Dear BBEdit,

I know you are one powerhouse of a text editor. And we’ve been together for a long time; since that MacWorld Expo in Boston way back when. But, sad to say, you’re showing your age. The features are still there, and so is the speed, but the interface and the appearance, well…

If you look around at the competition, you’ll see some much more becoming looks. Now I am no fan of Sublime Text’s distinctly un-Mac-like preferences and settings, but you have to admit, it looks slick. Atom has “borrowed” most of that look, along with many of the the un-Mac-like parts.

And watch out for the oddly named Chocolat, it’s got a modern look and feels like a real Mac application. Panic does a fine job with all their software and Coda brings together the power of a web development IDE with the design sense of a leading developer. I wish that you were keeping up.

You made it here, but you might have expected to end up somewhere else.

“Here” used to be a long-standing WordPress site. Now “here” is at the same domain (bobrockefeller.com), but on a different site framework; now it’s Statamic. The old site is still running and still has the same content as always, it’s just at Robert Rockefeller now.

That content will probably stay over there until it’s too old to matter or no longer visited by anyone. Some of it, the most recent or popular posts, will be transferred here over time. But, for the most part, this is a fresh start. And I’m feeling pretty good about that. It’s fresh from the point of view that the design is very different. And fresh because it’s a new framework. But fresh mostly because I feel more comfortable in writing at this site.

I’ve long wanted to move off WordPress. Not because it was exactly bad; it’s just so complicated sometimes with the theme frameworks, child themes, plug-ins, hooks and endless security updates for every plug-in and every theme on what seems like a once a week routine. But I always hesitated because I do get a little bit of traffic and some people seem to be finding part of the content to be useful. I didn’t want to break all that up.

I’ve been experimenting with the Perch CMS lately. My quest for the “just right” CMS seems to be never-ending as I’ve worked my way though Kirby, SilverStripe, concrete5 and back to WordPress over the last year or so. I suppose I’m looking for the right mix of “fun to work in,” flexible and powerful.

This will not be a formal review of the product, but I do want to highlight a couple of the features of Perch that stand out to me.

Clean Code

Unlike many CMSs, Perch does not generate code of its own (with the exception noted later). Instead, you use all of your own markup and simply insert Perch’s template tags (HTML) or page tags (PHP) where you want something from Perch to go.

That means Perch works with your code style; you don’t have to work with Perch’s. You create CSS classes named as you’d like. And you write your HTML markup in whatever way suits you. If you have CSS frameworks or PHP code libraries to support your design, go right ahead and use them as if there were no Perch. It doesn’t care.

Earlier this month I wrote about the tools I use for web development going into 2014. This post is intended to serve the same purpose for my photographic tools. That is, the documentation of a point in time.

My primary camera is the Nikon D3 with a selection of lenses including the 105mm F2.8 VR Micro, the 70-200mm F2.8 VRII, the 24-120mm F4.0 and the 17-35 F2.8. This setup allows me to do anything I can think of, and much more than I am capable of. But all of its components share a few traits: they are excellent, big and heavy.

Going into 2014, I’ve added an Olympus OM-D E-M1 with the 12-40mm F2.8 and 60mm F2.8 Macro lenses as a secondary camera system. Since it’s a micro four-thirds format camera, it is much smaller and lighter than most other full-capability, interchangeable lens cameras. But the quality of the images it produces and the assurance of its build and handling make it a very attractive alternative to the D3. I doubt you’ll see the likes of Joe McNally or Scott Kelby starting a switch to mirrorless cameras, but David duChemin, David Hobby and Zack Arias are making serious moves in that direction.