As a Vice President of Engineering and developer I use a lot of tools in my daily work. This page is my attempt to document those tools in hopes that maybe someone will find them useful as well as simply to keep track of them for myself.
My Use Case
So what do I use this all for? I tend to think our use cases are just as important as the tools themselves. For instance, I wouldn’t recommend some of my own tools to someone just starting out in code or who is only writing code for themselves. How we use our tools defines, or at least probably should define, the tools we use so here are my own use cases.
- VP of Engineering – My day job requires me to communicate with my team and the wider organization for mentoring, guidance, strategy and day-to-day operations.
- Software Developer – I love building software and have been doing so for my work and my hobbies for as long as I can remember. As time has gone by my tooling in this has changed considerably and the tools listed below are those I use to build and maintain the projects I am currently working on, both personally and professionally.
- Blogger – I love writing on this site and dream of spending a lot of time both on content as well as the site itself. This role encompasses creating content and writing code to share solutions to problems I’ve encountered in hopes that they’ll be just as helpful to others as they were to me.
- Teacher/Speaker – Though I’ve done less of this since 2020, I still very much enjoy speaking and teaching at conferences and other events.
- Human – While the last one might seem obvious it is clear that most of tech doesn’t agree. As a human I want tech that respects my rights and actually works for me instead of trying to force my use case into its features (or lack thereof).
My Computer Hardware
I built my home office over my 11 years of working fully remote. It is still my sanctuary, if you will, and where I spend a lot of time on projects, both personally and professionally. In our new place it’s tiny, not much bigger than a cubicle, and that is perfect for me, especially with the right furniture.
- 2024 16″ MacBook Pro (Silver) – M4 Max, 64GB RAM, 1TB SSD
- 2024 13" iPad Pro (Silver) – M4, 1TB SSD, Cellular Connection
- 2024 14″ MacBook Pro (Silver) – Work machine
- AirPods Max (silver)
- Apple AirTags
- Apple Studio Display
- Apple Watch Series 9 (Silver) – Aluminum, GPS
- AVLT Dual monitor arm (white)
- Beats Fit Pro wireless earbuds
- Brother HL-L2350DW laser printer
- framework laptop – DIY 12th ed i7-1260P, 32GB RAM, 500GB – WD_BLACK™ SN850 NVMe
- Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (4th Generation)
- iPhone 15 Pro Max (Natural) – 256GB
- Nomad Goods Modern Leather Case – Brown
- Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition
- Klipsh The One Plus - Work speaker
- Logitech Spotlight
- Linksys Velop AX4200 Wifi 6 Routers
- Meross LED Desk Lamp
- Samson MBA48 microphone boom arm
- Shure SM7B Microphone
- Sonos (various models) - Home audio
- Uplift Commercial V2 30″x60″ – 1″ bamboo top
- Uplift Pursuit Ergonomic Chair
- Yubikey 5C NFC
My Software
Historically my software has been as minimal as possible. Lately that’s changed a bit but I still try my best to not replace default apps that will handle my workflow just fine. I do still, however, have work to do across a number of devices for both my personal and professional work so this list tends to be a bit longer than I would sometimes like.
- Al Dente Pro
- Apple iCloud (Apple One Premiere plan)
- Calendar
- Documents
- Music
- Notes
- Podcasts
- Reminders
- Pretty much everything is in iCloud, for now, due to a host of reasons.
- CleanMyMac
- Cryptomator
- Default Terminal App
- Docker
- DuckDuckGo
- GitHub
- Homebrew
- Hugo
- iA Writer
- Inoreader
- Ivory
- Maccy
- Microsoft 365 – For work
- MonoLisa
- Moom – For work
- Notion – For work
- Quicken
- Safari Browser
- Signal
- Slack – For work
- Tailscale
- T-Mobile
- VS Code
- Wipr 2
- Working Copy
- Zoom – For work
My Analog and EDC Tools
- CRKT Drifter EDC Pocket Knife
- Lamy Al-Star
- Lamy inks
- LEUCHTTURM1917 Classic Notebooks - Journals and notes
- Rhodia Notebooks - Personal journal
- Waterfield Muzetto Leather Bag
- Thule Subterra 2 Weekend/travel backpack
- Timbuk2 Authority Laptop Backpack
- Traveler’s Notebook - Work meeting notes
- Zebra Sarasa Grand - Everyday pen where fountain pens don’t work
Decommissioned Tech
For a list of tools I’ve used in the past as well as my older annual “uses” posts, please take a look at my decommissioned tech page.
This page was last updated on 23 November, 2024