Uses

I code primarily on an M1 Mac these days and keep my desktop around for gaming. Most of the peripherals below live on the same desk setup.

Daily driver

• Laptop:

  Apple M1 MacBook Air

  My primary machine for day-to-day engineering work. It's quiet, fast enough for everything I ship, and easy to move around the house when I want a change of scenery.

Gaming setup

• PC:

  i9-9900k, GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, 32 GB of RAM, 2 TB m.2 SSD

  The first computer I ever built, and still a blast to use. These days it's mostly reserved for gaming instead of development, but it was a huge upgrade over the laptop that used to get hotter than the surface of the sun while browsing the internet.

• Monitor x2:

  LG 27GN950-B

  My first 4k monitor. Works great for graphic design, video editing, gaming, etc. I spend a lot of time in front of a screen as a byproduct of work, so it's nice for my eyes not to be dying at the end of the day.

• Keyboard:

  Logitech G915

  Snappy mechanical keyboard. What drew me in was the construction quality and the macro assignability. It's as helpful as I expected to be able to shortcut a few commands while working.

• Mouse:

  Logitech G502 Hero

  Really nice-feeling mouse. I think I might have enjoyed the wireless version better, but no complaints after several years of use. Wheel goes brrrr.

• Headset:

  Logitech G Pro X

  Audio quality is clean and the mic is solid. I'll never go back to a wired headset.

• Webcam:

  Logitech Streamcam

  With all of my work being remote, it's nice to have a reliable webcam to join virtual meetings with clients and such. I can see this webcam lasting me for quite a long time.

• Desk:

  Autonomous Smartdesk

  I got my desk pre-COVID when WFH prices were much more reasonable. I wanted a standing desk since sitting all day kills my back, but I didn't like any of the tops (and they were significantly more expensive that way). I opted for just the base and built the top out of poplar.

• Chair:

  Autonomous Ergochair Pro

  Very good quality chair. It's certainly improved my posture and alleviated back pain from sitting too long.

• IDE:

  VSCode

  This is the only text editor I've ever used, so I don't necessarily know what I'm missing, but I also haven't dove into the apparent chaos that is vim. The community is mature and there's been an extension for anything I've wanted so far.

• Theme:

  Panda Syntax

  The theme I use fluctuates a lot, but Panda is the one I've stuck with the longest. I like the amount of contrast for important pieces of code and soft colors for things that don't immediately need my attention.

• Font:

  MonoLisa

  Very easy on the eyes, and I like the use of ligatures on things like fat arrows and triple equals.

• Browser:

  Brave

  Using a Chromium-based browser makes a lot of sense and seems to be standard practice, but I value my privacy a lot. Brave seems to be the best of both worlds. Let's see if they can manage to stay that way 🤷‍♂️.

• Code repository:

  Github

  OFC.

• Tunneling:

  ngrok

  Helpful in a development environment for verifying webhooks, setting up OAuth, handling payment wallets like Apple Pay, etc.

• Vector editing:

  Illustrator

  I hate Adobe, but this is their best product in my opinion. I use it for creating logos and graphics, modifying .svgs, etc.

• Raster editing:

  Photoshop

  I jump into this one less often since I prefer working with vectors whenever possible, but I know my way around it.

• Video editing:

  Premiere Pro / After Effects

  I can crank out a product demo video or advert with minimal Googling.

• UI / UX:

  Figma

  Bet you thought I was gonna say XD, huh? Figma is one of the most performant, intuitive pieces of software I've used.

• Vector optimization:

  SVGOMG

  Great, simple tool. I use it on pretty much every .svg I deal with.

• Raster optimization:

  Squoosh

  The best raster optimizer I've found, and free.

• Icons:

  Carbon

  I'm a huge fan of this design system in general, but the pack is very polished and easy to use. The style works well with the types of sites I tend to create.

• Hosting:

  Vercel

  My default for SvelteKit projects and static sites. Generous free plan, smooth deploys, and it has been the most reliable host in my stack lately.

• Hosting:

  Netlify

  I still host a few older Gatsby projects here, but most new work has moved to Vercel.

• Hosting:

  Heroku

  When I started using this, it was awesome. Years later, it's virtually unchanged, yet somehow not awesome. I see reports of issues quite a bit, like outages or .env variable leaks. Since I've gone serverless on most of my projects, I don't have a huge need for their services, but I forsee myself trying to find a better product in the future.

• Domains:

  Namecheap

  If I don't buy the domain directly through the host, I'll usually get it here. I've never had any issues and everything works like it should.

• CI:

  Github Actions

  My CI experience is mostly limited to running unit tests this way. I'm always learning more, though, and am open to a better CI/CD pipeline if you wanna drop a rec.

• Team communication:

  Slack

  Clean interface. Helpful for keeping track of communication and consolidating user interactions with my apps via webhooks.

• Password management:

  Bitwarden

  I reused the same password on all services like an idiot until my Chipotle account got compromised and someone ordered a metric ton of burritos with my card. Switched to Bitwarden, re-created insane 40-character alphanumeric passwords, never looked back.