Over the years I’ve always changed configurations, as well as all the items I use on a daily basis.
I love trying new things and I’m curious how they affect my workflow. This page aims to list all these tools both as personal information and for curious people.
It represents my current setup of devices that I use daily. For those who are surely wondering, no I’m not an Apple fanatic but I love the software continuity it has built.
If you’re looking for something interesting, take a look at the things I’m testing.
Small, portable, and with the cancellation of ambient noise. They are the perfect choice for those looking for great headphones for listening to music and audio without having to use headphones with huge ear cups.
I’m not an audiophile but I have worked as a sound engineer for a long time and I must say that the audio fidelity, Bluetooth communication and data compression aside, is really excellent.
As with all other devices, these headphones have entered this configuration for their maximum portability.
One of my companions that still accompanies me on my wrist. The whole ecosystem that revolves around the Apple Watch is fantastic.
Answering calls, messages, and emails not to mention all the sensors for analyzing and managing your health data.
I began to appreciate more those sports that I found boring like just running. The structure of closing rings and the ability to create challenges with other users is extraordinary.
Small and stylish, it has amazing sound compared to other speakers of the same size.
I’m a fan of neutral colors like black and white, but this orange color is really nice to look at. It seamlessly integrates with the ecosystem and is recognized as a hub, so there’s no need to purchase an Apple TV just to manage home automation.
Once again, portability is the watchword. I hate all smartphones that have a screen larger than 6 inches. I’ve tried various smartphones over the years, running Android and iOS, but I just can’t get used to walking down the street with a huge phone that looks almost like a tile on a roof.
Do you want to have the full possibility of using your smartphone 100% with one hand?
The sizes of the iPhone minis and the SE version are the best.
The best adventure companion, lightweight and compact, allows me to carry my entire collection of books and comics wherever I want to read.
Its strength lies in library management; I usually tend to read multiple books simultaneously because reading just one book for several days bores me.
Replaces my old 2017 MacBook Pro that got hot just by turning it on. I still remember those nights when the fan kicked up and I had to move the laptop to another place because it had heated a whole part of the table.
Apple’s move to the ARM architecture is out of whack. 🤯
Not only am I able to carry out my whole workflow faster but I can do it without the temperature exceeding 40°C. The only time the temperature reached 80° was when I tried to convert three full-HD H.264 videos at the same time.
Furthermore, the weight and the battery that can last for days are the strengths of this machine.
Once you put the MacBook in your backpack it almost seems like you didn’t bring it.
The best mouse I’ve ever used. The ergonomics are perfect, the weight is balanced, and the buttons are all programmable.
I’ve tried many mouse over the years, but this one is the best. Plus the three device support is great, I can switch between devices with just one click.
I’m not a fanatic of mechanical keyboards and the pursuit of perfection, but I decided to enter this world. NuPhy is the first mechanical keyboard I decided to buy and lubricate the switches.
The sound is exceptional, the feedback of the Night Breeze switches once lubricated is comparable to typing on a cloud. In the future, I will definitely continue to try mechanical keyboards from other brands and with different switches until I build, piece by piece, the perfect keyboard for me.
Found new at a fairly low price. I don’t need a NAS with 4 or more bays, but just one to centralize all my data and finally eliminate the use of multiple external disks to attach and detach every time from the MacBook. Raid 1 with 8TB Seagate IronWolf Pro. I removed all the unnecessary stuff from QNAP and configured the NAS to be accessible only through the local network and accepting requests only from a set of specific IP addresses.
Purchased on eBay at a great price. It’s not the top-of-the-line ThinkPad, but it’s excellent for conducting all the tests and configurations I want to try without necessarily using my main laptop.
And what about virtual machines?
Yes, but with an ARM processor, there are still many Linux-based distributions whose packages aren’t available for this architecture, so having a machine with an x86 processor is the best choice.
Set of all the software that allows me to have a good workflow in the workplace and be creative.
Based on the configuration these elements are more likely to change and be updated. If you are curious always keep an eye on this section.
I think it’s one of the most comprehensive and functional ad blockers for any Apple device. I purchased the lifetime license at a low price with many of the discounts found around. The settings include DNS management features, custom filters, extensions, and much more.
While I’m not against advertisements, it’s fair to let content creators earn, I challenge anyone to try browsing without an ad blocker for a couple of minutes. You quickly realize how many intrusive ads there are to the point that you can’t even read the content of the page.
Currently I have a setup with Quad9 DNS over HTTPS.
It’s like Microsoft’s suite. It has Office compatibility and handles even complex spreadsheets well.
