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The Setup: Zed Shaw

zed.shaw.usesthis.com

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Re: The Setup: Zed Shaw

#51

Post by gtani »

gtani wrote: post #39
pygy_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macs are actually remarkably serviceable, thanks to their limited product range, and iFixit. My only computer is a tweaked 5 years old MacBook Pro, underclocked to 1 GHz for stability reasons. I've replaced the optical drive with a big hard disk, and the primary hard disk with an SDD. Stock 2GB of RAM. Except for CPU-bound tasks (mostly HD videos, and the ocasional ./configure && make && sudo make install), it flies.

The earliest MBP's probably need that heat paste thing redone, but 2008 and later Core Duo 2 MBP generally last as long as you don't flex the logic board (don't carry it by one corner), and keep it reasonably cool. One of hte older generation MBP had clips for logicboard that were ver fragile. For linux, the US$7-800 core i5 toshibas and HP laptops at Costco work pretty well, except for wifi on the Realtek chip set.…

Uh, that's gig of RAM. Heh

Re: The Setup: Zed Shaw

#52

Post by keithpeter »

gtani wrote: post #39
pygy_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macs are actually remarkably serviceable, thanks to their limited product range, and iFixit. My only computer is a tweaked 5 years old MacBook Pro, underclocked to 1 GHz for stability reasons. I've replaced the optical drive with a big hard disk, and the primary hard disk with an SDD. Stock 2GB of RAM. Except for CPU-bound tasks (mostly HD videos, and the ocasional ./configure && make && sudo make install), it flies.

The earliest MBP's probably need that heat paste thing redone, but 2008 and later Core Duo 2 MBP generally last as long as you don't flex the logic board (don't carry it by one corner), and keep it reasonably cool. One of hte older generation MBP had clips for logicboard that were ver fragile. For linux, the US$7-800 core i5 toshibas and HP laptops at Costco work pretty well, except for wifi on the Realtek chip set.…

"For linux, the US$7-800 core i5 toshibas and HP laptops at Costco work pretty well, except for wifi on the Realtek chip set."

Keyboards: Lenovo E350 (AMD) and Dell dell XPS L502X were ok in the shop, but the rest flexed badly when I typed.

Re: The Setup: Zed Shaw

#54

Post by pandeiro »

dbbo wrote: post #9

I thought it was a bit odd that he wrote 7 paragraphs about music equipment and software, but didn't mention which GNU/Linux distribution(s) he uses on his "junky" laptops.

He mentioned he uses awesome, which probably means he's not using Ubuntu. Just my speculation.

Re: The Setup: Zed Shaw

#55

Post by dlsspy »

efsavage wrote: post #45
dlsspy wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took me years to consider using vim over plain vi. After fifteen years or so of vi I ended up switching to emacs. I've worked with really awesome people who are completely lost without [insert proprietary single-platform editor here].

> I've worked with really awesome people who are completely lost without [insert proprietary single-platform editor here]. And this is bad why? I'd rather be 100% productive for 10 years and then retool than 80% productive all the time.

This is bad because he was 0% productive for many days because he couldn't input text on the computer where the problem was because it didn't have his editor.

Re: The Setup: Zed Shaw

#56

Post by m0shen »

brndnhy wrote: post #31

Wow. Thanks for the Reaper tip. Very impressive effort there, and for $60... Nuts!

Not to mention that you can download the fully functional evaluation version, including several plugins in an 8mb package.

It is a remarkable piece of software.

Re: The Setup: Zed Shaw

#57

Post by crag »

njharman wrote: post #50
crag wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't use vim. God, I've tried, and tried. I'm too old. I just can't do it. So I stick with a big IDE (or Sublime 2 which I'm liking more and more). I had to telnet into a Centos box recently and the only thing I could find was vi. Took me a few minutes but I managed. I was proud. ;)

> I had to telnet Knowing/using ssh way more important than vi/vim.

I do use ssh. I call it telnet since ssh is just telnet on roids.

Re: The Setup: Zed Shaw

#58

Post by jasonlotito »

andrewljohnson wrote: post #10

Everyone I see in these kind of articles uses old hardware and small screens. I feel like it is selection bias - it makes for a better story when the rock stars don't use the best tools. When I moved from an old Mac to a tricked out iMac, my apps compiled 10x as fast. I suppose it's nice to know you can write good software on any box, but it's worthwhile to have good tools for something you spend many hours on each d…

Check out Gabriel Weinberg's (DDG) setup.

http://gabriel.weinberg.usesthis.com/

Re: The Setup: Zed Shaw

#60

Post by zedshaw »

Homunculiheaded wrote: post #14

Not long about I accidentally ruined the keyboard on my oldish white macbook, I debated spending cash I really didn't need to spend on a nice new macbook air. But after giving it some good thought I decided to just go ahead and replace the topcase myself. While deciding this I realized it's rather a shame that in our hacker culture there's still somewhat of a fetishism for having a sleek new laptop, and that it would…

That's pretty much the point. I'm more about the results I get with the tech than what brand or style the tech is in. Since my software is used by people, I have to try to use what they have but maybe a bit better so I don't waste time.

One thing I didn't mention in that article, since it's not the point of the article, is I really only buy computer equipment when there's a real time/money advantage involved. It's not about "junk machines == bad ass hacker dude". It's more that they're just tools for me and I don't fetishize them.

Now, guitar stuff. That's a whole other bag of fetish fun for me. :-)

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