU MAN WHEERE JOKING #WTF

January 18, 2012 12:25 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@CraayZee

ZoZoZeZa B)

Wikipedia just disrespected the fuck out of me.

January 18, 2012 8:49 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@MEEJIIAA

Carlos Manuel

Some got specific with their calls for redress.

Shut up wikipedia I want free knowledge right now! Trying to fuck

January 18, 2012 12:03 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@IceBrosKillZs

Garnet W Bogoslowski

IM TRYNA FIGURE OUT WHAT THE FUCK NUTELLA IS AND WIKIPEDIA DIRECTIN TO JESSE MOTHAFUCKIN JACKSON

January 18, 2012 12:00 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@TheREALmrPaTRoN

Dr. Ralphael Robuckz

How the fuck am I going to find out what ‘vaginal mesh’ is now that Wikipedia is blacked the fuck out?

January 18, 2012 12:19 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@GangstaBitchhh

Carolina

so i can’t go on Wikipedia to research what the fuck kind of creepy swamp rodents are mating in my backyard? FUCK.

January 18, 2012 12:25 am via Tweetbot for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@knittingninja00

cynthiazepam

Okay, So Wikipedia Blacked Out There Site Too ! Fuck, Im Trying To See If I Can Get My Handgun License ! -_-

January 18, 2012 9:52 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@taylor_whitley

Jordan White

Fuck. Without Wikipedia, I can’t check the plot of this movie I’m watching where this dude’s smashing this retarded chick. Goddamn you.

January 18, 2012 12:55 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@LSE7ENZ

L7Z [Phresh Heir ♚]

COME THE FUCK ON WIKIPEDIA I CAN ONLY MEMORIZE THESE SUBTLE EDITS ABOUT CAPTAIN KIRK’S DEMONSTRABLE SUPERIORITY FOR SO GODDAMN LONG

January 18, 2012 5:55 pm via Twitter for AndroidReplyRetweetFavorite

@SaveRussianJews

ROLLERBLADIN G TIPS

High School students with tests and homework weren’t the only ones to complain, though. Professional journalists and other office-dwellers resigned themselves to their Wiki-free fates:

Out of office: Wikipedia is closed. I have no answers. Fuck off.

January 18, 2012 12:12 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@jessjodi

Jessica Cheung

fuck I was just going to use wikipedia to look up information about General Petreaus wife, fuck fuck fuck

January 18, 2012 3:16 pm via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@MikeElk

Mike Elk

FUCK I actually need Wikipedia now! There’s a category “Christian Radio stations in Australia” that would be perfect right now! #internbitch

January 18, 2012 6:52 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@reesieboi

Reese Williams

FUCK YEAH WRITING A COLUMN WITHOUT WIKIPEDIA IS ONE OF THE HARDEST THINGS I’LL EVER HAVE TO DO BESIDES THE CRYPTIC CROSSWORD AND CHILDBIRTH!

January 18, 2012 7:31 pm via EchofonReplyRetweetFavorite

@nadinevoncohen

Nadine von Cohen

Blame went all around.

Some didn’t care about the issues and just needed their Wikipedia fix:

Fuck you Wikipedia! -___- you’re setting all us last minute students up for failure :/

January 18, 2012 12:34 am via Twitter for AndroidReplyRetweetFavorite

@daninoheart

Dannnnnnni, cc;

#wikipedia used to be my nigga, but fuck him

January 18, 2012 4:13 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@teebixtches

Tiara Rosa-Lyn Oki

Some became aware of the issue thanks to Wikipedia, and voiced their new opposition to SOPA & PIPA:

WIKIPEDIA IS DOWN! Go to the site, contact your representatives and tell them how you feel. FUCK THE GOV’T! LET THEM TRY TO CENSOR ME. #FUCK

January 18, 2012 12:04 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@TomGetsFD

Tom Cwikla

Could live with the government pretty much saying fuck the constitution…until they messed with Wikipedia.

January 18, 2012 6:56 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@502alcorn

Brandon Alcorn

Fuck you mean Wikipedia is blacked out for all of wensday? The fuck we in Egypt or something?

January 18, 2012 2:55 am via Twitter for AndroidReplyRetweetFavorite

@Pharaohs_Son

Ron Mexico

WHAT THE FUCK #WIKIPEDIABLACKOUT I DIDN’T JOIN THE MILITARY SO CONGRESS COULD RAPE OUR RIGHTS AND OUR WIKIPEDIA =(…FUCK!

