Uses
2026-04-20
This is a page about the technologies that I use in my day-to-day life, and as a software developer.
Hardware
- Work computer: Lenovo Thinkpad T14s, 32 GB RAM, and plenty of horse power.
- Home laptop: Acer Chromebook CB314 14" running Fedora 41. Very little horse power.
- Home desktop: Steam Deck in desktop mode docked to a Dell Ultrashap U3425WE 34". Works surprisingly well for just about anything. I'm preordering the Steam Machine when possible.
- Smart watch: Garmin Forerunner 255s. Love the MIP display and the many cool features. And the 10 days between charges. I really really don't understand the appeal of AMOLED in a watch display.
- Smartphone: Samsung Galaxy A55. Hey, it has a micro-sd card slot. Does your phone have that?
If my smartphone broke tomorrow, my next one might be the newest FairPhone.
- Tablet: iPad 2020. Rarely used.
- Main headset: Sony WH-1000XM4.
- Main earplugs: AirPods ... 4, I think?
- Servers: Two small NUCs.
Software
- Linux everywhere. Ubuntu on work machine. Fedore on ChromeBook. SteamOS on SteamDeck. Debian on NUCs.
- At work: IntelliJ IDEA for Java development. How many actually calls it IDEA?
- Favorite terminal text editor: micro. I don't care much for vim, neovim, emacs, nano, or anything else. Though I can use vim (or nano) in a pinch.
- Note taking: Obsidian.
- Web browser: Firefox. On all devices, including Android.
- Scratchpad: Visual Studio Code.
- Todo app: I just put tasks it in a note in Obsidian ... and then forget about them. If it is really important, it goes in my calendar as it's own meeting (blocked).
Self-hosted software
- Immich for pictures
- Syncthing for file sync (desktop, server, laptop, phone)
- Linkding for bookmarks and saving pages for offline archival (in case they disappear)
And many others...
Apps on my phone
- Launcher: Niagara -- it's fantastic! I bought the lifetime pro when it was still cheap.
- Podcast: PocketCasts -- bought the lifetime when it was still a new app.
Lesson: Buy lifetime when you like an app. The option might become expensive or go away!
- Browser: Firefox
- Lemmy client: Connect
- Mail: Fastmail app
- Calendar: the FOSS one from f-droid. Fossify?
- Notes: Obsidian
- Terminal software: Termux
- Doomscrolling: YouTube
- Downloading from YouTube: NewPipe, or yt-dlp in Termux
- Music: YT Music, VLC (local music collection), Bandcamp
- Video player: VLC
- Text editor: Obsidian again, or micro in Termux
- Chat: Signal, Discord, and Facebook Messenger (when forced to)
- Picture gallery: Fossify
- Ebook reader: ReadEra, though nothing beats the official Kindle app when it comes to presentation, unfortunately. Did you know you can sideload epubs into your kindle account from Android? And it will sync between all devices when read? I should write a how-to about it someday.
Online services
- Fastmail for mail
- Cloudflare for DNS and static site hosting
- Amazon SES for sending automated mails, though I rarely use it
- Hetzner Cloud Server for running a small cloud server (Debian-based)
- Hetzner Storage Box for offsite backups (I use restic)
- GitHub for code, though nothing I host is of much importance
- Social media: LinkedIn (only for work), Facebook (only for close family), YouTube (doomscrolling), Lemmy (programming memes). I try to ignore everything else in that space. Unless, does Hacker News count as social media?
- ZeroTier: Private Virtual Networking between devices (tunneling).
Everything else I rely on is basically selfhosted.