Hardware

Desktop - Mac Mini (Late 2018)

I currently use a Mac Mini . I'm comfortable with Unix-like systems and MacOS provides that and a nice consistent UI. The hardware design is nice and compact. I bought it refurbished to save a few bucks.

Laptop - 15" MacBook Pro (2019)

This is a work-issued machine. I use it mainly at my desk connected to a monitor. My biggest complaint is the lack of a physical Esc key (which Apple fixed recently in the 16" MacBook Pro).

Tablet - Surface Pro 3

This was my primary machine before I switched to the Mac Mini. I love the versatility of this device. But after five years, the performance and shortened battery life were getting in the way. It's still great to use on-the-go and for presentations (as long as I can plug in every now and then). The built-in kickstand is fantastic. Windows 10 is OK---especially since Microsoft added WSL (I still slightly prefer MacOS, though).

Phone - iPhone SE

The iPhone SE is a decent phone. The diminutive size makes it easy to carry and use one-handed, but the tiny screen size does get tiresome. If I was a die-hard phone user, I'd probably opt for something bigger.

Monitor - Dell 3415W

This is an older Dell 34" curved widescreen display. It can be shared by multiple machines and comes with an integrated KVM . I don't think I could go back to anything smaller than this. It's fairly sharp but only has QHD resolution; I would love if it had higher pixel density. My main issues with this monitor are the lack of physical control keys (they are touch-based) and sub-par support for Macs (the integrated speaker volume can't be controlled easily). More recent versions of this display have ditched the touch controls for tactile physical buttons.

Apps

IDE - VSCode

An awesome editor. It's lightweight but has a solid set of standard features (code completion---aka IntelliSense, tabbed interface, integrated terminal). Javascript and Typescript support are standard. A rich extensions library is also available. The extensions I use sometimes vary by project. But my most used extensions are Prettier and Peacock .

Image Editing - Gimp, Inkscape

My image editing needs are pretty basic. Instead of paying for Adobe or Affinity, I went with Gimp and Inkscape , which serve my needs really well. Both have Homebrew Formulae, if you prefer.

Browser - Brave

I'm not a fan of all of the tracking that happens in Chrome but I like Chrome's dev tools. Instead, I use Brave which is based on Chromium and gives me more control over how you're tracked. Brave also uses a cool model called Basic Attention Token ( BAT ) that rewards your attention to ads. You can control how many ads you see (you can choose to see none). BAT can be used to pay your favorite content creators. I'm not sure if BAT will ever become mainstream, but the browser itself is really nice.