Uses This

Who are you, and what do you do?

I'm Sarah Brin, and I'm a curator specializing in technology, public space, and participation. I work at the Autodesk Pier 9 workshop in San Francisco, which is a fancy digital fabrication facility where I work with artists, public installations, and other experimental programs intended to delight and inspire people.

I also do a lot of extracurricular work around artist-made videogames and museums. I believe in popular media's potential for affecting cultural change, and a lot of my projects not-so-secretly hinge on that belief.

What hardware do you use?

Despite working in a digital fabrication facility with a ton of sophisticated machinery, the hardware I use on a day-to-day basis is pretty simple! I use a MacBook Air, a wireless Evoluent 4 VerticalMouse, a Goldtouch laptop stand, a Logitech K810 external keyboard and a 24 in. Viewsonic LED monitor. And a wrist rest. The ergonomic stuff is pretty essential because I got carpal tunnel in both hands real bad when I was in grad school, and if I slack on my computer habits (or grip my phone too much), it comes back.

When I work from home, I am very, very dependent on my Sonos PLAY:1 and my ever-slowing iPhone 5s. I have a Canon PIXMA MG5620 wireless printer, and it's slower than I'd like.

And what software?

Nothing too fancy. Everything I write, from grocery lists to magazine articles, starts as an email draft, either in Outlook or Gmail. I use both Pages and Word equally, same with Excel and Numbers. But for presentations, I only use Keynote. I'm pretty dependent on Tomato Timer for multitasking, and I keep my running to-do list on Trello. I am extremely dependent on Spotify, Chrome and Sunrise.

What would be your dream setup?

My dream setup would have lots and lots of natural light, a good sound system and leafy plants. And a nice big labrador. I'd need a lot of table space so I could spread out all my dumb scribbly drafts, floor plans and reference books. (So far I'm just describing my friends' Steve and Michelle's house in Los Angeles - I've done all of my best writing while watching their dogs while they were on vacation!)

I'd like a proper desktop iMac, too. And more colored pencils. And more pictures of my friends.

Uses This is supported by ZSA, makers of the Moonlander, ErgoDox EZ and Planck EZ keyboards. They also publish an awesome newsletter.