4 minutes
My Current Setup
Devices, software, and services I use.
As a marketer, I use a combination of the usual “office” and creative tools. Since I maintain an interest in tech and self-hosting, my list of apps is long.
Hardware
- Mac Pro (Late 2013) - Running Big Sur, used when I need horsepower.
- Mac Mini (Late 2014) x2 - Used for self-hosting applications with Docker. Ubuntu 20.04.
- MacBook Pro (Late 2013) - Main workhorse.
- iPad Pro 12.9" (Original) - 50% consuming media, 50% writing. Never felt the need to upgrade since I don’t max it out at all.
- iPhone X - iOS 14.7.1, daily driver, loaded with apps I use everyday only.
- iPhone 6s Plus - iOS 14.7.1, filled with social and game junk.
Browsers
- Firefox - Default.
- Safari - If FF and don’t care about anonymity.
- Chromium - If FF and Safari don’t work for some reason.
Firefox Plugins
- uBlock Origin - Replacement for uMatrix.
- Bitwarden - Uses self-hosted Bitwarden instance.
- CanvasBlocker - Prevent browser fingerprinting.
- Chameleon - Changing user-agent.
- Cookie AutoDelete - Delete cookies every few minutes.
- Privacy Redirect - Alternative front-ends for Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit and Google.
- Vimium - Vim-like keyboard navigation.
- Multi-Account Containers - Separate containers by use.
Safair Plugins
- 1Blocker - Only decent ad and tracker blocker that works on Mac and iOS.
Command Line
- iTerm2 - Have tried Hyper, kitty, Alacritty, default Mac terminal, but always come back to iTerm2.
- Homebrew - Mainly used to install and update CLI tools.
- fzf - fuzzy finder
- bat - cat command with syntax highlighting.
- Meslo - Font with ligature support.
Shell
- zsh - Just cuz it’s the default on MacOS.
- Powerlevel10K - Liked the out-of-the-box defaults, so I stuck with it.
- Antigen - Plugin manager for zsh.
Editor
- Neovim - Used for making quick text changes.
- Emacs - Used for anything text related.
Productivity
- Org Mode - To-do lists.
- Org-roam - For notes and documents that don’t have/need fancy layouts.
- iWork - When org-roam isn’t enough.
- Office 365 - When iWork isn’t enough.
Files
- Cryptomator - Encrypting files on local or remote.
- Cyberduck - Tranferring files, supports Cryptomator.
- Mountain Duck - Mounting remote files, supports Cryptomator.
- Rclone - Backing up files to the cloud.
Development Tools
- LSP - Used with Emacs to provide code completion and navigation.
- Insomnia - REST client.
Selfhosted - Home
Tools that don’t need to be public.
- Wallabag - Read later.
- Gitea - Lightweight git version control.
- Etherpad - For throwaway notes.
- Pi-hole - Blocking ads and trackers on my home network.
- Seafile - Dropbox alternative.
- bitwarden_rs - Password manager.
- Firefox Sync Server - Instead of syncing to Mozilla’s cloud servers.
- Wireguard (inbound) - VPN in to access services listed above.
- Wireguard (outbound) - Traffic flows through an external VPN provider.
- Postfix & Dovecot - Mail management.
- ZNC - IRC network bouncer.
- SingleFile - Archive interesting websites.
Selfhosted - External
Tools hosted at VPSs.
- Mailcow - Suite of mail-related applications used for personal mail accounts.
Website
- Hugo - Used WordPress for years, but never used any WordPress-specific funtionality, so I decided to migrate.
- Vercel - Hosting; free, developer-friendly, supports Hugo and needs no maintance once set up.
Communications
While I do have accounts for Telegram and WhatsApp, I don’t actually use them.
- Messages - Apple has me locked in here.
- Signal - Interacting with privacy-conscious friends.
- Sessions - For the paranoid.
- Weechat - IRC & Slack
- wee-slack - easier to navigate with keyboard than Slack apps
Mobile
- beorg (iOS) - Manage org mode to-do lists.
- Halide - Best camera app for RAW images.
- BlackSight - Night-mode camera
- Overcast - Podcast player with great speed functionality
- Brain.fm - Audio to get into the flow.
- Tweetbot - Still the best Twitter app for iOS.
- NetNewsWire - Open source RSS reader.
- Slide - Open source reddit browser.
- Wireguard - Connecting to home network.
- Solitaire+ - When I need to shut down my brain.
- SpellTower+ - When I want my brain to use up some energy.