Note: This site is currently "Under construction". I'm migrating to a new version of my site building software. Lots of things are in a state of disrepair as a result (for example, footnote links aren't working). It's all part of the process of building in public. Most things should still be readable though.

My Setup - The Stuff I Use - Fall 2021

This is the non-complete list of the stuff I use these days:

- 1Password. - Activity Monitor - The default app for seeing what's up on your mac and what's setting your CPU on fire. - Alfred - I've been using this app for years instead of the built-in Spotlight app on the mac. All I used it for is opening apps even though it can do a lot more than that. When I get my next machine I'm going to try running without it to see if spotlight works for me these days. - ASIO4ALL - This is a part of my audio chain that let's me connect Audition to OBS with a low latency. - Audition - I'll be doing a little audio editing whenever I get around to publishing my podcast/vlog. In the mean time, I use this for my mic setup for streaming for it's audio filters so I sound like a radio announcer. - AWS Services - I've dabbled in a lot of services - API Gateway, Athena, CloudFront, CloudWatch, Code Commit, Comprehend, DeepLens, EC2, ECS , EFS, Elastic Beanstalk, Glue, IAM, Lambda, RDS, Redshift, Rekognition, Route 53, S3, Secrets Manager, Simple Email Service, Simple Notification Service, Systems Manager, Transcribe, VPC, Workspaces. - awscli - For running AWS commands. Doesn't get a lot of use, but super handy when needed. - Backblaze - I have no problem paying for backup and this is where I do it. The only time I've had to restore is when Apple silently deleted folders from the root of my drive via an OS upgrade. It worked like a champ. - Chrome - TKTKTK - Cloudinary - Using this to automatically generate the "Open Graph" images that show up on social media sites when you post a link. - CodeRunner - This is a great little app for writing and running quick little scripts in your language of choice. - curl - The amazing command line tool for working with remote URLs. I never remember all the flag and arguments you pass to do various things, but that's what grimoire notes are for. - DaVinci Resolve - I'm using this for some video editing along with Premiere . Was trying to script it, but ran into some roadblocks. Great piece of software though. - DB Browser for SQLite - TKTKTK - DBeaver - TKTKTK - Discord - My preferred place to chat. I wasn't that into this type of app until the pandemic and loss of human contact that came with it. Discord did a suitable job of filling that need. - Docker - I've got it installed but don't really use it much. Got some upcoming projects that will rely on it so I'll get more exposure soon. - Dropbox - The way I sync files. They've added tons and tons of stuff to it that mostly gets in the way. When I get my new machine I'm going to see if I can get by without it. - Elgato Stream Deck. - espanso - I'm just starting to use this, but it's going to be my replacement for Text Expander. It's a little more developer like and it's open-source. - ffmpeg - Firefox - TKTKTK - Git I'm not that good at git since I'm mainly a solo developer, but I don't work without it. - GitHub Desktop - I use the git command line for some tasks, but I like the visual display of diffs in GitHub Desktop most of the time. Way easier for me to deal with than the command line `git diff`. - GitHub - The online host for Git repositories. I keep most of my projects private on my machine. Or, I have in the past. I'm starting to move more and more of them up to GitHub. Taking me some getting used to since I'm not super confident in my code. But, I figure why not? Plus, it'll add another backup for my projects - Google Chrome - The 800lbs. gorilla in the browser marker. I just switched to it from Safari because of how badly Apple borked their tab UI. - handbrake - For converting/transcoding my videos to different formats. Doesn't get a lot of usage these days since I pretty much just watch everything online, but I like knowing it's there if I need it. - homebrew - the way that I install most of my command line software these days - ImageMagik](https://imagemagick.org/index.php) - doesn't get a lot of use these days, but nice quick tool for image conversion. I'm looking at [sharp to see if it'll fill the need. - iTerm2 - The better terminal for Mac. I sometimes use the built-in one for long running processes I need to watch, but iTerm2 is my daily driver. - jq - Keyboard Maestro - Another piece of automation software. It's way more powerful than I realized when I first started using it. Reminds me of photoshop where you open it up and it doesn't have anywhere near as much going on in the UI as you'd expect for what it does. - Keychain Access](https://support.apple.com/guide/keychain-access/what-is-keychain-access-kyca1083/mac) - The built-in credentail store for macs. I use 1password as my main storage but drop things into Keychain Access as well so I can access them with the [keyring python module. - Lightroom - TKTKTK - Loopback - TKTKTK - luarocks - This