What I Use

Kitty is my terminal of choice at the moment. I used Alacritty for a long time, and still love it, but I wanted to have ligature support in my terminal, which is something that Alacritty doesn’t provide. Kitty is super quick, easy to configure, and does everything that I need a terminal to do, which is a lot, considering I do almost everything in my terminal.

Neovim is my current editor, and I don’t ever see myself going back to any other. I started using Vim/Neovim a few years ago, but in 2021 I decided that if I was going to give it a shot, I’d have to dedicate myself to using it for at least a month or two to get the hang of it. I did, and the rest is history. I love the INCREDIBLY high levels of customization you get with Neovim, because the time between my brain thinking, my fingers reacting, and something happening on my screen is so short now. I’m working at the speed of thought, and it’s amazing.

I use Tmux as a simple, easy way to manage projects and sessions in my terminal. I know there’s a lot more that Tmux can do, and I’m only scratching the surface, but knowing that I can spin up a Tmux session, detach from it, and come right back to where I was later on is so satisfying, especially when I’m jumping between a lot of different projects.

On macOS, my launcher of choice has quickly become Raycast. I use it for normal, everyday things like launching applications and doing quick calculations and conversions, but recently, I have started using it for window management as well, which has changed the game for me on macOS. On my Linux computer, I'm running AwesomeWM, which is a window manager that automatically tiles windows for me. I haven't had much luck getting any of the macOS versions of tiling window managers to work without being buggy, so mapping Raycast's window management commands to key combos works as a pretty good alternative!

Arc is my browser of choice! It's built on the Chromium engine, so I get all of the developer tools that I'm used to from having previously used Brave and Chrome, but the Browser Company has rethought a lot of the mainstays of the web and created something special and, admittedly, much better than any other browser I've used. I can't wait for them to release a version for Linux so I can use Arc on ALL of my machines!

I use Berkeley Mono as my editor font. It’s a paid font (though, not very expensive) and it has a nice, retro flair to it that is easy to read and fun to look at!

My editor and terminal color scheme is currently Everforest. I used Catppuccin for a long time, and it was (and still is) fantastic! However, over time, I have been slowly leaning back into the green and gray spectrum of colors, which meant that Everforest was a perfect choice. Everything on my computer (as much as possible, at least) is now themed to match Everforest, and it's been an amazingly productive and calming change.

Any and all configurations that I can possibly have in dotfile format can be found here on my Github profile. Don’t just clone my dotfiles down and use them yourself, though. They might work for you out of the box, but they’re written specifically for me! Use them as a guide to see and learn cool things, and then adopt your own configurations!

Figma is my software design tool of choice. It’s easy to use, free, and browser-based, so it’s incredibly simple to share designs with people who don’t normally work in Figma.

I use TablePlus in order to work with databases when developing applications, but I’m not 100% tied to it. It’s a great application, don’t get me wrong, but I’d like to see what I can do with just a terminal-based system.

Right now, I use Obsidian to take notes, manage projects, and otherwise be my second brain. I jump between note-taking programs frequently, and like with TablePlus, I’d love to find something similar that I can use in my terminal. I will say, if nothing else, the PARA method for task/project management has piqued my interest, and seems to integrate really well into Obsidian.

I recently switched to using a Thelio Major desktop computer from System76. System76 is a Linux computer manufacturer that open-sources as much of the hardware and software as they can. It's an IMPRESSIVE machine, and I've had nothing but great experiences with it since switching over. I'm running an AMD Ryzen 9 7900X CPU, an AMD RX 7900XTX GPU, 64GB of memory, and 2TB of storage. It's a beast that should last me for a very, very long time. I HIGHLY recommend purchasing from System76 if you're looking for a Linux computer that just works!

My on-the-go development machine is a 2021 M1 Max 16” MacBook Pro with 32GB of memory. It’s an absolute beast of a machine, and I love how snappy it is when moving things around and interacting with the interface. Everything I could possibly want to write code for is possible on this computer, and I don’t think I’ve heard the fans spin up more than a handful of times since I started using it.

