I’ve spent some time browsing everyone else’s uses page for new tools, so I figured it was time to share my own!
Updated: September, 2024
Hardware
- iPhone 14 Pro: This thing is an ergonomic nightmare!
(Previous: iPhone 11, also ergonomic nightmare; many more iPhones) - 2021, 16 inch MacBook Pro (M1 Pro): by far my favourite Mac I’ve owned!
(Previously: Mid-2014, Mid-2011, Early-2008, Late-2004 13-inch iBook) - Dell 27″ 4K Monitor (P2715Q): For doing serious work (when I’m not just on the couch with my laptop). It’s starting to show it’s age.
- Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard: I’ll probably replace these with something more reliable in the future. The mouse died long ago.
- Logitech MX Vertical: great ergonomics, and I love that it functions as a corded mouse via USB-C when needed. But: no horizontal scroll in 2021?!
- Rain Design mStand: I’ve had this one for over a decade and still love it!
- Sony WH-1000MX4: supposedly the best noise cancelling head phones at the time. But they’re not. And they’re frustratingly buggy.
- Airpods (second generation)
Development
- WordPress: My go-to CMS
- Vue: My go-to front-end framework
- Visual Studio Code: Dark theme with Fira Code
- Fork: For the times when a git UI is helpful or easier. But I usually just use VS Code’s git integration or the CLI.
- Safari: For browsing
- Firefox: For development
- Edge: For testing
- Terminal/zsh: Haven’t found a reason to switch back to bash yet.
- Sequel Pro: I don’t love it, but it usually works well enough.
- Docker (Compose): Even for simple containers, I generally keep a
docker-compose
file rather than remembering the CLI flags. - Lando: A newer addition to my toolkit, but it’s become indispensable. One simple ‘yml’ file can make life so much easier.
- Honourable mention: ddev
- 1Password: Absolutely indispensable. I have over a decade’s worth of passwords, software licenses, important documents, etc. stored here.
- Transmit: All the polish you expect from a well-designed Mac app. Useful to avoid installing all of the cloud storage apps.
Misc. Software
Just some other of my favourites that I can’t not mention.
- Things
- Actual budget: self-hosted
- Plex
Photography Gear
- Fujifilm X-T20: 16–80 mm / 18–55 mm
- Peak Design Leash: much more comfortable than Fuji’s strap!
- Peak Design 20L Everyday Backpack (v2)
- Darkroom: since becoming available on macOS I’ve decided I don’t need Lightroom anymore. Granted it doesn’t do nearly as much, but works great for my amateur needs. iCloud integration is 😍.
- Pixelmator Pro: for the times Darkroom isn’t enough.
Home Server
- Motherboard: Super micro X10SL7-F
- CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1220L v3 (low power)
- RAM: 8GB ECC
- OS: Ubuntu 22.04
Web Server
- Ubuntu 22.04 hosted on LunaNode m.2 VPS
- Apache/MariaDB/PHP 8 FPM