nerdy bio

Who are you, and what do you do?

My name is Jillian Meehan, and I'm a project manager at an indie iOS studio called Lickability. I also run a biweekly newsletter where my best friend and I share recommendations for things we're watching, listening to, playing, and enjoying. Every once in a while I work on other creative projects, like a zine I made about snacks. And lately I've been really into streaming on Twitch.

What hardware(tools) and software do you use?

I just got a brand new M1 [iMac][], which I love very much because it's purple. (I'm a firm believer that computers should be cute.) I also do a lot of stuff on my [iPad Pro][ipad-pro], although it's mostly a [Genshin Impact][genshin-impact] machine these days. And at night when I get tired of looking at Big Screen™ and want to transition to Small Screen™ I use a [MacBook Pro][macbook-pro] with several broken keys that I'm too lazy to get fixed.

For peripherals, I've got a [Razer Seiren Mini mic][seiren-mini] (I got it because it's pink and adorable), a [Razer Kiyo Pro webcam][kiyo-pro], a [Logitech G733 headset][g733] in lilac (again, adorable), and a pink drink warmer that keeps my tea hot for hours (very important). I also use an [AVerMedia Live Gamer MINI capture card][live-gamer-mini] to stream from my [Nintendo Switch][switch.2], which I modded with a new shell and buttons to be much cuter.

The star of the show is my [Planck keyboard][planck-ez], which currently has banana split switches and a mix of [DSA Magic Girl][magic-girl] and [DSA Astrolokeys keycaps][astrolokeys], and a custom cable from Cookie Cables. I got this keyboard about a month into the pandemic and I've loved using and customizing it so much. I want to give a shoutout to Susan and Amy (who I think have both been on Uses This!) for getting me into mechanical keyboards in the first place, and for their contributions to making the keeb space so much more fun + cute. I owe a lot of my happiness with my workspace to the communities they've created.

The apps that I have open all day on my computer are [Apple Mail][mail], [Fantastical][], [Things][], [Slack][], [Linear][], [Discord][], [Notion][], and [Tweetbot][].

I use [Figma][] for designing stuff, and [VSCode][visual-studio-code] and [GitHub Desktop][github-desktop] for building stuff. For streaming, I use [OBS.Live][] with [Streamlabs][] for alerts and other widgets, [StreamElements][] and [Triggerfyre][] for chatbot commands, and the [Elgato Stream Deck Mobile app][stream-deck-mobile-ios] on my iPad in lieu of an actual stream deck.

Some of my favorite apps right now are [Flow][flow-ios] for Pomodoro timing, [Streaks][streaks-ios] for habit tracking, [Jour][jour-ios] for journaling, and [Duolingo][duolingo-ios] for language learning.

What would be your dream/dream setup?

I feel like I'm just about there, but if there was a way to magically prevent my desk and keyboard from constantly being covered in cat hair, that would really make it perfect. Also, I could really use some better cable management.