My primary monitor is an LG 32" Ultrafine with the Ergo monitor arm. It's a beautiful 4k monitor that has plenty of real estate for writing code and having a browser open. The display itself is sharp and easy to read, and having the ergo arm means that I can move the montior around to meet any need.

My secondary monitor is an LG 28" DualUp monitor with the Ergo monitor arm. I saw this weirdly vertical monitor in a video and just had to try it out as a secondary monitor. Let me tell you, I couldn't be more pleased with it. The 16:18 aspect ratio is perfect for stacking two 16:9 windows on top of each other, so it's like I have two secondary monitors in a single package. Highly recommend picking one up if it sounds interesting to you!

The Kinesis Ergo 360 is my keyboard of choice! I used a ZSA Moonlander for a long time, which was a great keyboard, but didn't have the concavity that I needed to help prevent my knuckle joints from hurting. Overall, the keyboard has all but eliminated the arm and hand pain that I used to have all the time while typing on a normal keyboard. It's pricey, but much less expensive than a bunch of trips to the doctor from making my hands worse by typing on something that isn't built ergonomically. Typically, ergonomic keyboards look terrible and don't feel great to type on, but this one checks both of those boxes for me, especially now that I've added my blank PBT keycaps to the board.

After my MX Master 2 died, I upgraded to the MX Master 3! I didn't anticipate much in the way of updates, but I have been pleasantly surprised at how much better this version is than its predecessor. It's lighter, quieter, and overall feels really good!

My main audio input is a Shure SM7B dynamic microphone. It’s an amazing sounding mic, but the best feature for me is that it all but removes background noise and focuses right in on my voice. That’s a life-changing feature when you have a small child running around the house during work hours!

I connect the SM7B to my computer using a Cloudlifter CL-1 to make sure the signal is strong enough to be heard, and a Focusrite Scarlett Solo to convert the input from XLR out of the mic to USB into the computer.

I recently (at the beginning of 2024) upgraded my headphone game significantly by purchasing the AKG K712 PROs. They are large, open-back studio reference monitor headphones, and wow do they sound good! The open back gives me a MASSIVE sound stage, and the size of the ear cups mean that even my very large ears don't get fatigued after a few hours of wearing them. They aren't noise cancelling, in fact, they're quite the opposite, but so far I haven't had any noise issues. In the case that I DO need a little bit of noise cancelling action, I have the AirPods Pro to help me out there.

A recent update to the office setup, I use a Sony a6400 mirrorless camera and a Sigma 16mm F1.4 wide angle prime as my webcam and to record videos. The feed gets sent out of the camera into the Elgato Camlink 4k which acts as the input into my computer for things like Zoom, OBS, etc. It was a big investment, but the image quality has improved so much over the webcam that I was previously using.

To light up my face and give the video some depth, I use two Elgato Key Lights, one on either side of my desk. They were an expensive option, but they do what they say on the box and I haven’t had to mess with them much at all except to get my preferred settings dialed in.

The most recent addition to my desk is a CalDigit TS4 thunderbolt dock. Before this, I was using up every single port on my Macbook for my monitors, keyboard, and camera connection. Now, with all of the ports that this dock offers, I'm down to only using one or two of my laptop ports at any given time, and my desk setup looks much cleaner because of that.

My desk is a large, L-shaped desk made up of two IKEA Karlby countertops. The main part of the desk is set up on a pair of white, Fully motorized standing desk legs (linked), and the other desktop is set on top of a pair of IKEA Alex drawers.

I sit in the Autonomous Ergochair, which honestly, I was a little disappointed in. I had an Ergochair version 1 at a previous job, and I loved it. Thinking it would be much the same, I ordered the second version of the Ergochair, and it’s fine. The big complaint that I have is that the cushion isn’t nearly as comfortable as the first version. It does have really good lumbar support, though, so that’s been great for me since I sit practically all day when I’m working.