Software I use, gadgets I love, and other things I recommend.

I get asked a lot about the things I use to build software, stay productive, or buy to fool myself into thinking I’m being productive when I’m really just procrastinating. Here’s a big list of all of my favorite stuff.

Workstation

  • 14” MacBook Pro, M3, 32GB RAM (2023)

    I upgraded this year from an M1 to an M3 and I've yet to hear the fan on this thing despite my 2 external monitors, and recording setup. The biggest wins are the battery life, and all the ports.

  • Secretlab Magnus Pro Standing Desk

    This past year I finally got a standing desk and it's been a game changer. I've been using the Secretlab Magnus Pro and it's perfect for my needs. I stand 30-40% of the time and it's great to break up the day. I also added the dual monitor arms.

  • Secretlab TITAN Evo Chair

    I'll admit, I don't know a lot about chairs. But what I love about this chair is it's easy to dial in the lumbar support and the tilt. There's been many times where I've just laid it back and napped.

  • Monitors (2) Dell UltraSharp U2723QE 27" 4k

    I've been using the Dell UltraSharp U2723QE a year now and it's by far the best monitor I've ever used. Clear colors, great viewing angles, and the 4k resolution is *chefs kiss*

  • Sony Alpha a6400 Mirrorless Camera

    I've been using this camera for 2 years now and it's been great. It stays mounted on my tripod in my office and I use it for all of my video recording/streaming content. With a camlink, I can record directly to my MacBook Pro and use it as a webcam. Ah, but don't forget the adapter power supply. Super useful to make sure the camera doesn't shut off due to heat.

  • Sony 16mm f/1.4

    I've been using this lens for 2 years (got it with the camera) and can't imagine shooting without it. People always ask me how I get a bokeh effect and honestly, it's this lens doing 100% of the work.

  • Shure MV7 USB Microphone

    Don't get me wrong, I miss the colors on my HyperX Quadcast mic. But the sound quality on a Shure is amazing. I went with the USB model because I'm not an audiohead, but it also has an XLR port in case that changes in the future.

Development tools

  • Bolt

    I made the switch from NextJS and V0 to Vite and Bolt this year. I miss the DX of the former, but I love the flexibility of the latter. I use Bolt for fun ideation and prototyping and then move to Cursor when I need to create a more involved project. All that to say, my current opinion is still evolving on how to use these tools together.

  • Excalidraw

    I've been using this for all of my diagramming needs for years and it's only gotten better. I use it to create all of my diagrams for my projects and take it a step further with the Pro plan and VS Code extension.

  • RayCast

    Let me start by saying I'm not a Mac power user. So there are a lot of features here that I don't invest the time in learning. With that said, I use the color picker, clipboard, and well that's it.

Design

  • Figma

    Yes, I have figma. No, I'm not a pro at it. I use it mainly for storing assets and making simple tweaks.

  • Canva

    I use this more than Figma. Mainly it's how I layout my social cards and blog post cover images.

Content Creation

  • Descript

    I'm on year 2 of using this and it's easily the best tool for video creation. Using a transcription as a way to edit your video is a game changer. I never realized how much dead space and "ums" I had in my videos until I started using this.

  • Screen Studio

    New to my arsenal this year. I think the sweet spot for this is demo content, and promotional material. I wouldn't use this to for a long-form video.

  • Streamyard

    I've been using this for about 5 years now. It's made huge improvements over time. I've used it to stream to YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitch. With that said, it's expensive and when I have time, I'd like to explore using OBS, just streaming to YouTube and sharing the stream link to the other platforms.