January 18, 2012 5:55 am via Tweet ButtonReplyRetweetFavorite

@Hayden_Bouren

Hayden Bouren

If the government shuts down Wikipedia and Tumblr, I will literally fuck the American government’s shit up…

January 18, 2012 2:56 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@ManiStaySmileyy

Imani

Many thought the government actually blocked Wikipedia, or came up with other ideas out of thin air:

what the fuck your going to have to pay for google, and wikipedia wtf thats why google has a black thing on

January 18, 2012 3:32 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@angie_single

Angie Benitez

So I did some research (difficult as fuck with no wikipedia) and apparently SOPA’s got something to do with the creator of Limewire…

January 18, 2012 4:26 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@JordanHURose

~Da Kurlzz~

The government wants to charge to use Wikipedia FUCK THEM!!!!!

January 18, 2012 5:08 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@DREW_S95

Drew Sanchez

So Obama woke up this morning and went to his computer and said “yeah what the fuck let’s shut down wikipedia” and it just happened.

January 18, 2012 8:40 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@Ze0nite

Golden Churro

Surgeon General C.Everett Koop helped shut down Wikipedia. Fuck Obama care.

January 18, 2012 8:43 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@MikeNRoush

Mike Roush

U.S. Congress go fuck yourselves. I just got blacked out of Wikipedia. Figure out your debt problems other ways. See military.

January 18, 2012 10:56 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@FlyQtheAnchor

Adam Lacoursiere

But, more than anything, this blackout shows just how lazy and unafraid of blatant plagiarism (or even cheating) many students are.

Take fucking facebook down for fuck sakes. Not fucking wikipedia. It helped me graduate highschool by plagiarizing lol.

January 18, 2012 7:50 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@Diisasterrr

Kakari Adade

fuck .. how do you do homework without #wikipedia

January 18, 2012 2:38 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@DJbluemonkeh

isaac mills

Why the fuck has the us blocked wikipedia when I needed it to copy and paste me work for college >:| they have no consideration

January 18, 2012 2:50 pm via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@Dale_Dino_Byrne

Dale Byrne

FUCK OF WIKIPEDIA YE FUCKIN DIKED U BEST GET BAK ON NOW AM TRYNA PASS ME MASTAS DEGREE HERE YANO FUCKIN DIKED. #WIKIPEDIA

January 18, 2012 3:20 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@ScouserFTM

Scouser FTM

Fuck, I have to write an essay tomorrow and I was gonna rely solely on Wikipedia. #PickingTheWorstTimeToProtest

January 17, 2012 11:54 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@ChrisMasih

The Elusive Chris

WTF WHY IS EVERYTHING BEING BLACKED OUT!!!! I HAVE A FUCKING PROJECT DUE IN 5 HOURS!!!! I NEED WIKIPEDIA!!!! FUCK FUCK FUCKKK

January 18, 2012 1:15 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@SratGirlStories

Sorority Girl

Is wikipedia coming back anytime soon or am I going to have to do homework by myself for the first time in my life? Ew no, fuck that shit

January 18, 2012 4:51 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@DemiGangsta

Flawless Demi

Fuck you, Wikipedia! I know what you’re trying to do, but fuck you all the same. Now I have to crack a book, like I’m Amish or something.

January 18, 2012 2:14 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@hellobrisvegas

Laura

I need a drink.

I used to use RSS as a one-stop way to cut down on my endless cycle of refreshing a million different blogs for news. Now, the opposite has happened: a couple of news sources are so much better in quality than the rest. I get my general news through the New York Times, and my tech news comes through The Verge or Ars Technica. These guys are beating everyone else at news depth and analysis, making most other blogs in their field redundant.

There’s a lot I risk missing online by doing this. But instead of drowning in an endless feed of RSS updates, I’ve curated a couple of social sharing tools to give me a pulse for the rest of the Web: Reddit (I unsubscribe from most of the default subreddits and subscribe to quality niche ones) and Twitter (again, being picky about quality sources.) I’d like to see Google+ take off in this role, but Google still needs to improve their API enough for killer apps to take advantage of it.

This new way of consuming content online is an unexpected one for me. I usually prefer more open, decentralized stuff, and RSS is the poster-child for such a thing. But as a constant news stream, it just doesn’t do enough to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. It’s still very useful and necessary, since it can syndicate a lot more useful information than just the news articles I’m talking about. Even though I sacrifice some openness, I find crowdsourced social aggregators far more useful, especially when I have some curation controls to personalize what I’m getting.

