Uses

A descriptive list of the things I use, while geeking out.

Hardware

• Computer
  An old Coolermaster case, which I have been using for 10 years now. I should call it Theseus' Ship. Components get replaced as needed. The current motherboard is a MSI MAG B550 Tomahawk, with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6-Core Processor. 32gig of Corsair RAM. And a lower end NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 GPU. This rig tries to have high performance, but not go to extremes. I don't play games any more so I don't need the latest of the latest.
• Phone
  Google Pixel 6. It just won't break. When it does, I'll probably get a Fairphone.
• Remarkable 2
  Ereader and notepad. Honestly, if you haven't tried one, you haven't lived. Visit reMarkable for more.

Peripherals

• Screen
  LG 34" superwide. Great colours, okay refreshrate. The curved wide screen makes it so I don't need multiple screens anymore.
• Video calls
  My 'webcam' is a Sony NX100 HD camcorder. A little much for the use case, but I wasn't using it any more. It connects to my computer through an Elgato HD interface. I talk through a Sennheiser E935 Microphone, coupled to a Tascam Analog audio interface. I blame Covid for all of this.
• Mouse
  Logitech MX Anywhere 2. Compact, wireless, and ambidextrous. They don't make them like that any more, and it still lives. As an RSI risk mitigation measure I use my left hand for mouse work. Nowadays all mice seem to be shaped to be used with only left or right hand. I prefer to be able to switch.
• Keyboard
  Nondescript HP keyboard. I used to be in love with the MS Sculpt keyboard, but both mine broke, and the newer versions where too expensive. The HP is cheap, easy to replace, soft touch and wireless. I love typing on it.

Software

• Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
  After Norton Commander I went to Windows. It's what I know best. I had to use a MacBook for a year, and absolutely hated the interface, I just could not get used to the way they hide information. Windows is my safe place.
• Gitlab.com
  I maintain various website repositories here. It's easy to autodeploy, and so far still free to use. But all code and processes are made so its very easy to take gitlab out of the loop.
• Sublime Text & Merge
  For more local development. Nice and lightweight.
• Proton
  I use the entire proton suite, Drive, Mail, Pass, etc. For secure mail and storage. Gmail is awful. Office 365 would be nice, if they allowed personal domains. For all and being lightweight, Proton is the best.
• Adobe Creative Cloud
  No excuse for this one. It's still the best, and I have a work licence I don't have to pay for.
• Affinity Photo 2
  I'm trying to switch to this from Photoshop, but the differences and limitations still make my brain hurt.
• Library
  Calibre e-book management tool. Makes it magically possible to convert horrible drmmed books into perfectly servicable ePubs I can view on my Remarkable 2.
• Office
  Libreoffice. Don't need to explain that one.
• Computer management
  I use DriverEasy to periodically update device drivers. This seems to be much more reliable than MS update.
• Browser
  Waterfox. It's all Firefox should be. It cuts out all the crap we don't want. And is regularly updated. Great fork.
• RSS Reader
  Inoreader is my weapon of choice here. I was a long time user of Feedly, but they became really expensive, and also LLMs were introduced.