Through my teenage years and early 20s, I enjoyed building PCs from scratch. I went through many motherboards, video cards, audio interfaces, PSUs, cases. As I got into my 30s, I started defining what I needed for what I enjoy doing. I began simplifying my setup and focusing down. I truly believe decluttering is the way to go — but I still enjoy my toys.
Hardware
2024 Mac mini M4 Pro · 24 GB
My main machine now. After years on aging Intel Macs, the jump to Apple Silicon was almost embarrassing. The M4 Pro chews through everything I throw at it and stays dead silent doing it. 24 GB has been plenty for the way I work.
Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 57" dual 4K UHD · Mini-LED
This replaced my old two-monitor setup with one absurd curved display. It's essentially two 4K screens fused into one, minus the bezel down the middle. Took a few days to stop feeling lost on it. Now a single small screen feels claustrophobic.
Apple Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad
I like having my number pad. I used the standard Magic Keyboard for years because it's so compact, but a while back I switched to the full-size variant and haven't regretted it.
Logitech MX Vertical ergonomic wireless
Years of mousing finally caught up with my wrist. The vertical grip feels strange for about an hour, then you forget it's any different and your forearm just stops complaining. I should have switched sooner.
Apple Magic Trackpad 1st gen, AA
Still in the rotation alongside the vertical mouse. The gestures are too good to give up, even if my wrist prefers the MX for long sessions.
Bose Companion 2 Series III
These have been with me for several years. I love my music and these are really good speakers for the money.
Bowers & Wilkins C5 In-Ear
Not always the most comfortable, but these things sound amazing. The bass is incredible. Great brand with a great sound.
Software
Cursor
I moved off VS Code to Cursor and haven't looked back. It's VS Code under the hood, so every extension and keybinding I relied on came along, but the AI editing and chat are part of my actual workflow now instead of a novelty.
Claude Code
This one genuinely changed how I work. I lean on Claude Code for everything from scaffolding a feature to working through a refactor I've been avoiding. The trick is treating it like a sharp junior engineer: hand it real context, check its work, and never let it run unsupervised.
iTerm2
⌘ + Shift + I. I love logging in to load-balanced servers and sending commands to all terminal windows simultaneously. My greatest discovery. I probably use 10–20% of iTerm2's potential.
TablePlus
For database work. I moved over from Sequel Ace and TablePlus is just nicer to live in — MySQL, Postgres, and a pile of other engines from one clean window. The kind of tool I stopped thinking about, which is the highest compliment I can give software.
Tuple
Tuple is great for pair programming. Unobtrusive design, easy to call someone and jump into a session quickly. Audio and screen sharing quality is high.
RunJS
Love this product for being so good at what it does. When I need to figure out a JavaScript problem and I get tired of refreshing the page, I move over to RunJS. Auto-updates the output as I type.
Zoom
Used daily from standups to ad-hoc mob sessions. Has had its ups and downs but gets the job done.
Slack
The glue that keeps a distributed team together.
Apple Music
I came back around to Apple Music. It's gotten genuinely good, and having it built into everything Apple means it follows me from the desk to the car to the trail without me thinking about it.