Tip: if you rarely use Office, uninstall it from your mac and use the web browser version, you save space and the infinity of installed Microsoft services.
The best software for managing books, documents, and more. The integration with Kindle devices is phenomenal; with a single click, you can convert to any format according to your chosen settings, and Calibre will then send the file to your Kindle.
CCC handles local backup. It’s a copy and backup software. Of course, it’s not just “simply copy a file from point A to point B”. CCC verifies the checksum of each file that is copied, ensuring the perfect integrity of the copies.
There are endless customizations of scheduling, copy management, folder management, file management, exclusion management, and much more.
I never paid much attention to this software as I found the one integrated into macOS to be perfectly acceptable. But once I tried it, I had to change my mind. Among the features I appreciate the most is the ability to use OCR to quickly extract text without having to take a screenshot, save it, open it, and copy the text.
For many years, I used JDownloader as a software to manage the items I wanted to download from any site. The biggest problem is that it’s written in Java, which leads to fairly poor response times. The same goes for the resources it uses in idle.
Downie is responsive, fast, and configurable according to your needs. That’s all it takes.
DriveDx is a software that allows you to monitor the health of your hard drives. It’s not a simple SMART reader, but it analyzes the data and provides you with a complete report on the health of your drives.
I use it to monitor the health of my external hard drives and to check the status of the SSDs on my Mac.
The Finder is a great file manager, but it’s not the best when it comes to searching for files. Find Any File is a software that allows you to search for any file on your Mac. It’s fast, responsive, and has a myriad of options to customize your search.
Fork allows for the management of Git through a well-structured interface. Despite being comfortable using Git from the command line, having to type the same command repeatedly can become frustrating. Additionally, Git offers a myriad of features that can be challenging to remember. With Fork, you have everything readily available.
Does it make sense to switch from the command line to a GUI?
I’m not sure, but besides Fork, lazygit is also gaining popularity. It integrates a fantastic command-line interface that works seamlessly with Neovim.
For those switching from a Linux-based environment, Homebrew is the best package manager for macOS. I use it to handle most applications.
The best firewall you can install. It allows you to block and create rules for any application and service on the mac.
I started using macOS from the High Sierra version. Over the years I have always appreciated its continuous evolution while always maintaining a design based on skeuomorphism.
The configuration I use is to take advantage of multiple desktops. No taskbar and menubar in the foreground.
Focus only and exclusively on the windows you need.
A Mastodon client with full support for the advanced web interface. It’s not an “Designed for iPad” but designed specifically for macOS. In addition to providing numerous customization features, it leverages iCloud synchronization to keep all your changes in sync across your devices.
Among the features I definitely love is the ability to maintain focus on the last toot you viewed. For example, if I stop to read a friend’s toot on my iPhone, when I open Mona on macOS, the interface automatically shifts to my friend’s toot.
Open-source RSS reader for iPhone and macOS. Nothing more to add, it’s perfect.
Permute is developed by the same team as Downie. It’s a software for converting multimedia files and enjoys the excellent qualities of Downie. Moreover, the two software can be integrated with each other to have a unique workflow for downloading and converting.
Pixelmator Pro is a powerful, beautiful, and easy-to-use image editor. It’s a great alternative to Photoshop and other software that are too complex for my needs.
qBittorent is a free and open-source BitTorrent client. It’s a great alternative to uTorrent and Transmission. Using the web interface allows me to manage all downloads from any device without necessarily having to connect to the Mac.
Spotlight is a great way to search for anything. But many times it’s slow, it doesn’t show all the files and slowly. So you realize that it’s limited.
Raycast is a great replacement for Spotlight, light and fast. Through the extensions, I can research on Reddit, view my repo on GitHub, search for torrents and many other things. It has tons of features and once configured properly, I just use it for anything.
Skhd is a simple hotkey daemon for macOS that focuses on responsiveness and performance. I use it as an integration with yabai. Skhd receives the pressed shortcuts and triggers the selected yabai configuration.
Although vscode has replaced all my workflow Sublime is still one of my favorite software and that I use many times to write code. The package manager allows you to customize the editor without any problems and the whole software is always fast and responsive.
Transnomino is a software that allows you to rename files in batch. Its great advantage is that it can handle without problems even more than 10k files, analyzing and renaming them according to the set rules.
The best text editor hands down. The huge extension market, syncing all settings through one account, and integrations with GitHub are some of the essentials that I love.
Free for personal use, it allows you to manage virtual machines. Unlike other alternatives, such as VirtualBox, VMware Fusion is much more powerful and in some ways also more stable.
A tiling window manager for macOS. I’ve tried various software before, but yabai is the only one that can handle my configuration correctly and without issues. It’s not complicated, but its integration with the system is better than others.
