Tools I Use to Do What I Do

No affilitate links, no sponsorships, just the tools and software that I use for my day job as well as my side projects.

Workstation

  • 16” MacBook Pro, M2 Pro, 16GB RAM (2022) - Work

    I still thought my M1 Pro was fantastic when I switched jobs and was upgraded to this machine. Almost a year later now and I still regret ever doubting the Mac ARM was a good move.

  • 13” MacBook Air, M3, 16GB RAM (2023) - Personal

    My side projects and freelancing are much less demanding on resources than my day job and the new MacBook Airs are magnitudes better than the older Intel-based ones. It's a great trade off between power and portability. Warning: the midnight blue shows every, single fingerprint. Even the ones you haven't left yet.

  • Apple Magic Mouse

    Gave the TouchPad a try but ultimately settled on a traditional mouse. Bottom-charging memes aside, this thing Just Works(TM), and that's what I need a majority of the time.

  • Keychron K4 with MX Browns

    I was team Mx Blues for most of my career, but switched to browns because they were less sharp in meetings or recordings. Still miss blues. Keykron K4 is a great entry-level keyboard and one of few with Mac settings and both Windows and Mac key caps included.

Development tools

  • JetBrains IDEs

    Mostly WebStorm, but which ever of their IDEs makes the most sense. Was a hardcore Atom then VSCode user for years but got sucked back into JetBrains ecosystem back where things began with PHPStorm at my first job. Bullish on the newer "IDE for any language" experiments that they are doing.

  • DataGrip

    DataGrip, also from JetBrains, is the easiest way for me to be able to stay productive when switching between a number of database engines between day job and beyond.

Design

  • Figma

    I'm not a designer, and I don't play one on TV, but Figma is still the easiest tool for me to create rough ideas, flowcharts, or wireframes to demonstrate or map out an idea.

Productivity

  • Obsidian MD

    Fair forewarning, I am an Obsidian shill. A more recent addition to my workflow, I started using Obsidian to take notes and learn to be a more active learner and maximize the use of my time and I got hooked. Now I use Obsidian for everything from work to bible study.