My Kit - Items, Tools, and Services I Use Daily
February 9, 2025•1,610 words
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I get asked a lot about the tools I use to build software, stay productive and organised, or buy to keep me productive and on top of things. Here is a big list of all my favourite stuff.
Workstation (2023 14” MacBook Pro, M2 Pro, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD)
I was using an Intel-based 15” MacBook Pro (Late 2016) prior to this and the difference is night and day. I have never heard the fans turn on a single time, even under the incredibly heavy loads I put it through with the number of applications and VMs (Parallels Windows 11) open. Nevermind the massive Football Manager 2024 databases I use.
OneBag (Patagonia Refugio 28L)
For everyday carry and travelling, the Patagonia Refugio 28L is a bag that checks nearly every box for me.
- It isn’t too big, nor too small.
- Is lightweight, but durable and well built (Patagonia’s warranty and repair philosophy is enough of a sell anyways - even for secondhand purchases like this).
- Separate laptop slot (albeit a tad thin, but nothing that can’t be worked around).
- Some extra organisation, but not overly opinionated.
- External carry points that also enable the use of shock-cord for carrying a picnic blanket or jacket.
- Dual water-bottle holders.
- Comfortable shoulder and chest straps.
The only box it does not check is the waterproof capabilities. The main material is alright at keeping water at bay for a little bit if splashed, but consistent rain will get through in no time - especially with no water resistant capabilities on the zippers. Alas, that’s okay. An inexpensive packable rain fly does the trick.
Note: An honourable mention for my hiking pack - the Red Original Waterproof Backpack 30L V1. Aside from the 100% waterproof main compartment which is useful in the English countryside, the bag features dual water bottle holders, molle webbing and anchor points, and bungee cords that can be used to hold walking poles, provide extra security for your water bottles, or hold a jacket or wet towel.
Development Tools
Visual Studio Code
I do not use many of the super fancy extensions nor am I wizard with the keyboard shortcuts, but I’d be reluctant to say this code editor not the correct choice for many teams (but really, I’m all for developers using what they are most productive with). And, of course, bonus points for it being open-source.
Honourable mention to VSCodium which is the fully open-source version of VS Code as it is the community-driven, freely-licensed binary distribution of Microsoft’s editor VS Code.
GitLab
I enjoy GitHub as well. The CI/CD capabilities of both will do. But, GitLab is more batteries included and enterprise ready. As an open-source enthusiast and advocate, GitHub was a natural choice, however, I’ve enjoyed the simplicity and reliability of GitLab CI. The added bonuses of things like ServiceDesk and more thoughtful project management tools make it effortless to manage my client base in a structured, but lean, way as a team of one.
Microsoft Azure
Alas, Microsoft Azure keeps luring me back to it. I have hopped over to Google Cloud many times along with spinning up the occasional VPS on a boutique provider’s platform, but the usability and integration of Azure with VS Code and GitLab seems to fit my workflow and muscle memory best.
I have been using Azure now for a couple of years managing personal and client projects with next to no complaints.
Honourable mention for GitLab Pages. I host many of the static sites I publish on this platform due to the cost (free) and simplicity.
Design
Mermaid.JS
While Mermaid.JS is not a design tool in the sense of wire-framing frontends, it is a fantastic tool for graphs and diagrams for documentation.
I have leaned hard into, and experienced great success with, docs-as-code and Mermaid.JShas been instrumental in the success of my work with docs-as-code. I have been able to ship documentation faster, with more ease, and consistency due to the nature of Mermaid.JS being platform-agnostic.
Figma
We started using Figma as just a design tool but now it is become our ideal virtual whiteboard that we use. The cross-platform collaboration tools are quite good and we have never encountered an issue onboarding clients to the tool making it a low-barrier option. FigJam time!
Apple Freeform
Some of my clients are Mac folks so I have been diving into Apple Freeform with them as part of their preferred toolkits. While it is fairly basic, it works just as well as you would expect from Apple. It is a no fuss, just-works, kind of whiteboard.
