The Column
This page I update from time to time to reflect what tools I use to do things.
Physical
Wood shop
- A ton of Ryobi One+ Power Tools
- Drill
- Driver
- Circular saw
- Reciprocating Saw
- Jigsaw
- Multi tool (aka oscillating saw)
- Orbital sander
- Mouse sander
- Brad Nailer
- Hot Glue Gun
- Various lights
- Radio
- Standard hand tools
- Handmade Workbenches
- Table saw
- Miter Saw
Tech
Computers
- iPad Pro 12.9 (4th Gen)
- iPhone 14 Pro
- Mac Mini 2023
- Windows Desktop (custom build, aging)
- Synology NAS DiskStation DS920+
Peripherals
- Dell S2721QS Monitor x2 - highly recommended
- Logitech MX Master 3S
- Apple’s standard detached mac keyboard
- AirPods Pro
Capture Devices
- Apple Pencil
- Apple Smart Keyboard Folio
- Audio Technical ATR2100 microphone
- Apple Watch SE
- Oura Ring 3
Infrequently used, but still around:
- Canon EOS Rebel T6
- GoPro 7 Black
Fitness Tools
- Half rack - brand unknown
- Olympic bar - 45
- Olympic bar - 35
- Olympic rings
- EZ bar
- Iron plates - 45x4, 35x2, 25x2, 10x2, 5x4, 2.5x2
- Hex dumbbells - 5 thru 35 in 5lb increments
- Bowflex Selecttech 525 x2
- Corner cable machine
- Magnetic resistance rower
- 8 horse stall mats
- Pull-up bar - homemade, using floor joists and 1inch steel pipe
Digital
Development Tools
- My primary “stack”
- Tooling
- Cloud stuff
- Firebase (Firestore and Functions)
- Vercel - hosting my puzzle box website
- Cloudflare - hosting this blog
- Google Apps Script + Google Sheets
- Other tools
- PlantUML & MermaidJS
- DrawIO and Excalidraw
- Quartz - static site generator for Obsidian
Software & Apps
All Platforms / Cloud
- Gmail/Google Calendar - email and calendar
- Notion - life management
- Obsidian - notes & writing, increasingly more things
- Jump Desktop - remote desktop client
- Plex - personal media library
- Libby - getting & reading books
- Spotify - music streamer of choice
- Endel - generative background noise
- Pocketcasts - podcast application of choice
- Excalidraw - quick digital drawings
- Draw.io - diagramming
- Figma - design and whiteboarding
- Google Photos - photo managing
- Google Drive - main cloud application
- iCloud - backups for devices + some other cloud stuff
- LastPass - password manager
- Pocket - online article collection & reading
- Tesla - car stuff
- Pixen - pixel art & animation
Windows 10 &/or MacOS
- Visual Studio Code - coding
- Handbrake - video transcoding
- MakeMKV - movie backup
- VisualParadigm - UML & SysML
- Final Cut Pro - video production
- Fusion360 - CAD
- ImageOptim - awesome image file size reducing utility
iOS and iPadOS
- Apple’s Reminders app - location-based reminders and as an inbox
- Apple’s Calendar app
- Apple’s Mail app
- Streaks - habit tracking
- Procreate - making drawings & comics
- Procreate Dreams - animations
- Working Copy - Git client/writing app
- GoodNotes 6 - doodles, although this may be deprecated soon by…
- Concepts - doodles & drawings
- Pixen - pixel art editor
- Shortcuts - lots of stuff, but mainly Lifeline Journal inputs
- Data Jar - iOS Shortcuts enhancer
- Monarch - money tracking
- Hevy - weightlifting app of choice
- Scriptable - iOS Shortcuts enhancer, better integrates Lifeline Journal & iOS
- Pythonista - also a shortcuts enhancer, and other stuff
- Ferrite Pro - spoken audio editor
- Some Subset of: YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, Paramount +, Peacock, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+
Archive/Out-of-Use Tools
- Chromebook Plus - fully replaced by the iPad Pro
- iPhone 11 → upgraded
- Apple Watch Gen 1 → upgraded
- Sony Movie Studio Platinum 15 → I replaced it with Final Cut & never liked it to begin with
- Wrapper-Lib - my own NPM Module! Replaced with Svelte
- Todoist - task management → determined the native iOS Reminders app + Notion covers my task management needs
- Things 3 - task management → Same thing happened as Todoist
- Fantastical - good app, I built my own widget that replaced what I used it for
- Strong App → offered no Lifetime Subscription options, so I switched to Hevy, which I bought a lifetime subscription for immediately
- Curve → Nerfed their free tier to the point of being unusable
- LumaFusion → I got Final Cut Pro
- IFTTT - automatic quantified self tracking → with their transition to a “pro” plan I decided to see what it was like to live without
- Mint → Intuit decided to kill Mint, so I got Monarch, which is better than Mint
- Codepen.io - front end development in-browser → I spin up my own local sites
- RescueTime - automatic time tracking → doesn’t work well enough with iOS for me to trust it
- Shapr3D → Learning Fusion360
- Audacity - audio recording → began using Ferrite Pro for recording
- Axis360 → My local library finally got it and transitioned to the much better Libby
- Glitch → replaced by firebase/vercel
- React → it’s been long enough since I used React I’d be relearning a lot of it
- Bootstrap → meh
- jQuery → who needs it anymore
- Bootstrap-Table → Recreated with my own stuff
- MongoDB + Mongoose → replaced with Firebase
- MongoDB.com - Mongo host
- Toolbox Pro - iOS Shortcuts enhancer → no longer used by any active shortcuts
- Android → switched to iOS after nearly a decade of Android devotion
- Android Studio - no longer on Android, so no longer interested
- Inbox by Google → killed by Google
- Google Reader → killed by Google
- Google Play Music → killed by Google
- Google Tasks → killed by Google (eventually brought back, but whatever)
- Google Fit → never grew into anything worthwhile
- Google Keep → lacking desired functions
- Chrome Remote Desktop → Jump is much better on the iPad