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

Workstation

  • MacBook Air, M3, 24GB RAM (2024)

    As I am traveling a lot at the moment I aimed for the most compact machine which would still perform enough for my workload.

Development tools

  • Visual Studio Code

    During my day job I tend to default to using VS Code since it ships all necessary features while being fast enough for me. Especially the DevContainer support is perfect for frequently switching between projects.

  • Zed

    When working on side projects I increasingly open Zed. Zed is relatively new but has been pushing high quality features in a short time frame. Furthermore, Zed is the fastest Editor I ever used. Using a different editor also allows me to mentally separate my day job to my side projects.

  • Docker

    Docker should be self-explanatory considering I exclusively work with DevContainer and deploy software as containers.

Productivity

  • iPad mini 6

    The iPad mini delivers the perfect form factor for reading on the iPad which is my primary use case with the Kindle App. I also use it for watching videos, writing notes, testing my apps & websites and other smaller tasks.

  • Apple Notes

    In the past I was a power user of Notion but reformed back to Apple Notes. While Notion definitely has more features and is way more powerful, I tend to get stuck trying to get the perfect structure. With Apple Notes the focus is more on writing and less on other tasks like formatting and structuring.

  • Kindle App

    While I prefer to read physical books, the Kindle App allowed me to continue reading larger quantities of books while staying abroad for several months.

  • Audible

    Listening to audio books during long travels is a life saver. E.g. when traveling from my home country to other places like spain I manage to listen to at least one full audio book in a single car ride.

Misc

  • f.lux

    Most of my days I spend several hours in front of the screen of my laptop. f.lux helps reducing the strain on my eye by dimming and adjusting the color of the screen.