Apps, Tools, and Gear I Use

This page is somewhat inspired by Wes Bos’ Uses page. Keep in mind that I’m mostly doing Frontend development and I’m also a nomadic worker. In other words, I’m 100% remote and I travel often.

Gear

• MacBook Pro M1 (13-inch)
• 27” screen (QHD). No dual screen. I’ve found myself more focused with only one screen.
• Herman Miller x Logitech Embody chair. A bit pricey, but very comfortable.
• Jarvis Bamboo Standing Desk
• Keychron K3 Mechanical keyboard
• MX Master 3S Mouse
• OnePlus Nord (and an old Huawei as a backup)
• Sony MDR 1000X. A noise-cancelling headphone with 2 modes: wired or wireless (bluetooth). I also have some Airpods.

Also: a Xiaomi monitor light bar, and a Logitech C920s webcam.

Nomadic setup

• Roost Laptop Stand
• Magic Trackpad 2 & Magic Keyboard 2
• Travel&daily bag is a Minaal Carry-on 2.0 (with packing cubes). I love it!

IDE

• VS Code is my favourite text editor so far.
• The theme I use is Material Theme which I customized.
• Full list of plugins that I Can’t Live Without.

All of my config files (VS Code settings, bash aliases, git config…) are accessible on my dotfiles GitHub repository.

Browser

My main browser is Brave. I also use the following extensions:

• uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger to preserve my privacy on the internets
• Grammarly
• React and Vue.js devtool extensions
• Accessibility Insights and axe for Accessibility audits
• LastPass for password management

Terminal & Command Line Apps

I mostly use my terminal in VSCode. Otherwise, I use iTerm. My terminal theme is powerlevel10k.

This is the list of plugins/apps I use:

• Zsh with Oh My Zsh. Oh My Zsh is a framework for managing zsh configuration.
• Lighthouse (CLI) - Auditing, performance metrics, and best practices for Progressive Web Apps.
• Hub - a wrapper for Git command (Git+Hub=GitHub).
• gtop - an alternative to activity monitor.
• Tree - to generate a tree (like the Tree Windows command).
• Bat - the cat command on steroids.
• n - a super handy tool for node version management.

I also use Vim from time to time.

Desktop Apps

I have a very minimalistic approach when it comes to my dock. If I don’t use an app -at least- once a day, I remove it from the dock.

I also use these applications:

• Giphy Capture is my go-to screen recording app when I need to share something with my colleagues. I found it simple to use.
• CrossOver - to run Windows App on Mac (it’s a paid product).

Note: I now use Slack in my browser (so Grammarly can proofread my messages)

Blogging

This site is made with Gatsby.js. I use these services:

• Grammarly - Helps me to remove typos / proofread my posts
• Google Docs - Helps me to remove typos / proofread my posts
• Squoosh - Image compression
• Remove.bg - Remove background on png
• Keynote (Apple) - To draw schemas
• Plausible - For ethical analytics
• Netlify - To preview my pull requests
• GitHub - Where I host my code and run CI/CD pipelines

Gaming

• I play mostly Age Of Empire 2 DE on my MacBook (thanks CrossOver)
• For other games, I rely on xCloud (Xbox’s cloud gaming platform)
• Xbox Elite Controller Series 2 is my controller.