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Stuff I Use

Hardware

Photo of my desktop setup

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

Screenshot of my browser

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.

Screenshot of my editor

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.

Screenshot of my terminal

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.

Screenshot of NetNewsWire

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

Screenshot of Syncthing

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.