Sorry, RSS. You have a lot to offer as a technology, but my life is easier having left you.

Despite the fact that the Android operating system is by far the best fit for my needs, I can’t say I’d recommend any of the current high-end Android phones over an iPhone. Even the best Android phones seem to be unbalanced attempts to serve the various agendas of the OS vendor (Google), the designer/manufacturer, and the wireless carrier. It feels like these organizations are too focused on their own priorities to harmoniously collaborate in the design of a product which is great for the user. Google seems happy to focus on doing the bare minimum to get their Nexus “proof-of-concept” phones shipped, and leave innovative hardware design to other folks (who install crappy software.)

This disconcerted effort of unaligned agendas recreates the market conditions which allowed Apple to disrupt the smartphone market in 2007 by refusing to cede any control of the customer experience or business relationship to another company. Apple’s integration of software and hardware, coupled with their power to keep carriers subservient, allows them to focus on their own goals, a large part of which is the user’s experience. They also support their old devices better and longer.

I want to be clear: I’m not saying the iPhone is better than Android. Everyone has different priorities in picking the best fit for their smartphone. I am saying that on average, the iPhone is usually the best match for someone who wants equally good software, hardware, and customer support. But doesn’t mean much in reality, as buyer’s desires are as diverse as the selection of phones available to them. Personally, I care a whole lot less about build quality than I do about software stability, reliability, and geek-friendliness, so I’d probably still buy a phone with “pure Google” software if it were installed on a hardened turd with an LTE antenna.

Overall, I think the reinvented smartphone industry is now quite mature, and every device out there basically does the same thing. There are so many choices out there, but I’d really like to see more folks than just Apple focusing on delivering excellent products and service to the end user. I feel like HTC is almost doing that with its Android phones, but needs to release fewer devices and support them better, and that Google needs to give manufacturers better access to prerelease builds so non-Nexus phones don’t lag the rest of the industry by 6-12 months.

Galaxy Nexus (designed by Google in collaboration with Samsung)

Pro:

• It’s a “pure Google” device. This means it’s the first to get updates, and Google controls them. This means it will probably be more stable, secure, and up-to-date than any other Android phone (until Google releases another one.)
• The camera’s shutter and between-shot delay is FAST. So fast that what I thought was a delay for focusing was actually the picture being taken.
• The Galaxy Nexus recreates the Nexus S’s beautiful “blank black” face, and improves upon it by moving menu buttons onto the screen in a dynamic fashion.

Con:

• The quality of materials and industrial design is nowhere near competitive with phones even half its price. Google says it’s got a metal frame inside which many phones lack, but the plastic is cheaper feeling than everything sold for $199 since the iPhone 3G/3GS. I don’t know what happened here, since Samsung did a pretty great job with the previous Nexus S.
• The speaker really sucks, which is a shame since the screen could be really great for multimedia.
• Matters of my own personal preference: I don’t like the headphone jack’s location on the bottom, the not-quite-gigantic 4.65″ screen (though nice for typing), or the exposed dock connection pins.
• For some reason, the AMOLED screen is worse than the one Samsung uses on its own Galaxy S II phones, and its PenTile layout reduces the effective pixels-per-inch relative to the competition. At this price point, I don’t understand the cost cutting. (The screen still looked pretty darn good, but the bar is set high.)

HTC Rezound:

Pro:

• As always for HTC, this phone has excellent industrial design. Despite my dislike of phone screens above 4 inches, the fit in my hand was nice, the soft touch of the back casing eliminates any “slippery” feeling, and overall it felt solid.
• This phone has an LCD display, unlike the Nexus and RAZR’s AMOLED variants. I thought this display was by far the best in the group.
• HTC’s Sense UI is “love-it-or-hate-it,” but I’ve always fallen in the “love it” category. Sense 3.5 is smooth and takes awesome advantage of the high-specced hardware. I particularly liked how functional and usable HTC’s camera UI is in Sense 3.5.

Con:

• This phone adds “Beats by Dre” branding to the already packed company of Sense, HTC, Verizon, and Google. Other reviews say the first-party music app uses audio “enhancement” which doesn’t extend to the rest of the OS.
• The phone is great right now, but its software is already old. HTC releases quality software updates, but it takes them 6-9 months after Google’s release to prepare them.
• This phone’s bootloader is locked (by Verizon’s choice), making it much harder to install custom Android distributions like Cyanogenmod, which have been instrumental to me in compensating for HTC’s slowness to update their operating systems. Since I want Ice Cream Sandwich, this is a potential deal breaker for me.
• HTC pretty much doesn’t update Sense features after a phone’s release. They’re a selling point, not a supported and modernized part.

