When I started thinking about who I wanted as the first installment of “Show Me Your Pixels” I knew I wanted it to be someone who I’ve known for quite a while in Internet land. I’m pretty sure Steve was one of the first three Mac developer blogs I subscribed to when I switched all those years ago.
Who are you and what do you do?
I’m Steve! I help make Mac software at Panic.
What apps do you jump between most during the day?
Depends on which hat I’m wearing today. Programmer hat lately, so: Xcode, Mail, Safari, iChat, and Echofon. I oddly don’t run very much 3rd-party software. I don’t even have a non-Apple desktop picture. I think subconsciously I try to get by with what’s offered by the 1st-party apps because it’s less mental “stuff” and you can get up and running on a new (or wiped) Mac quickly.
What app is your secret weapon/essential?
That’s a tough one. Dropbox is probably the single most useful utility I’ve installed in years – but I could still get work done without it. I would miss 1Password a lot. I’m sorry, these aren’t very original answers.
Oh! Cinch is really handy for quickly putting two windows into a perfectly aligned side-by-side layout. I was using Notational Velocity pretty heavily, but for a few days now I’ve gone back to trying to eat my own dog food with my web notes app, W2.
What app doesn’t exist that should to fill a void for you?
A notes app with native web, Mac, and iOS clients which supports rich (or Markdown) formatting on all three, and can do inter-note linking. There are a ton of apps in this space, but you can only get at most 2 of those 3 features in any one app.
Launchbar, Quicksilver, Alfred or…?
LaunchBar, then QuickSilver, then LaunchBar again, currently Spotlight, and I wouldn’t be surprised if LaunchBar came back around again eventually.
Show Me Your Pixels is a recurring series on carpeaqua where developers, artists and other creatives from all walks of life share an at-work screenshot of their desktop. No minimalism. No cleanup. Just real-world work environments. You can view previous installments.