Software I use, gadgets I love, and other things I recommend.

I get asked a lot about the things I use to build software, stay productive, or buy to fool myself into thinking I’m being productive when I’m really just procrastinating. Here’s a big list of all of my favorite stuff.

Development

  • Next.js

    Coming from someone that used GatsbyJS professionally for most of his ReactJS career... use Next.js. If I could give you a single reason it would be Vercel, the company behind it.

  • Vercel

    Used to use AWS S3, then used Netlify - now use Vercel for hosting / DNS management for all frontend applications. It's got crazy fast build times, great analytics, integrations and a whole other bunch of goodies.

  • Prismic CMS

    If I am throwing a CMS on a project, 9 times out of 10 the level of complexity suits Prismic CMS the best. It's simple and easy to use and non-technical users can't get lost in it.

  • Cypress

    Test your work, learn Cypress. It will save you time.

  • TailwindCSS

    I used to handwrite CSS code because I wanted to know everything about CSS. Now that I have 12 years of experience using it, I've started using TailwindCSS. I started using Styled Components, first and it was amazing to be able to do CSS in a mode friendly, familiar way than CSS Modules in ReactJS. Yet nowadays I am able to make responsive websites EXTREMELY fast with just using TailwindCSS.

  • AWS

    How broad of me to just say "AWS". I felt like I needed to clear up the "Is he GCP or AWS?" question - this is my answer.

Development tools

  • VSCODE

    If you dont use VSCODE, you're not a developer.

  • WSL

    Great for Windows users when working with Webpack / Babel builds... or kind of anything else for that matter. WSL is inbuilt with Windows 11 terminal. Check it out if you haven't used it.

Design

  • Figma

    We started using Figma as just a design tool but now it's become our virtual whiteboard for the entire company. Never would have expected the collaboration features to be the real hook.

Workstation

  • Custom built PC & Intel Nuctop 3070 i9

    I was always a Macintosh fan for most of my design and development life. It is only in recent years where I have made the move to Windows, and using WSL when needed for programming. The soul desire here was to be able to work hard, compile code quickly - and also game hard (hence the laptop). My main workstation has a 3900X AMD Ryzen chip, a Nvidia TUF 3090 for a graphics card, and 64Gb of DDR4 RAM.

  • ASUS Predator X34

    The only display on the market if you want something HiDPI and bigger than 27”. When you're working at the level of detail as what we work at, every pixel you can get counts.

  • Logitech G915 LIGHTSPEED RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard

    Hands down the best keyboard I've ever used. The Browns low profile mechanical keys are incredible and from a gaming perspective the keyboard is exceptional... not to mention the screen sampling RGBs...

  • Logitech G G502 LIGHTSPEED Wireless Gaming Mouse

    I got this after I used the G915 keyboard. The logitech software pairs exceptionally well when you have more than one Logitech piece of hardware. The mouse is awesome, has just enough buttons (but not too many) for gaming, but also for hot keying in particular software.

  • Steelcase Gesture Chair

    If I'm going to slouch in the worst ergonomic position imaginable all day, I might as well do it in an expensive chair.