is a package manager for Lua. I used it to get some neovim stuff running for my grimoire plugin. - [MDX] - My favorite new thing. This is the amazing way to make markdown files that lets you drop in JSX components too. The way of working with files that I've been waiting for. - meilisearch - superfast search built in rust. I'm using this for an as-of-yet-not-public project as well as the backend for the new neovim grimoire I'm working on. - MySQL Workbench - TKTKTK - neovim - I've gone in pretty solid on neovim. It's my daily driver and what I'm building my new grimoire in. That said, I'm not religious about it and use sublime text, vs code, whatever... Fighting over editors is a waste of energy. - nextjs - Just moved my site off of Gatsby to NextJS. I'm interested in getting back to something that can process stuff on the server dynamically. Still have lots of learning to do, but I'm liking it. - node - I've finally gotten into node stuff. Mainly doing gatsby and nextjs. - nushell - A possible replacement for zsh. I've got it, but don't really use it yet. It has my attention though. - nvAlt - My core storage system. My grimoire. This is where all my notes go. North of 7,000 now. It's a little long in the tooth and slowing down, but it's still my most used app. There's a replacement called nvUltra that's in the works, but it's been at least a year in progress and it looks like it does a bunch of stuff I'm not interested int. That's why I'm building my own neovim plugin to replace it. - OBS - My streaming software of choice. Free, Open-source and full featured even if the UI isn't the greatest. I used the StreamElements version for a little while but didn't get much out of it so just went back to the standard version. - Photoshop - The standard by which all others are judged. I don't do much with it these days. It's more and more of a resource hog that my six year old macbook struggles with. Looking at alternatives is on my list. - PlanetScale - TKTKTK - postgresql - My preffered database when I need a full blown system instead of just using sqlite. Main thing I use it for right now is a local django tools website. - Postman - For API work. Though, I don't use it that often. I normally just go straight to the scripting. - Premiere to make animated gifs. - Preview - The built-in app that's always nicer than I remember. It has a nice little feature that lets you put arrows and annotations on images which is what I use it for. - Putty - TKTKTK - ripgrep - super fast grep written in rust. - Safari - TKTKTK - ScreenFlow - The tool to use for doing screen recordings on your mac. Pricy, but worth it if you need it. - Snap Camera - TKTKTK - Soulver - TKTKTK - SoundSource - Great little sound control app. Lets you control app volumes independently and includes an EQ. All that should be built in. It's not so it's great that this exists. - sqlite3 - the amazing little database that could. I'm using this more and more for little storage projects. - Stickies - I feel like this is one of the most overlooked apps on the mac. It comes built-in and is super handy for what you need to jot something down outside of a text editor or notes app. - Sublime Text 2 and 4 - Used Sublime Text 2 for my main editor for years. Used 3 some and just got 4 on principal. I'd run all three of them, but 4 overwrote 3. - SuperCollider - A programmable music maker. I haven't done much with it yet, but it's very much in play. - Teams - Work's gonna be work and this is how we did it during the pandemic. - Terminal - Text Expander - The first app I used that let you type little snippets that automatically get turned into whatever expanded text you want. It took a nice leap when they added the ability to put javascript in the expansions. That said, I'm moving over to espanso as my new expander. - tmux - Started using it this year. I mainly use it to keep my twitch chat bots running in a window I can detach from and close but then reopen when I want to check on them. - Tweetbot - TKTKTK - twitch-cli - Haven't really started to use this yet, but it's on the list of things to mess with. - Virtual Cable - This is part of my audio chain that lets me wire up Audition and OBS properly. - Visual Studio Code - The very slick editor from Microsoft. I'm more into neovim these days, but it's solid and gets play not infrequently. - Wally - TKTKTK - Workspaces to connect to what I need. - yabai - YouTube Music - I've basically stopped using Spotify. YouTube Music does a better job of giving me new music when I ask it to start a new radio station from a song. It also doesn't push podcasts all the time which is a nice change of pace. - Zoom - TKTKTK - zsh](https://www.zsh.org/) - The shell that I use these days that comes as the default with the latest mac os. I originally switched to from bash a while ago because of [oh my zsh. I don't use that anymore but I stuck with zsh.

To Add:

- NotePad ++ - PyCharm - VLC Media Player - Camera - Monitors - Lights - Keyboard camera - Mic - Zoom H5 - Node - Python - npm - JavaScript - Details from the other post in how-to-code.

See this old one too: What I'm Running - Open Apps - March, 2014