Software I use, gadgets I love, and other things I recommend.
I get asked a lot about the things I use to build software, stay productive, or buy to fool myself into thinking I’m being productive when I’m really just procrastinating. Here’s a big list of all of my favorite stuff.
Workstation
16” MacBook Pro, M1 Pro, 16GB RAM (2021)
I've been a Mac user since 2005 and this has been the best Mac I've ever used in that timeframe. It felt like a huge outlay when I bought it, but the utility of this laptop is unlike any other I've ever used. It has a great screen, works pretty damn fast and is my go to device for day-to-day coding.
Custom PC, 5950x CPU, 64GB RAM and a 3090 GPU
Building your own PC is a rite of passage I believe everyone should go through. I love mine, it's built in a Fractal Terra case so it looks beautiful on my desk. It doesn't have the best thermals, but it does the trick. I've got it set up to dual boot into Windows and Arch Linux.
Apple Studio Display
A 27-inch, 5k monitor with great colours at a crazy price. I used to run 2x4k monitors, but for the sake of simplicity, I decided to minimise my desk footprint and move to a single display. I love the look, but honestly, 60hz? It's 2024, Apple, sort it out.
Rama Works U80-A Seq 2
I waited for 2 years to receive this keyboard and absolutely adore it. That being said, don't buy anything from Rama Works now in 2024, they seem to have turned into a scam company after years of enthusiast support.
Logitech G Pro X Superlight
I used to use an MX Master like everyone else, but as I got more into PC gaming, I wanted a mouse that was a lot lighter and smoother to move around. This mouse fit the bill nicely.
Herman Miller Embody Chair
If I’m going to slouch in the worst ergonomic position imaginable all day, I might as well do it in an expensive chair.
Development tools
VSCode
There are many camps of text editor/ide, but my daily driver is currently VSCode. It has every extension under the sun to make it behave exactly how you want it to and give you every feature you need. It opens fast, works with every programming language I've tried, probably my most complete, one stop shop dev tool that I use.
Kitty
I spend most of my time between a terminal and a text editor, I love Kitty due to its extensibility and speed. I'm sure there are other great options, but I see no current reason to change.
Neovim
I install Neovim on all my VMs and is my default editor on all machines I remote into for work. It has features which plain VI doesn't have, and while the built in nano packages are great, having a few extra features is always helpful when jumping into an ssh session.
Productivity
Bear
A great notes app, not the most complete out there, but it is beautiful.
Bitwarden
You don't use the same password on every website do you? Get a password manager. I use Bitwarden, it's open source and has all the features I need. You can use whichever one you want.
Pomo CLI
I'm a big fan of the pomodoro technique for helping me to focus on what I'm doing and to stay on task. I have tried many different solutions from using a pomo timer in the browser to using a timer on my phone. I find that all the options take me out of focus mode, so I built my own CLI tool to use as a pomodoro timer. You can get instructions for how to install it here.
Arc Browser
I don't know why I hate Google Chrome, but I do. I'm always on the lookout for a browser that isn't Chrome, but I've never managed to settle on one until Arc Browser. It's based on Chromium, so you can have all your Chrome essentials, but the way it's put together really helps with multi tasking. I'm still getting to know this browser really, but as it stands, I don't see any reason why I would switch back to Google Chrome.
Raindrop.io
I read a lot on the internet. I've always struggled with bookmarks in Chrome and Read Later in Safari. I came across Raindrop.io as a bookmark manager. It's still very much in Beta for me, but I like it so far.