Uses
CHANGELOG
Last updated March 2024
Click to show table of contents
- Workstation
- Health and Fitness
- Fonts
- Hosting etc
- Analytics
- General Dev Desktop Apps
- Front-End Dev Desktop Apps
- Other Desktop Apps
- Terminal Prompt
- Terminal UX
- Other Terminal / CLI Tools
- Ad Blockers for Chromium Browsers
- Dev Plugins for Chromium Browsers
- Other Plugins for Chromium Browsers
- VSCodium / VS Code Themes
- VSCodium / VS Code Enhancements
- VSCodium / VS Code Integrations
- VSCodium / VS Code Front End Dev Plugins
Workstation
- Keebio Quefrency keyboard, Kailh Speed Pro Burgundy switches, and PBT keycaps (SA profile to match my amusing Git modifier keycaps but I much prefer DSA. I might like XDA or DES or CS better but have not tried them.)
- Logitech M330 Silent Plus mouse
- Two 24" monitors on a two-monitor arm (three x 27" is my sweet spot I think)
Health and Fitness
- Rails Garmin watchface
- Lose It! nutrition tracker
- SUPALAK shielded resistance bands (non-referral Amazon link… haven’t found anywhere else to buy them)
- OUUO resistance band anchors
- Walito resistance band handles for resistance bands (non-referral Amazon link… haven’t found anywhere else to buy them)
Fonts
- Editor: https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode
- Terminal: Inconsolata Nerd Font (Inconsolata patched with dev icons)
Hosting etc
- Domains:
- Viridio (affiliate link). Registrar and for some sites hosting. They run on renewable power. Their former incarnation, AISO.net, which ran entirely on renewable energy, was my go-to starting in 2011. I had only good experiences with AISO, and so far the Viridio experience has been good.
- working on transfering Google Domains to Viridio
- Code:
- Static sites:
- statichost
- working on moving things from Vercel to statichost
Analytics
Fathom. Use my referral code to get $10 off your first bill!
General Dev Desktop Apps
- Brave browser (see also my browser plugins) (note: it’s come to my attention that Brave’s CEO is not someone I want to support. I’m looking into other options for Blink browser testing.)
- Firefox I use to inspect event listeners
- Fork I have this Git GUI open at all times for its graph, for copying commit SHAs, and as a replacement for
git add -p
. It’s nice for reflog too, but as of this writing its lost commits are not always complete (installed via Homebrew) - GitHub CLI Easily open pull requests locally (installed via Homebrew)
- GPG Suite part of my setup for signing Git commits. (installed via Homebrew)
- iTerm Fast, customizable, actively developed terminal app (installed via Homebrew)
- Pop code pairing tool: multiplayer control, screen sharing, audio/video
- VSCodium VS Code without MS branding, telemetry, and licensing (see also my editor plugins)
Front-End Dev Desktop Apps
- DDEV better, faster Docker experience for PHP environments (installed via Homebrew)
- ImageOptim on the command line for local image optimization
- imgix image optimization and delivery
- Sequel Ace MySQL/MariaDB database GUI
- svgomg SVG optimization GUI
- XScope macOS screen rulers, color picker, and more
Other Desktop Apps
- 1Password password manager
- Aerial free open-source screensaver of high quality videos (macOS)
- Bartender hides menubar item (installed via Homebrew) (macOS)
- Better Touch Tool I use it to resize and move windows without having to carefully click the window edge, but it can do all kinds of fancy things (installed via Homebrew) (macOS)
- CapsLocker my keyboard does not have a light in the caps lock key. CapsLocker tells me when caps lock is on (my config: start at login, HUD visible while caps lock is active, sounds, colored icons) (macOS)
- Clocker additional clocks in the menu bar (installed via Homebrew) (macOS)
- Coconut Battery menubar item and diagnostics. I hide the macOS battery menubar item and use this instead (installed via Homebrew) (macOS)
- Homebrew package manager (macOS)
- Itsycal macOS calendar menubar item. I hide the date in macOS’s Date & Time menubar item and use this instead (installed via Homebrew) (macOS)
- Karabiner Elements Customize your keyboard layout. I add a layer with media controls and arrows on the home row (installed via Homebrew) (macOS)
- Micro Snitch show an HUD when your microphone is being used (installed via Homebrew) (macOS)
- Mimestream macOS email client (macOS)
- Muzzle Automatically silences desktop notifications when you’re sharing your screen (installed via Homebrew) (macOS)
- Notion docs, kanban, tables, etc. Sometimes with the desktop app (installed via Homebrew)
- Rectangle tile windows on your screen with keyboard commands (installed via Homebrew) (macOS)
- RescueTime time tracker for productivity, time management, focus/life management (installed via Homebrew)
- Rocket macOS emoji picker (installed via Homebrew) (macOS)
- WiFi Signal signal strength analyzer menubar item. I hide macOS’s WiFi with Bartender and mostly use this instead (macOS)
Terminal Prompt
- Hometown Prompt high performance, high data:ink ratio prompt. By yours truly!
