My Tools of the Trade
Inspired by Mike Gunderloy I thought I’d share my setup used for everyday development.
Hardware
Plain & simple - 15" MacBook Pro, mid-2009. Just switched from 13” white MacBook and I love the speed boost it gave me. I find Wireless Mighty Mouse very comfortable and useful, and it frees up an USB port. Apple Keyboard (full size) is a clear win. 500GB disk used for Time Machine backups and an additional 320GB 2.5” drive for extra storage.
At the office I use an extra 19” display - good enough to display logs.
And yeah, iPhone, of course.
Software
Snow Leopard- early adoption wasn't too painful after all, and it actually might be running a little faster than good ol' 10.5,Safari- my primary browser, used both for development and everyday browsing, boosted with heavily customized Glims,Quicksilver- as I heavy keyboard user I find this application a must, goes great combined withDockables,1Password- can't imagine a better credentials manager, I feel completely lost without it,Adium- I don't like IM that much, but we use it at work. I always run beta versions of Adium, they're stable and offer some nice features!Firefox- used from time to time for development, when Safari's debugger's not enough and with the decline of Firebug's quality and workflow Safari stands strong,Fluid- standalone web applications generator, I use it forGoogle Reader,InstapaperandBlipwith custom styles and userscripts,ForkLift- did I mention I'm a keyboard guy, with a strong Norton Commander / Total Commander background?FStream- I can't focus on work without music and this is a simple Internet radio streaming application,GitX- still working out mygitworkflow and GitX helps a lot,GrandPerspective- shows a graph of files and folders the hogging hard drive, really useful,HTTPScoop- used for local debugging, for online testing I prefer Hurl,Paperless- my document repository, invoices, agreements and such,Parallels- with Windows XP, Ubuntu and Ubuntu Server for cross-browser tweaks and server setup testing,Pixelmator- I'm the last person who should do anything with graphics but sometimes I really have to. Pixelmator's learning curve is acceptable and it does everything I need too,Sequel Pro- Sequel's Pro nightlies are stable and robust with some features that current stable's missing,SizeUp- again, keyboard lovers, resize / move your windows with a 4-finger combos,Skitch- great for screenshots with annotations,TextMate- enough said,Things- great task manager with phone sync (Ireallyneed a phone sync for offline usage),tunnelblick- for my company's VPN,Tweetie- I'm more a reader than writer and Tweetie's great for that.
There’s also a few other applications that I use but those are essential - I keep them in my Dock.
Hosting
For my pet projects and fun stuff I use IntoVPS with Server Density monitoring. For production we have an in-house server farm. I’m looking into SliceHost / Linode for production of some smaller private stuff.