The Setup

UPDATE: I am now maintaining my setup at /setup.

##Who am I and what do I do I’m Shashank Mehta, an Electronics & Communication undergrad at IIT Roorkee. I code, play squash and critic my institute in the official campus news magazine where I’m an editor.

My mornings and afternoons are spent in classes (if I’m able wake up, that is), evenings at the squash courts and the nights working on interesting stuff.

##What Hardware do I use I own a Dell Inspiron 15R, which packs an i5 processor, 4GB RAM, 640GB HDD, NVIDIA GT 525M graphics card and a 15.6 inch screen. I hate its 720p resolution. I use Seagate’s 1TB Expansion Portable Hard Disk for storing my media and backup.

I use Roland Cube 20XL amplifier as my speaker system and I absolutely love it. I play guitar and own ESP F50, which has two single coil pickups. I use B-Speech’s Calypso Bluetooth headphones when I feel like going wire free.

A Sony Xperia U serves my calling and messaging needs. Sony gave up on it at 4.0 ICS but thanks to the good folks at XDA, it’s now running 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. I use this device for capturing photos, whatsapp, and music on the go. I also own a dumb Samsung dual sim phone whose battery lasts nearly 5 days. I use this phone when I go on trips.

My main consumption device is Nexus 7 (2012) 32GB 3G, which I use for general web browsing, reading, YouTube and casual gaming.

I’m currently working on a departmental project using an Arduino Uno and a Cubie Board. I also own a Leap Motion but I’m yet to make an app for that.

##And What Software? Till a month ago I was using Ubuntu 12.10 + Gnome 3.6 combination. Now I have switched to ElementaryOS Luna and there’s no turning back. It is smoother and way faster than Ubuntu.

I browse the web using Chrome. Music is served by Noise, the default music app on ElementaryOS. It is pretty good. Sublime Text 2 is my text editor of choice. I create and edit all documents in Google Drive. Dropbox holds all my important files. I use imo.im to stay connected to SDSLabs’ partychat and GTalk. Feedly and Hacker News keep me updated about the world.

I absolutely love Redshift which slowly warms the colors of your screen based on the time of day. This helps me work late in the nights without straining my eyes. I use Twilight on my android devices for the same purpose.

I use Terminator for command line fu. All my projects are version controlled using Git. SCM Breeze and autojump are the two command line tools I use the most. I prefer writing my own bash scripts for tasks like backup, file format conversion etc.

Workflowy helps me keep all my ideas and notes organized and I hope that they launch an android app soon.

My Nexus 7 is on the latest and greatest android, 4.3 Jelly Bean. The apps that I can’t live without are AirDroid, Mantano reader, Chrome, YouTube, Pocket, 8tracks, Google Keep, Press and Draft. I have quite a few casual games but the one I keep returning to is Super Hexagon.

##What would be your dream setup?

Realistically speaking, the new MacBook Pro is easily my dream laptop because of form factor and battery life. I’d like an iPhone 5S or some Nokia Lumia because of the epic camera in a phone (or is it the other way round, phone in an epic camera?). I’m very happy with my Nexus 7.

Futuristically, I imagine a world where battery life is not an issue. This I think will be more due to great advances in wireless charging than battery life in itself. I also would love my devices to be in absolute sync and connected, even devices like TV, fridge, switches etc. Google Chromecast is one step in that direction.

About Shashank Mehta:

Heading product for RazorpayX, building the future of business banking. Early bird (#7) at @Razorpay. Forever hoarse throat thanks to ManUtd.

Follow me on twitter. I don't tweet a lot though. Bummer, right?