Uses

Hardware

Computering

• MacBook Pro, bought in 2024: 14" size, M4 chip, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD.
  • I don’t miss the 16" form factor, so this is quite perfect as a literal laptop for me.
• Windows PC: For some gaming and my rare music sessions.
  • Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite
  • AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
  • Sapphire Radeon RX 590
  • Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB DDR4

Peripherals

• UGREEN 8K KVM Switch: Allows quick-switching between my Mac and PC — we don’t talk about the absolute mess of cables hidden under the desk.
• Monitors:
  • Dell U2518D Monitor: A big screen for big code (hooked to the KVM).
  • Asus VE247: A slightly maller secondary monitor for the PC only.
• 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard: My first mechanical keyboard, super satisfying (and yes it works on macOS).
• Mice:
  • Apple Magic Mouse: Looks sleek, works well, but that charging port, good grief…
  • Very crappy $10 Amazon mouse: Using this for the PC, after my “gaming” one broke.
• Western Digital 4TB External Hard Drive: For the backups I always forget to make.
• TP-Link Deco X20 Mesh WiFi: Keeps the internet flowing through the apartment.
• Brother Black & White Printer/Scanner: A printer that works, if you can believe it.

Desk

• Fully Remi: 58"×27" standing desk. (discontinued after Herman Miller acquisition)
• ErGear Dual Monitor Arms: More desk space!
• MidWest Pet Bed: Less desk space! (it’s for my cats, though)
• Corsair MM350 XL Mouse Pad: Yep it’s big.

Audio

• Audio Technica ATH-CKS50TW2: Some fancy Bluetooth earphones with noise cancelling that stay with me most of the work day.
• Moondrop CHU II: Some basic in-ear monitors that have weird anime packaging but they work well for running (thanks, reddit).
• Sony MDR-XB950N1 over-ear headphones: Quality headphones for more “focused” listening, with noise-cancelling. Never on for long because my glasses dig into my temples…

Hobbies

• iPod Classic 160GB: The most excellent rectangle ever made.
• Novation Launchkey 37 MIDI keyboard: I made music a lot in the past, and this little toy is great to slowly get back into it.
• PlayStation 5 (2020 disc model): Good games, good consoles… can’t complain about my history with PlayStation.

Software

Web stuff

• Zen Browser: I’ve been using Firefox since version 3 or something, and I’ve been a supporter since — love the CSS DevTools! (especially for flex/grid and the Fonts panel) However, Mozilla has made dubious decisions lately, so I’ve switched to a fork named Zen, though that’s just Firefox in a trenchcoat.
• Feeder: A simple RSS reader that has folders and offers a browser extension — not fancy, sure, but it’s free and does what I need.
• Mastodon on front-end.social: After Twitter died and we all left (right??), I opted for Mastodon as my social network, on the Front-End Social server, and it’s been great.

Coding

• Visual Studio Code: Love how powerful and customisable this editor is! Though I hate all the A.I./agents-oriented updates as of late… I notably use these extensions:
  • SynthWave '84: A beautiful neon-infused theme by Robb Owens that is exactly my vibe (text glow is turned off, though!).
  • Maple Mono: I’ve tried all the hyped developer fonts, and after some years using the wonderful JetBrains Mono, I’ve landed on Maple (with customised font variations and ligatures turned off because they make everything look like garbage to me).
  • Prettier: Keeps all my code harmoniously formatted, and when you make a syntax mistake you’ll know as your code doesn’t auto-format!
  • VisuBezier: My own CSS easing function preview tool, pretty useful when writing cubic-bezier() by hand that I want to quickly verify without leaving VS Code.
• Fork: A little git GUI that helps me avoid making big mistakes.

Creativity & Productivity

• Notion: My one-stop-shop for all my notes and ideas (for better or worse), but also my “database” for my gaming library and /now pages via the Notion API.
• Adobe Creative Cloud: Some Photoshop, and a lot of Illustrator since I love working with vectors. I optimise my work with SVGOMG and then manually tweak them to be just right.
• ImageOptim: Wonderful tool to compress images better, you won’t regret it.

This website

• The colophon covers it all!

My macOS dock

My personal laptop’s pinned applications list looks a bit like this (Dark Mode 24/7!), minus a few utilities like the scanner/printer or bin we don’t care much about (inspired by Trevor Morris).