Uses

I get no emails about what I use, but I love bikeshedding about tools. Here’s what I’m currently using.

Editor & Terminal

Visual Studio Code is my editor. A younger me would be horrified that I was both using and enjoying a Microsoft product
I mostly use Wes Bos’s Cobalt2 themes everywhere.
I use SF Mono for my editor font everywhere.
I use iTerm2 for my terminal.

Apple Reminders and Calendar are how I keep track of what to do and when to do it.
- Timeblock planning is how I plan my work days
- InstaRemind lets me create reminders with a keyboard shortcut in macOS.
- Remind Faster is a great way to quickly add reminders on the go.
Obsidian is where almost all of my notes go.
- Apple Notes is used for shared notes with my wife (including a squirrel list).
Raycast is my quick launcher. I still have Alfred installed for one single reason: Universal Actions. One keyboard shortcut to then move, copy, email, etc files from anywhere in the file system is hard to beat and Raycast has no answer to it yet.

Raindrop.io is my bookmarking app of choice. Long ago I used Delicious, then moved to Pinboard, and then to Raindrop. It's nicer looking than Pinboard and has an official client. I got tired of waiting for the third-party Pinboard clients to care again.
Readwise aggregates highlights from a bunch of places (namely Kindle and Instapaper) and sends me a number of highlights to review every day. I can also create flashcards with the goal of retaining what I read.
Readwise Reader is where I save articles to read later.
Reeder is my RSS reader of choice. It beats scrolling through Twitter or Facebook.
- Feedbin is my RSS service of choice for a number of reasons

Flighty tracks my flights and keeps me aware of delays and cancellations far before the airlines tell you. This has helped me get on the phone to reschedule flights before there's a huge wait.
Tripsy helps me and my wife setup trip plans and save relevant documents and reservations.

This is a mish-mash of web applications and iOS applications as the lines blur.

1Password is where I store my 1000+ passwords and it keeps me sane.
Apollo is my Reddit client. I try not to spend a lot of time on social media, but I like Reddit's focused communities and I can almost always find someone talking about some esoteric thing there. I also sell my used RPG books and board games there.
GitHub should be obvious to anyone who writes code. I can remember signing up for their paid subscription a long, long time ago because I wanted to do my little part to keep them around. They're owned by Microsoft now, so I suspect they don't need my help, but they offer so much for so little. Almost all my public repositories with automated testing or linting use GitHub Actions for free.
Hello Weather is a nice simple way to see the weather that I can share with my wife for one low price.
Opener lets me open links in various iOS applications without jumping around.
Overcast is my podcast app of choice.
Paprika is where I keep our ~1500 recipes, our meal plan for this week, and our grocery list.
Parcel is how I track my packages, though I miss Deliveries.
Personal Capital is how I keep up-to-date with all my finances in one place: cash accounts, credit accounts, loans, investments. It's all there.
Working Copy is for when I need to edit something in a repository when I'm not at a computer.
YNAB helps my wife and I keep our budget in alignment with our goals.

I started off tracking what I read through Goodreads and enjoy having that record, I've since expanded it to other media:

The internet is a terrible place full of ads, cookie notifications, and other detritus. I try to remove as much of that as possible.

I'm firmly in the HomeKit camp at this point.

I have two Apple TVs, one LG and one TCL HomeKit-enabled TVs
Across the house I have 10 AirPlay 2 speakers: 2 HomePod, 3 HomePod Minis, a Sonos Move, One, Five, Beam, and Arc
I use a Starling Hub to put my Nest devices on my HomeKit network
- I have a Nest Doorbell for our doorbell camera
- I have two Nest Cam Indoors in our house
- I have one Nest Cam outside
- I have two Nest Learning Thermostats in our house
I use Wemo Smart Plugs for holiday decorations and a nightlight in my son's room
I'm up to 6 Philips Hue bulbs and 2 light strips
- I use a Hue Tap Dial switch to control my office Hue bulbs
- I use a Lutron Aurora to control the lights in the family room
- I use a dimmer switch remote to control the bedroom Hue bulbs
Three of our doors have Eve Door & Window sensors
Our front door has a Level Bolt so I can see if my front door is locked from my bedroom
Our garage door has myQ and I added Homebridge running on a Raspberry Pi so I can tell Siri to close the garage door and setup other automations with it
I have some smart switches around the house, namely a Lutron Caseta dimmer, Lutron Caseta fan switches, and a Meross Smart Switch.

You can see the rest of what I'm using in my dotfiles repository. It's probably most interesting to look at the Brewfile.

I’m a programmer who lives in Fredericksburg, VA. I enjoy board games, puzzles, and making things work. When I’m not in front of a screen of some sort, I’m probably spending time with my wife, my sons, my animals, my board games, or my books. Check out what I’m up to now, see what tools I’m currently using, or follow me on Mastodon.