Productivity
AsciiDoc
As of late, I have dived head-first into AsciiDoc focusing on writing in a platform-agnostic plain-text format. Partly, this is due to my tendency to switch to new tools frequently leaving me having to continuously reformat some files to fit the new tool I am using (think Microsoft Word to Apple Pages).
With AsciiDoc and AsciiDoctor this pretty much becomes a non-issue as I am able to write everything in a text editor that supports AsciiDoc (i.e., VS Code).
For calculations, I am still learning inline-macros to execute calculations, but it is rare that I need this functionality. If anything, I can spin up a LibreOffice Calc Spreadsheet where needed.
Standard Notes
I have been on an incredibly long journey trying to find the everyday note-taking, checklist, and just general productivity tool for myself for a very long time. I have tried an abundance of different applications ranging from Joplin to AnyType to Google Workspace to iCloud's suite of tools and I've never quite been able to settle in to a tool like I have Standard Notes (even with the high-level of security the platform provides). It was one of the first tools I tried out back in 2018, but moved away as I was still in university at the time and Google Docs and Microsoft Office still reigned supreme. Thus, it made sense to not bloat my mind with several different tools.
I lost track of the development of Standard Notes for a while until it flew back onto my radar after their acquisition by Proton not too long ago. I was pleasantly surprised to see that while it has undergone lots of improvements, it was still the same application I loved all those years ago. Then no non-sense user-interface still existed, checklists and authenticator notes made consolidating things easy, and I was finally able to use spreadsheets reliably and export them as needed. It quite literally handled nearly everything - even markdown and simple file storage for X copies of wedding photos. Just brilliant.
And, while I have begun to try my hand at writing, I was able to host and directly publish to my own blog on Listed.to.
Honourable mention… while I am #TeamAsciiDoc, Obsidian was a go-to tool for me for everyday notes. It checked off all of my requirements for a platform-agnostic and no-lock-in solution while also providing a pleasant application to work with. I have been able to spin-up a WebDav endpoint to sync any changes made on one device to another solving the issue of having to pay for Obsidian Sync as well.
ProtonMail
This is a fairly recent addition to my toolkit having said goodbye (for now) to my beloved Fastmail while re-evaluating choices of American or American-adjacent products.
Yes, I am aware Standard Notes is technically American in a similar way to how Fastmail is "American", but their security is sufficient in my opinion and I'm banking on supporting Proton to integrate their tool to their Swiss offerings. Whereas having spoken to Fastmail, they have assured me they have zero plans to offer anything other than American data residency.
Nonetheless, i am actually quite enjoying ProtonMail.
I would be lying if I said I preferred the user experience over Fastmail's, but after limiting folders and implementing tags into my folder workflow, I would say I have retained about 95% of my productivity and am confident to get that extra 5% after a week or so more becoming more familiar with the app.
The biggest drawback from the switch has been the loss of collapsible folders in the Android app. After importing from Fastmail I had to spend what felt like minutes scrolling in the mobile apps. However, combining folders and tags (along with auto-tagging) together has bridged that gap quite well.
Proton Drive
Similar to ProtonMail, Drive has been a recent addition. It's still one that I am battling with given how poor the MacOS app syncing is in comparison to Tresorit (no longer using due to the lack of very basic features on the Android app like being able to go up a folder level when moving files) or Dropbox (again, left due to no longer wanting to support American big-tech).
That being said, I've been a user for over a year now and the product has seen some fairly noticeable improvements and Proton has indicated a new MacOS app experience is coming in Q1 of 2025 - some even saying February! Thus, I am hopeful a good portion of my complaints with the app should be okay.
Productivity-wise, the introduction of ProtonDocs has been a big step help and I feel confident in the product moving forward.
BackBlaze B2
Just your simple and reliable object storage.
I have recently been using BackBlaze’s B2 object storage with Mountain Duck as a replacement cloud storage/sync tool (previously using iCloud and Filen). Like my other productivity tools, I opted for an open protocal (S3) that does not lock me in to a specific tool to interface with my files.