Last updated February 2023. Inspired by Wes Bos.

Desk setup

I work from a home office overlooking our back garden. Aiming for a kind of mid century modern retro sci-fi explorer's lounge aesthetic.

  • 14" MacBook Air (M2, 2022). "Midnight", 16 GB RAM, 512 GB storage. With a gold Apple logo. Love it.
  • Apple Studio Display. Looks and works great, and I love the single-cable life.
  • Apple Magic Keyboard with Touch ID (Swedish layout), and a Magic Trackpad. Not having to reach for the laptop for Touch ID is a great quality-of-life improvement.
  • Black Autonomous SmartDesk frame with a walnut effect table top. I like that it has height presets.
  • Walnut and brass monitor stand.
  • mStand for the MBP. Usually open as a second screen.
  • EasyErgo Executive Mesh office chair. A revelation after my previous not-so-ergonomic chair. Concave arm rests are amazing.
  • HyperX Gold Cloud Alpha headset. I'm a sucker for black and gold. Works well. Wired; haven't found a wireless headset I like.

On my Mac

  • Vim (since 2010) in tmux in iTerm2 with my dotfiles. Vim uses a dark theme called Blackboard. Monaco font.

  • Arc browser. A quirky power-user browser rethinking web browsing from first principles. Some annoying bugs, but I enjoy it.

    Extensions include WhatFont.

  • Spotify. I prefer how Apple Music handles adding your own files, but otherwise I mostly prefer Spotify.
  • iStat Menus showing memory, CPU, network activity.
  • xbar to show if our cats are in or out.
  • SuperDuper! for full-disk backups before OS upgrades and such.

  • Apple's Notes. Have tried other notekeeping apps and methods but so far this one has worked best for me.

    Top-level folders for work, house, car, cats, food and drink, misc, and archive. I'd like it to feel more organised, but I'm not sure what's missing exactly.

  • iCloud Drive. Mostly fine, if you keep version-controlled code outside it. (Otherwise it will duplicate files.)
  • The Ring Mac app pops up a floating window when our Ring cameras detect motion and I need to run downstairs to receive a parcel.
  • Mailplane to get my private and work Gmail in a tabbed app. Have a pretty organised Gmail setup using "Multiple Inboxes" and filters.
  • Alfred. Launcher, clipboard history, putting the computer to sleep etc. I've made automations to e.g. launch standard Zoom meetings, send notes to self, and text my partner.
  • Mic Drop for a global mute/unmute shortcut.
  • Divvy for window management.
  • Fantastical to enter calendar events in natural language via a menu bar icon.
  • LICEcap for animated screen captures.
  • Tuple for remote pair programming.
  • ImageOptim to optimise images.
  • Pixelmator Pro for image editing.
  • DaisyDisk to free up disk space.
  • Padbury Clock Revived screensaver. Like a more minimalistic Fliqlo.

On my iPhone

  • Castro for podcasts. The inbox-centric workflow is genius.
  • Spark for email. Love how I can set different swipes to quickly move or snooze emails, and how I can swipe between different signatures (e.g. different languages and formality).
  • Ivory and Ice Cubes for Mastodon. Haven't settled on any one client.
  • Captio to send notes to myself. Gmail uses filters to send these to a "Notes" inbox (via "Multiple Inboxes"). Another filter forwards them to my work email if they contain a keyword.
  • Ruler to measure stuff with an on-screen ruler.

TV

  • Sony Bravia 55" 4K. Looks smart, works well. HomeKit and AirPlay.
  • Sonos Beam, Sonos Sub Mini, and two Sonos One as surround speakers. Prefer to AirPlay music directly to the Sonos, so the TV can be off.
  • Mac Mini M1, 8 GB RAM. Drives the TV. We tried an Apple TV but the flexibility of a full computer is hard to beat.
  • Apple Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad as a single unit via the Spinido Stand. This is effectively our remote.

  • Alfred binds function keys to power the TV on/off and change volume, toggle the subwoofer, open/close Plex, and to toggle lights (in HomeKit via HomeControl Menu automation URLs).

    We need to change volume via the TV's API since the Mac volume keys can't control the HDMI ARC volume on a M1. It's a whole thing.

  • We watch a lot of movies and TV shows in Plex, stored locally. Great if you prefer to watch something specific and not just what's streaming.
  • Transmission to download torrents.
  • ViDL (GUI for youtube-dl) to download embedded videos.
  • ExpressVPN for privacy or to access things from the old homeland.
  • Backblaze for continuous offsite backup.
  • Aerial screensaver, with stunning aerial shots like on an Apple TV.

Car

  • Honda e Advance in "charge yellow" with the 17" wheels. Not the most practical but a charmer!
  • Andersen A2 charging point, "charcoal" front and "nearly black" sides. Very polished hardware; very unpolished software.

Home

  • Anker 3-in-1 Magnetic Charging Stand by the bed. Replacing the Qi charger with MagSafe was such a quality-of-life improvement – no more aligning it just right.
  • Velvetiser "in-home hot chocolate system". Copper. My partner was gifted this. Makes a smooth, frothy cup of cocoa. We use it much more than expected.
  • Withings Body+ smart scales. Really good UI; syncs automatically to Apple Health.

Gear

  • iPhone 12 Pro. Gold, naturally.
  • Apple Watch Series 6. Gold stainless steel with gold Milanese loop.
  • AirPods Max headphones. Noise cancellation is great to have, and the sound stage and quality make music listening on the go an ✨experience✨. Should have had a power button, though.
  • AirPods Pro 2 earbuds. For running and doing chores. Sound quality isn't as good as the Maxes, but it's not bad at all.
  • Kindle Paperwhite (2021) e-reader with the black fabric cover.
  • Fujifilm X100T camera. Realised I'd stopped bringing my DSLR and lenses with me because they were too bulky. Honestly, I rarely even bring this one, these days.
  • Eastpak Extrafloid backpack.

Ops

I don't want to manage my own servers if I can help it.

Tea

My go-tos are: