Stuff I Use
Hardware
- Computer — MacBook Pro 16" (M1 Max, 2021)
- Superb performance. Crazy expensive though.
- Monitors — Dell UltraSharp U2720Q 27" (2x)
- Great image quality for the price. My only gripe is that they’re USB-C, not Thunderbolt, so I can’t daisy-chain them.
- Monitor arm — VIVO Dual Mount
- I don’t really move my monitors, so this cheap arm works perfectly fine for me.
- Webcam — Logitech StreamCam
- Decent image quality. A little on the pricier side.
- Microphone — Blue Yeti
- It produces good sound, but it also picks up a lot of noise, even with the gain knob all the way down. I have to rely on Blue VO!CE for noise reduction.
- Headphones — Philips SHP9500
- They’re accurate enough for my untrained ears. Very comfortable too.
- Macro keypad — Elgato Stream Deck MK.2
- 15 programmable keys to play with. I mostly use it to switch input and output devices, and automate tasks (like responding to email).
- Docking station — CalDigit TS4
- I’ve tried a bunch of docking stations, and this is the one that works best with my devices. It has a bit of coil whine, but I don’t care enough to return it.
- Desk — IKEA TROTTEN
- Simple design. I’m always standing, so I’m not bothered by the crank.
Some of those are affiliate links, which give me a small kickback at no cost to you.
Software
- Browser — Safari
- It’s the lesser evil. I’ve tried Ungoogled Chromium, and it works great, but I can’t put that much trust in some random repo. I still use Chrome and Firefox for development, because their tooling is way better than Safari’s.
- Browser extensions — Bitwarden, 1Blocker / uBlock Origin
- That’s all. I try to keep browser extensions to a minimum, to reduce attack surface.
- Editor — Visual Studio Code
- I still do some stuff with Vim / Neovim, but they require too much tweaking for my taste.
- Editor theme — One Dark
- Based on Atom’s One Dark theme.
- Editor font — Cascadia Code
- I’m a fan of Inconsolata-dz, but Cascadia Code has been growing on me.
- Editor extensions — ESLint, Hex Editor, Prettier, Rewrap, rust-analyzer
- I also try to keep editor extensions to a minimum.
- Terminal — iTerm2
- The built-in Terminal app has been improving a lot, but I can’t live without little things like clicking paths to open them. Alacritty and kitty fall in the same boat.
- Terminal theme — One Dark
- Same as the editor.
- Terminal font — Cascadia Code
- Same as the editor.
- Shell — bash
- Most machines I
ssh
into have bash as their default shell, and I don’t want to think about all the little inconsistencies between it and zsh. I haven’t tried fish yet. - Prompt — Starship
- It works on all the shells and all the operating systems I care about, so I can get a consistent experience just by copying a TOML config file.
- RSS reader — NetNewsWire
- Such a great app.
- Design tool — Figma
- I had used Sketch a bunch in the past, but Figma takes everything to the next level.
- Image editor — Krita
- It’s mostly focused towards illustrators, but it’s great at general image editing too.
- Audio editor — Audacity
- Yeah, the UI looks outdated, but it does a great job.
- Video editor — DaVinci Resolve
- The free version is pretty freaking capable. It’s got quite the learning curve though.
- Password manager — Bitwarden
- When 1Password went subscription-only, I looked around and found Bitwarden. I haven’t looked back.
- VPN client — WireGuard
- Easy to set up, fast, and reliable.
- Window manager — Rectangle
- I’ve also tried Amethyst, a tiling window manager along the lines of xmonad, but it doesn’t fit my workflow.
Services
- File sync — Syncthing
- I got fed up with Dropbox, and ended up switching to Syncthing. No regrets.
- File backup — Hyper Backup
- I use Azure cool storage as destination.
- Code hosting — GitHub
- Who woulda thunk it.
- Web hosting — DreamHost
- It gives me everything I need. Support has always been excellent.
- Search engine — DuckDuckGo
- I’m trying to reduce the amount of personal information I give away. I still rely on
!g
quite a bit though. - VPN server — Algo
- I don’t trust any VPN providers, so I self-host Algo on Azure. It works great with the official WireGuard clients on all my devices.