What I Use
Last updated: January 2025
Inspired by Owen Williams from Charged, I've gathered some info here about the hardware, software and other stuff that I use.
[photo here]
Computers
Desktop PC
I built my first PC when I was about 13. Ten years later, I still have that same PC. Well, except that every component has been replaced one by one.
This PC is used for occasional gaming and work on my DayZ map, Valandia. Most of my other coding and development work is done either on my MacBook Air or Mac Mini.
Laptop
I used to use an original (2015) 13" Retina MacBook Pro. In 2021 I switched to an M1 MacBook Air and I'm very pleased with it. After reading about some issues with the lower spec'ed M1 Macs, I took 16GB of RAM and I haven't yet had any problems with memory pressure.
Monitors
I have two 27" Dell S2721D (1440p) monitors that are hooked up to both my PC and my work Mac. I'm looking to reorganise my office so that I can have separate screens for my PC and my Mac. I really like the higher pixel density on the 27" monitors, so I will probably get two more of them at some point in the future.
Smartphone
I have an iPhone 14 Pro (128GB) and I love it. In particular the camera is fantastic.
Software / Tech
Hosting
In the past I co-founded a web hosting company. The business was sold in 2014 and I currently use Digital Ocean to host my websites/apps.
At work we use AWS exclusively, but I've also used Azure and GCP in the past. They all seem pretty similar 🤷♂️
For over 10 years I used the free tier of G-Suite for email hosting. When they killed it, I switched to Zoho Mail and I'm pretty happy with it.
IDE
Currently my IDE of choice is VS Code, but I also use Sublime Text for quick text editing. I find Sublime nicer to use for quickly editing single files (eg. config files) compared to VS Code.
Version Control
Git, of course!
Terminal & Shell
I use the standard macOS terminal app, with zsh. I've customised it a bit, so I'm using starship for the prompt.
Writing
I use Notion for note taking and writing. I also like to use Google Docs because it has a nice edit mode.
Audio
Headphones
I usually use a pair of AirPods Pro with my Mac, but I use a set of Sony MDR-7506 studio headphones with my PC.
When woodworking, I use a pair of bluetooth ear defenders from 3M.
Home
Internet
We live in a house in a remote area. When we moved here there was only 4G mobile internet, but a local internet provider ran fiber to our house when we asked them. We have a 1000/100Mbps connection and its great.
I run a Raspberry Pi 4B as a PiHole for DNS-level ad blocking on our network. It mostly works well, but some devices don't like using the Pi as the DNS server, despite it being set in the router.
TV
We have a 70" Samsung 4K TV that used to be internet connected until we also got an Apple TV 4K. I have heard a lot of horror stories about adverts appearing in the Samsung TV UI, so I am very happy that we use the Apple TV for everything. I pretty much never use the Samsung TV remote anymore.
I have an Xbox One, but it doesn't see much use these days. Mostly its nice to play co-op games on the TV.
I used to run another Raspberry Pi 4B (8GB) as a Plex server, but it has now been moved to run in a docker container on a dedicated Unraid NAS machine with 8TB of storage.
Smart Home
I run Home Assistant on a Raspberry Pi 4B 8GB and we use it quite heavily. Every light switch in the house is zigbee, and every room has a smart thermostat. Several rooms have Gree air conditioners for additional heating and cooling. Everything is connected to Home Assistant.
I am skeptical and cautious of the concept of a smart home ("the internet of things is the internet of unpatched unmanaged devices") but we started out with a Zigbee door sensor so that we could be notified if anyone opened our apartment door while we were away and things escalated from there.
Transport
Car
We bought a year old Mazda 3 in 2020 with only 5000KM on the clock and it's really fantastic. It has very comfy seats, a well designed dashboard with physical controls (no touchscreen), carplay, and a large boot. My only complaint is that I find it a bit low to get in and out of, but my previous car was a large 4x4 truck so I think that's to be expected!
Drone
Cats
We have two very fluffy Ragdoll cats - Bezuś and Hazel.