I’m pretty entrenched in the Apple hardware ecosystem, but I enjoy using independently-developed software when possible. I happily financially support independent creators, open source projects, and small businesses that produce software I value.
Software development
- Neovim is my go-to text editor. I have been a vim user for over 15 years, but this past year I finally migrated to Neovim, porting most of my custom configuration and shortcuts, which long ago became embedded in muscle memory. I make heavy use of Neovim with tmux when writing code.
- Alacritty is a high-performance, cross-platform terminal emulator and can be configured using standard TOML configuration files, which makes it easy to port my configuration across machines. I use tmux for multiplexing, so I don’t need a lot of bells and whistles, and enjoy the fact that Alacritty has a pretty minimal feature set.
- After many years of using Solarized and Gruvbox, I recently switched to Catppuccin as my default color scheme for text editing, terminal emulation, and note taking. I prefer the “macchiato” flavor.
Personal productivity
- Obsidian is my preferred note taking tool. I’ve tried nearly every note-taking application under the sun, but always return to Obsidian for its cross-platform support, easy synchronization, local-first ethos and unified UX across desktop and mobile. I pay for Obsidian’s synchronization service, which I’ve found to be more performant than leaning on iCloud.
- ProtonMail is my personal email provider. I’ve been a ProtonMail user for many years. It’s private, secure and … not Google.
- I use Apple Reminders for todo lists. It works on all the devices I need it to work on (including my watch), and I can share lists with my spouse, which is a critical feature for managing our family life.
- Linkding is my bookmarking tool. I self-host Linkding on my Raspberry Pi for saving bookmarks, including anything I want to read later (using a “read-later” tag). I use Obsidian’s Clipper plugin to save highlights of things I read.
- MyMind is my current favorite visual bookmarking tool. I love its quiet simplicity and elegance. I tend to use MyMind for saving books I want to read, along with inspiring artwork and other visual inspiration. Everything else still goes into Linkding.
- 1Password is my preferred password manager. SSH key support is a killer feature that I can’t give up. I may migrate to ProtonPass when/if it ever starts supporting SSH keys, but for now, 1Password still wins.
News, browsing, reading and social
- Firefox is my preferred web browser. I’m a former Mozillian, and I often use Nightly builds even as my daily driver.
- Lagrange is a beautiful, cross-platform Gemini protocol browser that makes for a very nice experience on the occasions when I read content on Gemini.
- The only social media I’m active on (besides LinkedIn as a professional requirement) is Mastodon. I prefer to use Ivory as my client.
- For RSS, I self-host Miniflux on my Raspberry Pi, and read feeds using the web interface, newsboat on the terminal, or NetNewsWire on my iPhone.
Creativity
- I use Lightroom for photo management and editing. Though I tend not to shoot in RAW these days (Fujifilm cameras have great JPEG output), I still prefer Lightoom for when the need arises. Additionally, my wife and I lean on Apple Photos for family sharing.
- I use both Illustrator and Inkscape for vector graphics editing and preparation of artwork for pen plotters. While I greatly prefer working in Illustrator, Inkscape is the only vector editing tool that can communicate directly with the Axidraw series of pen plotter.
- Vsketch is a Python-based environment built specifically for algorithmic generation of vector artwork. It is one of my favorite tools to use when working on creative coding for pen plotters.