These are tools that I use on a regular basis.

See also:

• /uses
• Robb Knight’s App Defaults

Hardware

I have a MacBook Air M2 (2022) as my main machine.

My printer is a Brother HL-L2320D monochrome laser printer.

My eBook reader is a Kobo Libra 2.

I have a pair of Audio Engine A5 speakers on my desk, DT 770 Pro headphones, and a Blue Yeti microphone on a flexible arm.

I connect all my equipment using a CalDigit TS3 Plus Thunderbolt station.

I have a Dell U3423WE ultra-wide display. It replaced my broken¹¹¹ See Week­notes 2023 W48: Ultra-wide failure.  LG 34WK95U display.

My keyboard is a Kinesis Freestyle Pro, and my mouse is a Evoluent Vertical Mouse 4.

To do: Describe gaming PC.

To do: Describe fountain pen.

I used to have a Fitbit, and then I lost it.

Furniture

My desk chair is a Herman Miller Aeron. It is the best.

To do: Describe desk

To do: Describe dining room table

Desktop apps

Alfred (macOS; productivity app) gives me the power to do all the things I want, right when I need them, without introducing clutter. I have a handful of custom workflows tuned for the way I work, which I imagine impresses my coworkers.

Omni­Graffle (macOS) is the best diagramming tool I know of. It isn’t cheap, but I find the price tag to be worth it. I use it to impress my coworkers.

I use Scapple to bring order to my thoughts. There’s some overlap with Omni­Graffle.

Rectangle (macOS) is my window manager.

Visual Studio Code (cross-platform) is my editor of choice, but I am playing with Zed as well at the moment.

Bear is my note-taking app of choice. It’s my repository of knowledge, and I write my week­notes in them too.

NetNewsWire is my RSS reader.

My text editor of choice is iWriter Pro. It’s nicely distraction free. I am moving towards using Scrivener more, though.

I use Beat for writing screenplays. Not that I do that often.

I use Things 3 for managing my to-dos.

I use Flow to keep my focus.

Firefox is my main web browser at the moment. I used to use Safari as my main browser.

Integrity is a good link checker. I had the idea of writing my own, but finding Integrity made my idea obsolete.

Services

Fastmail provides excellent email, but also contacts management, calendars, web hosting and DNS management.

YNAB is my budgeting tool of choice. My financial anxiety would be immeasurably higher without it.

I use 1Password as my password manager.

I use Buttondown for sending newsletters.

For backups, I use restic, Time Machine, and Arq.

Fonts

See also: Fontroll and Typefaces wishlist.

My favorite monospaced (code) font is Iosevka.

The serif fonts I like most are Valkyrie and Charter.

I’ve recently began to like Courier in the form of Courier Prime.

I am also fond of Atkinson Hyperlegible.

CLI tools

fish shell is a fast, easy-to-use shell that has sensible defaults. I have barely customized it.

ripgrep is my command-line grep alternative of choice.

xsv is a must-have tool if you deal with CSV files. I think CSV is a pretty good format!

beancount is what I use to track my financial activity.

pandoc is my go-to tool for converting documents in lightweight markup languages to and from other formats.

Homebrew is my package manager of choice.