Terminal UX
- https://github.com/zdharma-continuum/fast-syntax-highlighting syntax highlighting
- zsh-abbr saves you keystrokes without letting you forget full commands. Abbreviations (like aliases, but automatically expand) are stored in a dot file. By yours truly!
- zsh-autopair auto-close and delete matching delimiters in zsh
- zsh-autosuggestions Fish-like autosuggestions for zsh
- https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-completions Additional completion definitions for Zsh
- https://github.com/zsh-users/zsh-history-substring-search port of Fish history search
- zsh-window-title sets terminal window titles to “current directory, its parent, and if something is running the first word of the ongoing command”. By yours truly!
Other Terminal / CLI Tools
I use zsh. My article Configure Zsh Options & Plugins for Productivity in macOS’s Default Shell has an outdated but relevant take on how I configure it.
- asdf A single tool to manage tool versions (I’ve had trouble with the Homebrew install, so install via zcomet)
- gh GitHub CLI handy for checking out pull requests and for forking
- delta pretty pager for
git-diff
- GnuPG macOS’s
gpg
tool is non-standard. This gives you the standard one, asgpg2
(installed via Homebrew) - trash move files to the macOS trashcan (installed via Homebrew)
- tree the Linux tree command (installed via Homebrew)
- zcomet shell plugin manager
- zsh-test-runner unit tests and coverage reports for zsh scripts. By yours truly!
Ad Blockers for Chromium Browsers
Dev Plugins for Chromium Browsers
- axe DevTools - Web Accessibility Testing — accessibility auditor
- Notifier for GitHub — see a count of your unread notifications
- React Developer Tools
- Redux Devtools
- Refined GitHub
- Refined GitHub Notifications
- Vue.js devtools
- WAVE Evaluation Tool accessibility auditor
Other Plugins for Chromium Browsers
- 1password — password manager
- Bandcamp Volume
- Elfster’s Wish It! — add things to gift lists
- Grammar Checker & Paraphraser – LanguageTool
- Grammarly: Grammar Checker and AI Writing App
- Library Extension — see if a book is at your library
- New Tab Redirect — customize the URL new tabs go to
- PayPal Honey: Automatic Coupons & Cash Back — coupons. I set this to have access only “on click”
- PostureMinder — reminders to sit up straight
- Save to Pocket
- Stylish - Custom themes for any website
- Tab to Window/Popup - Keyboard Shortcut
VSCodium / VS Code Themes
- Ayu — https://github.com/dempfi/ayu
- Night Owl — https://github.com/sdras/night-owl-vscode-theme
- Nord — https://www.nordtheme.com/
- One Dark Pro — https://binaryify.github.io/OneDark-Pro/
- Tokyo Night — https://github.com/enkia/tokyo-night-vscode-theme
VSCodium / VS Code Enhancements
- advanced-new-file — I use this as a keyboard shortcut for creating a sibling to an open file
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Auto Close Tag — automatically adds the closing HTML tag
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Auto Rename Tag — when changing either a closing or ending HTML tag, the other automatically changes. I find it works better than the
linkedEditing
setting.- open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- change-case — changes the case of selected text
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- EditorConfig for VS Code — see https://editorconfig.org/
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- File Utils — duplicate, move, rename, delete files from the command palette
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- GitLens — tons of great features. I use it most heavily for inline blame annotations
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Highlight Matching Tag — click on either an opening or closing HTML tag, and both the opening and closing tag are highlighted
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- indent-rainbow — colorize indentation
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Sort lines
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Sort JSON objects
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Sublime Text Keymap and Settings Importer
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Tabnine — like Code Pilot, but it’s been around longer, is cheaper, and has more privacy options
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Terminal Zoom — change the terminal font size independent of the window font size
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- TODO Highlight — highlight configured words, for instance TODO
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Todo Tree — tree view for TODO (and other) comments. No more forgotten TODOs
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
VSCodium / VS Code Integrations
- 1Password — password management
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- GitHub Pull Requests and Issues — open and comment on issues; create, open, review, merge PRs
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- LTeX — LanguageTool grammar/spell checking
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Slidev
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
VSCodium / VS Code Front End Dev Plugins
- Astro
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Babel JavaScript
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- ENV
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- ESLint
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Even Better TOML
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Import Cost — import/require package size inline annotations
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Inline fold — useful for hiding long utility-class
class
attributes- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- 🆕 Live Server - serve static files
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Prettier
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Ruby LSP
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Stylelint
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Svelte for VS Code
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Tailwind CSS IntelliSense
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Twig Language
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Twig Language 2
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Vetur
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)
- Vue Language Features (Volar)
- (open-vsx link, VS Code Marketplace link)