/uses

These are the tools and software I use to get my work done.

Desk Setup

Devices

• CARBON - MacBook M3 Max 1TB 36GB Mem
• UNDERLORD - Custom-built Windows PC (resurrected)
• MOCHI - iPhone 16 Pro Max 1TB
• SAPLING - Asus VivoBook (decommissioned)
• ALMAL - OnePlus 8 Pro (only used for Android-specific and/or mainland China apps)
• BOLTS - AirPods 2 Pro
• Bose QuietComfort 45 - won at Treehacks, I rarely use it

Desktop

• Monsgeek M1W - with Gateron Milky Yellow switches
• Dual-monitor desk setup - Acer 1080p 144Hz 27" on the left (angled 30 degrees) and LG 4K 60Hz 32" on the right. Mounted Baseus Monitor Light Bar and Logitech C270 720p webcam rests on top of the LG
• Speakers & mouse - Logitech Z150 speakers and a Logitech G304 mouse
• Microphone - MAONO PM422 mounted on an Ulti arm

Hardware

• Bambu X1C
• "Delilah" - Modded Ender 3 Pro (decommissioned)

Software

Development

• Claude - my main LLM, although I still pay for ChatGPT+
• Ollama & Enchanted - local LLM and UI
• Cursor - my main editor, overtaking VSCode + Copilot
• Zed - when I only need the autocomplete and not the Composer
• Ghostty - my main choice on macOS. On Windows, it is the Windows Terminal
• Berkeley Mono - fell in love with this font, and am a paid user
• Orbstack - for Docker containers on macOS

Web Browsing

• Arc on macOS and Windows (still prefer Firefox)
• Chrome on iOS, Firefox on Android
• uBlock - helps me block ads on all browsers, but I also run Youtube Revanced on Android

Productivity

• Obsidian - braindump, notetaking, PKM. See Efforts for more details.
• Apple Notes - secondary note collection
• Zotero - for my thesis research
• Reminders - replaced Todoist as my main todo app on macOS and iOS. I don't track todos on Windows
• Apple Calendar + Notion Calendar - I use both for cross-platform sync
• Raycast - it's just really, really good
• Raindrop - for collecting my thousands of bookmarks

Services

• Spotify - been a user for many, many years.
• Bitwarden for password management
• Vercel - for hosting
• Cloudflare - for DNS
• GitHub - for source control. I stopped using GitLab and Gitea (self-hosted)
• Porkbun - for domain registration
• Nextcloud - self-hosted, for media hosting and backups
• Wireguard - self-hosted VPN, used to bypass China's firewall in 2024 and to connect to my devices in my home network