Design Nine/Cohill: Fine Tools

I am asked from time to time what tools I use in my work. This is a list of a few of the tools that I consider "best of class."

	iBook	My iBook laptop is hands down the finest computer I have owned--ever. Light, compact, and powerful, it is a brilliant fusing of outstanding industrial design and superior software. Made by Apple.
	Japanese hand saws	My Japanese handsaws far surpass any American-made saw for ease of use, versatility, and precision. They are a pleasure to use, and are faster (and quieter) for most tasks than noisy and dangerous circular saws. I buy my saws and other Japanese woodworking tools from The Japan Woodworker.
	DataDesk split keyboard	If you have never used a split keyboard, it's hard to describe what you are missing. I've been using a split keyboard for nearly ten years. I started because of pain in my wrists; the keyboard eliminated the pain. The DataDesk keyboard is both small and well-designed, and one of the very few keyboards that has fine touches like larger keys on the outer edges, so your little finger has a bigger target. Made by Datadesk Technologies.

	Boswell	Boswell is a leader in a new class of tools that don't yet have a proper category name--to call Boswell an information manager does not do it justice. Boswell is brilliantly executed; a small, fast tool that is designed to store every chunk of text (e.g. email, notes, letters, reports, etc) that you have now and ever will have. The breakthrough concept for Boswell is virtual notebooks, which neatly sidesteps all of the problems of traditional databases and their requirement to have things in only one place. With Boswell, you can have the same piece of information in as many places (notebooks) as you like, without ever duplicating the original information. Boswell is made by Copernican Technologies.
	Sticky Brain	Sticky Brain is one these small, thoughtfully designed pieces of software that does one thing extremely well--provide a "sticky notes" interface on your computer. A rich and beautiful interface provides as many sets of sticky notes as you need. The product comes from Chronos.
	BBEdit	BBEdit is a text editor, but it is one so finely honed from years of use and continual redesign that it hardly seems fair to lump with other "text editor" software. It began as a programmer's editor, but has evolved into a highly capable system that is tightly integrated with both Unix and the Macintosh. BBEdit is made by Bare Bones Software.