Uses

This is the first computer I ever built, and it's so much fun to use. Being present for and having to deal with this nonsense to get my GPU was worth. Prior to this I was using a laptop that got hotter than the surface of the sun while browsing the internet, so it's a big upgrade for me.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 🤷‍♂️.

OFC.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

I've hosted most of my Gatsby.js projects here, but I'm slowly making the switch to Vercel for static sites since they have a better free plan and d a r k m o d e.

Generous free plan, plays nicely with SvelteKit projects. seems to be one of the go-tos with developers for hosting nowadays.

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.

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.

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 .

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

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.