Motorola DROID RAZR

Pro

• Design and build quality. I didn’t expect this (I returned two original Droids which couldn’t stand the test of basic wear and tear), but I was quite impressed by the fit and finish on this thing. The expensive Kevlar backing is kind of a confusing touch, but it’s good for RF transparency.
• The super AMOLED display looked great and fared quite well in bright sunlight.

Con

• Verizon is quite clearly using its DROID brand to aggressively assert its own campaigns. I had really weird stuff going on, like Verizon logos in the camera app with a “You don’t have geolocation turned on, go turn it on, there’s no reason you wouldn’t want that!” nag.
• Motorola’s custom UI isn’t intrusive, but it is butt-ugly. I have no clue what these folks are thinking, and Verizon’s locked bootloader makes installation of a vanilla Android less attractive. Hopefully Google’s acquisition of Motorola will stop this.

So what am I gonna do?

I don’t know. These phones all feel like they’ve been designed as the best solution to one of the companies’ goals, instead of the best fit for me. The Galaxy Nexus realizes Google’s vision for Android 4.0, but fails to make an attractive consumer product. The HTC phone is excellent for right now, but will feel really outdated in just a year. The DROID product line just feels like Verizon’s attempt to bake in as many upsells and in-house branding spots as possible. I really wish I could take the HTC Rezound, but get the support of a “pure Google” phone. (That was the excellent Nexus One of two generations ago, before Google switched to Samsung as a launch partner.)

Who knows, I might decide once again that “It’s the software, stupid!” and just buy the Galaxy Nexus. At this point, it feels like I’d be happiest either doing that or going back to the iPhone.

Here’s the MP3 file if you want it: If There Ever Was A Time

In the morning:

1. Fight the snooze button on my smartphone – for the last 17 months: an HTC Droid Incredible in an OtterBox Commuter Series case. I’ll probably be upgrading to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus soon.
2. Commute (hopefully by bike, weather permitting) with my Rocketfish RF-MAB2 Bluetooth Headphones. I’ll listen to music on Rdio or Google Music, a podcast from TWiT.tv, or an Audible.com audiobook. If I’m listening to some embarrassing pop star on Rdio, I’ll make a bet with myself about how many people will have made fun of me on Facebook when they see those songs posted live to the Ticker.

At work:

(Notable as of last year’s “Day in Technology” post, I’ve been working as a Web Developer at One Tribe Creative.)

