What I Use

This is where I’ll keep a list of the tools and technology I use. Updated August 21, 2026.

Hardware

Mostly Apple stuff on the hardware. I've been using Apple near continuously since my Apple IIe in 1983. It's expensive compared to PC stuff, but the longevity, quality, and interoperability are worth it. YMMV.
16" MacBook Pro M4
Rain Design mStand My Mac lives on this stand.
Previous generation 27" 5K Apple Studio Display
Apple Magic Keyboard with Touch ID
Apple Magic Mouse
Apple iPhone 16 Pro
Apple AirPods 4 (used all the time with both the Mac and the iPhone)
Apple AirPods Max 2 (mostly just used in the evenings on the Mac)
Apple AirPods Pro 3 (I don't actually use these often; they sound great but aren't as comfortable to me as the other AirPods)
72" Uplift V3 Standing Desk with the Bamboo top. Best desk purchase ever.
2026 Herman Miller Aeron Chair in mineral white with all the options. Best chair ever. This is my third Aeron in 30 years. I don't want to think about how many thousands of hours I've spent in these. Get the roller blade wheels.
My laptop bag is a custom Gfeller Casemakers Diamond Creek Satchel. Gfeller is legendary in the geoscience community building geology field gear for decades. They even supplied the Apollo 17 astronauts with their field training gear. I was lucky to grab one of these Satchels before they stopped making them.

Email. I use the basic Apple Mail app. I have lots of notes saved as Drafts for easy retrieval from computer or phone.
BBEdit for most writing and coding on the Mac. I bought my first copy in a retail box in the 90's.
Vim (or as I call it vi) for all text wrangling in the terminal and on servers.
PostgreSQL for anything database. SQLite is handy, too.
Python for most code. I still like and use plain C from time to time. I should learn Go.
Rsync for copying files around. Learn it. Know it. Live it.
LaTeX for anything that might be printed. It's just plain text so it can be stored and versioned in source control. Try that with Word. Or Word Perfect. Or Wordstar. Or whatever is next. LaTeX is still here.
Plain text for almost everything. I have Unix text files from the 1980's I can still read. Word files from the 1990's? Nope.
AlmaLinux for the server. Fedora for the Linux Desktop. Red Hat Enterprise Linux if you have corporate money.
Ansible for configuration management automation. Terraform for infrastructure automation.
Use git. Push to GitLab. Avoid GitHub -- you really don't want your source code under Microsoft's control. I'm sure they're not using private repos to train AI. Wink wink.
Anything on this list may be sold to an unscrupulous buyer at anytime. It could -- and likely will -- happen without notice. Pay attention to your supply chain and adjust when needed.

I've been using Digital Ocean for my virtual linux server needs since leaving Rackspace.
A dedicated bare metal server from OVHcloud might be in my future.
Porkbun is your best option for domain registrar. Started by Ray King in Portland, OR.
Fastmail is the email provider you want to use. Pay for your email. Or host it yourself, but SPAM and security makes that difficult. Don't rely on those free services.
Hacker News is probably the best community for keeping up on the latest tech and startup news. AI content hasn't totally ruined it yet, but a lot of the links are trending that way.
Support the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They're fighting for your digital privacy, free online speech, and the future of human-centric technology.
Maybe support The Wikimedia Foundation. I hear rumors of shenanigans over there but I don't know if it's true or not. I still give them money. Always do your own research.