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Colophon (That’s a pretentious way of saying “About Me”)
Hey there! My name is Joshua Tompkins, and this is my website.
(There should probably be some ultra-hip photo of me here, but I can’t find one where I’m wearing a ironic enough t-shirt)
As of this writing, I’m 27 years old, and I’m a senior programmer at a growing discount brokerage firm in Gainesville, Florida. I love to write, to draw (though I’m not very good at either), and to write code. I’ve been building websites for a living for almost 9 years, and for fun for about 5 years before that.
I have an amazing girlfriend, a cool apartment, great friends, and the awesomest dog ever born.
I play Dungeons and Dragons, read too much fantasy and scifi, and I have an unhealthy love for Apple products.
Elsewhere
If you’re interested in the other content I produce, I post (infrequently) on Twitter, mostly about dorky stuff, have a few photos available on my Flickr photostream, and tend to post most of the interesting things I see during the day to my Delicious feed.
About This Site
Read Letters (past tense, get it?) runs on Tumblr, an easy-to-use blogging framework. I love Tumblr - it’s the easiest way to get my thoughts onto the proverbial paper, and in my experience, if blogging isn’t easy, I just don’t do it. I’ve got nearly a decade of abandoned blog designs to prove it, too.
My domain (www.joshuatompkins.us) is hosted by MediaTemple. MediaTemple has one of the most technically interesting hosting setups around, and they’ve got a kick-ass iPhone app to manage them.
My Home Setup
I do most of my personal work on a Mac, specifically the Late 2008 Unibody MacPook. I’ve thought about upgrading to the new 13.3” MacBook Pro, but with the exception of the non-replaceable battery, it’s no different from my current laptop (I sprang for the top-of-the-line MacBook back in November), so I’ve managed to avoid the temptation so far.
I use a Rain Design mStand and a 22” Dell LCD monitor when I’m at home, paired with an Apple Wired Keyboard and a Logitech MX1000 laser mouse.
I do most of my design work in Photoshop, Illustrator, and (for personal projects) Coda. I upload files to the site with Transmit. For coding that’s beyond Coda’s capabilities, I turn to Textmate and Visual Studio (under emulation). Anything I write that’s not on a webpage somewhere was probably written in Apple’s iWork.