• In general, my productivity is fueled by two things: Evernote for basically everything I need to keep track of that isn’t bound to communications, and Google Apps on our company domain for everything that is.
• In meetings, I like to use my iPad 3G (1st-gen) because it’s a more social computer: it doesn’t obstruct the view across the table, doesn’t make distracting clicky noises, and lets me pass around examples for others to hold and interact with. I take a lot of notes using the Evernote for iPad app.
• My main workstation hardware consists of:
• 2011 Apple MacBook Pro (13″) – I sized down to a 13″ this year and feel like it’s the ultimate portable that packs a serious multithreaded punch. I love the unibody, tolerate the glossy 1280×800 display.
• 2.7GHz dual-core Intel Core i7
• 8GB RAM (aftermarket)
• Crucial C300 128GB Solid-State Drive (root filesystem) – solid state drives are, hands-down, the best way to improve computer performance.
• MCE OptiBay replacing the DVD drive (a waste of space) with the original Apple 500GB HDD (holding symlinked directories for ~/Pictures, ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media, and GarageBand’s big library. )
• 1993 IBM Model M Keyboard via PS/2-to-USB converter (my favorite “new” toy.)
• Apple Magic Trackpad – Initially an experiment, I’m surprised by just how much I love it. I’ve gone completely mouseless now and use multi-touch gestures all the time. (It also rocks drawing selections and slices with my fingers.)
• A good, employer-supplied Dell 24″ Widescreen Monitor that serves as the main external monitor. I put my OS X dock on the left side of this screen, and the notebook display sits to the right atop an aluminum Griffin Elevator stand.
• My most-used software consists of:
• OS X Lion. I love developing on OS X because it’s my favorite Unix-based desktop workstation.
• A web browser. Most days I use all of them for testing, and one for development. I switch my defaults every few months not out of intention, but necessity, as either Firefox or Chrome is bound to have some little bug in their released-every-6-weeks “stable” version that drives me nuts.
  I make heavy use of the WebKit inspector for most of my CSS work.
• Coda for code editing and file management. I’m tempted to try a more command line-based workflow with bash and Vim.
• WordPress is the basis for most of my development projects. I’ve been on it since 2005 and love making cool stuff with it for my clients. For the last year I’ve been developing child themes on the Genesis Framework, which adds a bit of power for site administrators, and an awesome hooks and filters API for theme developers.
• Hosting totally depends on the need:
• Linode hosts my own virtual private server, which runs Debian 6 and services I administer myself.
• I have my important work stuff on a managed Media Temple (dv), which basically serves the same purpose as my Linode, but has smarter people responsible for its uptime.
• I usually host smaller clients on Media Temple (gs), and larger ones on either (dv) or a Liquid Web VPS. If someone has tech skills and a low budget, I highly recommend NearlyFreeSpeech.NET, and if you don’t have tech skills and still need to host a site for $5 a month, I’ll tell you, “You get what you pay for,” and then smirk when you ask me why your site is down and who can help restore your stuff.
• Git with gitosis for version control. Currently on a private git installation, but I’m looking into BitBucket now that it offers free unlimited private repositories. (GitHub is neat, but not cost efficient for small businesses who need a lot of private repos.)
• Rdio to stream my jams, and Facebook to publicly shame myself for referring to them as “my jams.” I wonder how I’d like Spotify instead.
• Sparrow for my email: this is an awesome native email client that is purpose-built for Gmail, instead of just a weak IMAP interface. It unifies my personal and work email (which for some reason I think is a good idea) and lets me reduce the window down to one narrow column like my Twitter and RSS feed apps.
• 1Password for all the passwords I can’t keep in my brain (Mac client, Browser client, iOS client, Android client… It’s everywhere I am.)
• Dropbox for my “Documents” folder (on all my devices.)
• Reeder for my Google Reader RSS feeds.
• iChat for Instant Messaging – I hated iChat until the updated Lion version.
• VMware Fusion 3 for my web test environments of Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows XP, and a sundry of fun new Linux distributions.

Out and about on the smartphone:

Since so much of my work and play is tech-related, usually any place outside work and home is a return to the “real world,” so I accordingly dial the tech down to just my smartphone. (Just a smartphone?) I even don’t walk around with earphones in very often any more. (But when I do, they’re V-Moda Remix Remotes, which are hands-down the favorite of 50+ kinds of earbuds I’ve tried over the years, a search which I hated the need to do.)

I do all my communication through Google Voice and don’t even give out my real cell number. Google Voice rocks, and support for it is the one thing that has dedicated me to the Android platform (though Sprint’s network-level GV integration makes the iPhone an option again.)

If I’m at a café alone, I might bring along my Amazon Kindle (Third generation, WiFi + 3G, no ads).

At home:

I finally got back to a setup I’ve had once before and really see as necessary: separate spaces for sleep, work, and play. Having different rooms for each is such a psychological help for me to focus on working – or relaxing. The kind of things I do with tech at home are a bit more casual and passive – I’ll watch Netflix on my PlayStation 3, and do my various Web feed or Readability reading on either my MacBook, my iPad, or my smartphone. I find that I still prefer the MacBook for any task that isn’t just reading books or feeds- it’s just the most flexible and fast way for me to get to what I want. I think tablet devices like the iPad have already bested PCs for normal folks’ home computer use needs, and might eventually be so for me as well.

For audio work or extended listening, I use Sony MDR-V6 over-the-ear headphones. They’re comfortable and have excellent sound. They were purchased last year with birthday money from my grandparents, one of whom passed away a couple of months later, and thus I’m reminded of her every time I put them on.

Trends and reflections

The transition from university to professional web development definitely created a need to separate work and play. The iPad came along and helped a lot with that; I consider it to be a “lean-back laptop,” or a device which makes leisure activities a lot less “computer-y” or absorbing.

At the same time, the way I get work done has, by necessity, gotten a lot more intense and multitasked. Developing web front ends means testing everything in multiple browser and OS combinations. Caring about fonts means triple-checking rendering everywhere. But as this stuff has gotten a lot more broad, support for web standards has also grown immensely, so I find myself needing to fix far fewer browser rendering glitches.

Apple took mobile apps to stratospheric heights in 2008; now Android is a major player, and the struggle between native and web-based apps has matured but not resolved itself. I find that I actually use only a couple of third-party apps on my smartphone, since almost everything is done through either a browser or an app bundled with the device.