Uses

This is a top-level page of hardware and software I use on a regular basis.

Software

• Obsidian. I’ve gone back and forth on note taking apps many times but currently I use . One of my major gripes with Obsidian is the reliance on plugins, so I don’t use many:
  • AnuPpuccin theme
  • Calendar
  • Dataview
  • Iconic
  • Style Settings
  • Tasks
  • Smart Typography because I needs the “curly quotes”
  • Emoji Shortcodes
• WebStorm and Visual Studio Code, although for projects I tend to use WebStorm more these days. I think the UI and tooling out of the box is better than VS Code which relies on plugins.
• Safari for a web browser. I have all of them installed somewhere, but I highly value consistency between my devices, so Safari is really the only choice here, although I’d probably still chose it if the iPhone had other options. The only plugins I use are:
  • Kagi for Safari to redirect searches to Kagi.
  • 1Blocker for ad blocking.
• Alfred for quick lookups and launching things. I’ve gone back and forth between Alfred and Raycast, in general I prefer Alfred’s ”leave me alone“ style of UI.
• Affinity Designer 2 and Affinity Photo 2 for photo editing and SVGs.
• Dato. Helpful way to keep your calendar in the taskbar without the overhead of something like Fantastical.
• iA Writer for working on longer writing pieces.
• CleanShot X for screenshots.
• Paprika Recipe Manager 3 for organizing recipes.
• Sleeve 2 for showing the currently playing song from Apple Music on my desktop.
• Things 3 for “tasks”, and Apple Reminders for reminders.
• Cyberduck mostly for moving files around S3 storage.
• DaisyDisk for managing Mac harddrive space.
• Copilot for keeping track of money. This is not the Microsoft Copilot, and I feel a little bad for them having to be stuck with this name because it’s nigh impossible to search for.
• Reeder for keeping track of RSS feeds.

Homeserver

I keep a separate note on my homeserver setup here.

Networking

My current setup is an Arris S33 modem into a Unifi Cloud Gateway Ultra as a router into eero 6s for the access point / mesh network. This is mostly because the Unifi software gives you more control over DNS, so I can have all the homeserver apps resolve locally, and have all the network DNS go through NextDNS.

Some of the house has been hardwired by switching the old CAT5e phone lines with ethernet jacks. For the rooms that didn’t have phone drops I used MoCA adapters on the cable drops. Either of these gets a reliable 1Gbps output.

Hardware

• An M1 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM.
• An older GMMK keyboard with Kailh Box Black switches and Ducky Purple/White Pudding keycaps. I went with those switches because I tend to hammer on keyboards.
• A Logitech G305 mouse in purple to match the key caps.
• A Dell G3223Q monitor.
• CalDigit TS3 dock. Good, although it won’t work as a USB-C hub, so I have a twelvesouth StayGo USB-C Hub and some small Anker USB-C hubs for travel.
• An M2 iPad Pro, mostly used for book reading and making music.

Fun Tech

• Our TV is an LG C1 Oled hooked up to a SONOS Arc with Ikea Symfonisks as surrounds.
• PS5 and Steam Deck for gaming. If I want