My last interaction with Mick was 17 days ago on Twitter, with this delightful little interchange: @johnchidgey “When the new Mac Pro is released, how long before a pile of scrap paper builds on top as it is mistaken for a desktop rubbish bin?” @persistentgecko “A mallet will be placed beside the machine to allow the owner to use on people who treat it like a bin.” Light-hearted and always with a humerous twist, Mick couldn’t help himself and I loved it.

Like many other people I have met on Twitter from time to time a few days pass without a word and I realised that Mick hadn’t commented on anything I’d said. As always I shrugged it off because sometimes people have internet problems, take a break from the internet (sometimes just social networks) or get very busy at work; but then a Tweet from my good Twitter friend Clinton Philips (@clinton1550) pointed me towards this, and I then knew that Mick was dead.

Mick and I first crossed paths online at the Australian MacWorld forums when I was trading under the pseudonym “AppleConvert” but when I left the forums and moved to Twitter we followed each other and kept in touch. Apart from our love of all things Apple, Mick lived in Townsville - a city that I had spent a bit of time working in and I had an affinity for, and we shared a love for the Strand and its views of Magnetic Island. He would post The Strand view of Magnetic Island regularly on Twitter sometimes I thought to make me jealous as I was based in Brisbane some 1,350+ kilometres (850+ miles) away.

He was an avid listener of the Exastential podcast and was always interacting with myself and Clinton after every show. When we put the podcast on hiatus after twenty episodes (which it is still on) Mick would beg us to start podcasting again. We didn’t have a big audience but we had a huge fan in Mick Devlin.

When I put TechDistortion on hiatus nearly four months ago, Mick commented that he enjoyed reading it and wanted me to keep writing some day. I did return and Mick once again was a regular reader of my work, piping up with feedback and on some occasions helped me to prune my work when I’d made mistakes.

I’d never met him in person but that hasn’t made his loss any less real to me. I value my friends on Twitter that interact with me and who enjoy what I do. Mick was one of my best Twitter friends and I will sorely miss our conversations. Rest in peace my friend.