Uses

This website

This site is generated by 11ty and hosted on CloudFlare Pages.

In the past I have used Hugo, WordPress, and now-defunct Anchor CMS.

Hardware

Phone

I use a Product Red iPhone 11, and it’s been great. I was an Apple fan, then an Android fan, and now I’ve come full circle.

Previous phones I’ve had and their fates:

Watch

2022 Apple Watch SE. After the death of Pebble I didn’t see myself getting back into smart watches, but this one is alright.

I own a Slow analog watch—which reminds me, I need to find someone to change the battery.

In the past, I was a big Pebble fan and used the original Pebble, the Pebble Time, and the Pebble 2.

Development and general purpose

I use a 2021 MacBook Pro 14", with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

When I’m at my desk, it’s hooked up to two 27" 4k LG displays.

My peripherals include a HHKB Pro 2, a Magic Trackpad, and a Logitech MX Master 3.

Gaming

While I used to be a PC enthusiast, I spend most of my gaming time on the Xbox Series X. I want to pick up a controller and go; not fiddle with graphics settings, updates, launchers, etc.

My gaming PC is fit with an AMD Ryzen 3600, Nvidia GTX 3060, and 32GB of RAM clocked at 3200MHz. This will be my last gaming build, but I’ve been wrong before.

My peripherals include a CoolerMaster Quickfire Rapid keyboard with MX Browns, and a Glorious Model D mouse. Both have a 1000MHz polling rate, and using them on the Xbox is hilarious.

Audio

I love audio gear, and currently run a Schiit stack consisting of a Modi Multibit, Loki, and Magni 2. A Little Dot Mark 3 with Mullard tubes is my tube headphone amp, and Fostex TH-X00 Purplehearts are my daily drivers.

I also own a couple Beyerdynamic headphones, the DT 990s and the DT 770s.

AirPods Pro are my on-the-go set.

Networking

I have a small collection of networking hardware, and the majority of it is Unifi by Ubiquiti, with a pihole running on an old Intel NUC.

Equipment:

Software

Text editing

My text editor is Sublime Text. I use VS Code when it makes sense. I know how to quit Vim, although Helix has had more of my attention lately.

Sublime Merge is my Git client.

Coding font

I use JetBrains Mono set at 12px.

Other fonts I’ve used, in order of preference:

Graphic design

Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo are my favorite graphics/photo manipulation tools.

I use Figma for mockups; I don’t like it but it’s free. I’d love to be able to justify a Sketch subscription.

Music

Apple Music is my current streaming service. I was a longtime Spotify user, but since they added podcasts the experience went downhill for me. Not to say Apple Music on macOS is any better. A big factor is that I share an Apple One account.

I still miss Google Play Music.

Terminal

I use fish shell and Terminal.app. I compared a number of terminals.

Notes

I use Obsidian and sometimes per-project .md files. I used to use Apple Notes, Google Keep, Microsoft OneNote, and before it went downhill, Evernote.

Todo

Apple Reminders covers most of my needs. Projects that need more than a couple checkboxes get a note in Obsidian.

RSS reader

NetNewsWire is my reader on Mac and iPhone.

Browser

I primarily use Safari. I use Arc when I need Chromium. Velja makes it easier to open links in different browsers and switch defaults.

I used to be a big Chrome user, but www.chromeisbad.com.

I still miss Opera before they were bought out and switched to the Blink engine. I think Opera 12 is the last Presto version. The Turbo compression feature really helped me out when I was on dialup. Vivaldi comes close.

I’ve held frequently changing opinions on Firefox over the years. I keep it installed for testing, but I am not confident in Mozilla’s stewardship.

Email

I use iCloud Mail and the default Apple Mail apps.

I used to use Fastmail and still recommend them.