Home Office Setup

MacBook Pro (2019)

I bought this to use as my primary laptop in February 2020 (luckily just weeks before the pandemic forced the world to work from home).

• 16GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory
• Intel Core i7 (where is the M1 16 inch?)
• 512GB SSD
• AMD Radeon Pro 5300M 4 GB

I primarily use my laptop for programming, I do have a custom built PC from a few years ago, which is used for any (rare) gaming.

iTerm (with oh-my-zsh)

The greatest terminal on Mac, with a hyper customisable zsh framework

JetBrains Rider

My main dotnet IDE both at home and at work. It's a bit lighter than Visual Studio, completely cross-platform (VS for Mac suuucks). It comes with the benefit of the JetBrains plugin ecosystem. Also it was written with ReSharper in mind, so migrating from VS with R# feels natural. It's still a little heavy, so I've toyed with migrating to VS Code, I'll talk about that more now.

Visual Studio Code

This is my main tool for Python, JavaScript, Rust or Golang programming, as well as a dump for any log files, json objects, xml responses etc. I also use it to take notes in markdown (I essentially use it as plain text, but it gives nice syntax highlighting for bullet points, headers, bold text etc).

I did trial using VS Code as a dotnet editor for a while, but the workspace feature was hard to get used to, and I had to setup a configuration file everytime I started work on a new project (which can be often, especially at work). So I'm still on JetBrains Rider at the minute... Maybe another day!

Spotify

I guess this isn't really a tool, but I listen to about 8 hours of music per day, so it's worth mentioning. Here is my last.fm if you want to check it out.

Slack/Microsoft Teams/Discord

I'm grouping these together as I use them in similar amounts. Slack and Microsoft Teams in a professional context. Discord in a community context.

1Password

I've been using 1Password for a few years, though the new of version 8 (moving to a subscription pricing model, and shifting the Mac client to Electron.js) may force me to jump ship. It's a password manager, it's supposed to sit in the background for days on end... Why would the write it using a framework known for performance issues?

Logic Pro X

One of my hobbies is music production. I started out using Garageband for a few years, it was adequate, but the comfort features provided with Logic Pro X were hard to pass up. Also the alchemy synth is awesome, and the Chromaverb UI is the most beautiful Reverb experience you can possibly ask for

ZSA Moonlander

I bought this keyboard in July 2021. At the time of writing, I've used it for around a month. I'll talk more about this in a full review, but so far I'm loving it!

Logitech MX Master

I've had this mouse for a few years, it rarely runs out of battery, it's comfortable, the infinite scroll feature is useful sometimes. My only problem I have is that it doesn't track properly on my home desk, so I have to use a mousemat, which is fairly annoying as one of the main selling points of the mouse is how it "tracks anywhere, even on glass!"

Raspberry Pi (Model 4, 8GB RAM)

I usually ssh into my pi as it's used for scheduled tasks (twitter bots, a stock price predictor etc).

I don't have too many uses for it, but it's fun to play around in a pure unix environment via a terminal. My bash skills have increased tenfold since my partner bought it for me (thanks Ferg).

Bose QuietComfort 35 II

Easily the best headphones I've ever owned.

The noise cancellation is out of this world. The bass response is nice, without being too boom-y. They're suuuuuuuper comfortable (seriously I can keep them on for like 8 hours without feeling discomfort).

The only possible flaw is the battery life isn't great anymore, but I've been wearing them 8 hours a day for almost 3 years now, so it's still fairly impressive.

My next set might be a pair of Apple Airpod Max, unless Bose come out with a new killer. Either way, I'm waiting for these to fully die before I purchase a new set.

Shure SRH1840

These headphones sound amazing, especially with live albums (Alive 2007 - Daft Punk, I'm looking at you). However, they're not very comfortable as they press into my temples, so I can only wear them for an hour or so before taking a break. Also, the provided cables only lasted around 2-3 months each before becoming loose, so I had to buy a replacement set of cables.