For those who are interested, I’ve written a short paragraph on why window management through Tiling can be a more correct way of handling windows.
I’m a backup fanatic, in the past I’ve lost important data and memories that I never wanted to lose. For this reason, I decided to invest part of my time to try and test different backup software and services to find the best solution for me.
Together with Restic, Duplicacy allows me to have another backup copy of the same data but with a different structure and configuration. This strategy gives me a final chance to recover my data in case one of the two backup software fails.
Duplicacy offers a simple and minimal graphical interface, making it suitable even for those with little experience who still want to back up their data.
Restic is a backup software that allows you to manage backups in a simple and fast way. I use it for an offsite copy of my most important data.
I manage the backups with some shell scripts, along with crontab for scheduling and pmset for night-time backups. The project is open source and can be configured in any way possible.
Simple, fast, and minimal VPN. Having configured the NAS for local access only, Tailscale allows me to access all the NAS services wherever I am. Moreover, both Restic and Time Machine are set up to use Tailscale for remote backups. This way, I no longer have the problem of connect an external disk to the Mac for backups; wherever I am, the Mac connects locally to manage all backups.
I try to keep the minimum number of services I use daily and to test and evaluate various alternatives before settling on a service.
I listen to music every day; for me, it represents the highest form of expression. There’re no flags, there’re no nations, just poetry among musical instruments.
I still have my Hercules MK2 from when I was a kid and my CDJ-400, with which I’ve had many adventures and emotions.
6 TB of offsite backup management service. No cost to upload or download all files. Surely the speed is worse than services used for offsite backup but for my needs it is more than enough.
The subscription costs very little if taken from the offers of Amazon and contains the entire suite of Microsoft Office.
As part of the Apple ecosystem, iCloud is an essential element to keep all information synchronized across all devices.
I pay for the 50GB plan at $0.99 with 20GB of space still available. Additionally, I can take advantage of other features like creating temporary email addresses and managing security camera footage on iCloud.
A collection of everyday life elements. Few but good.
I’ve already shared a few words about my passion for this artist in May and June of 2023.
As I wrote back then:
I opened my Twitter account just to follow him.
I loved what he wrote and what he thought.
I loved the way he showed his life and not just his career.
I loved his way of seeing the world.
In the end, I couldn’t find any store selling a flag with their logo, so I decided to create the design myself and then have it produced. Now, this flag with a black background and bright white logo is in my room, and I’m happy with it.
Nowadays, I rely on Apple Pay for all my payments, but the wallet also allows me to carry my documents with me. Additionally, with the Apple ecosystem, I receive notifications and location information in case I were to misplace it or move away from it.
With the Apple Watch Series 10, I have a total of four watch bands:
Half-sleeve T-shirts in three monochromatic colors: black, white, and red.
Total, 12 shirts.
As crazy as it may sound, I only use half-sleeve shirts for every season, from summer to winter; I don’t need anything else.
The shirts are made of two different fabrics: one more casual for everyday use, and a couple of slightly softer ones for parties and formal events.
In addition to these shirts, I have three sweaters for winter, four pairs of jeans, and two coats—one for the harsh winter and another made of eco-leather for the rest.
No, I don’t have any shirts or ties.
I’ve never worn or owned glasses in my life, but I was happy when I bought this pair at a good price. The model is not random but associated with an old YouTuber who brightened up some of my darkest days, Casey Neistat.
Among the many videos, there’s all the passion of a person for what can be the three cornerstones of their life: family, running, and documenting all of these things. This might not be the right page to discuss these things, but in the end, I managed to recreate the same glasses with the same effect that Casey had.
Some might think it’s a waste.
True, but despite my minimalist philosophy, these glasses, for me, are more than just an object; they are a collection of feelings that I love to carry with me.
I love its minimalist design and versatility. I use it to carry everything I need. It’s roomy and resistant, a truly excellent backpack.
I’ve never really cared about clothing, let alone shoes; what matters to me is comfort. I used to be a big fan of Converse designs, but this Vans model completely changed my mind.
They’re comfortable, high-quality, and suitable for any occasion. The design is simple, in black, and most importantly, no logos on the sides.
I bought them in 2018 and again in 2022 because they’re no longer in production. I really hope to see them back on the market.
PS: Some people usually associate Vans shoes with skateboarding, but I use a skateboard, and my choice of these shoes was solely for their comfort and durability. So if you see me, don’t think of the usual cliché.
The whole bunch of things that keep this website going.
Over the years I have tried to look as much as possible to use products that are open source or that make building and maintaining the website easier.
Is one of the most popular open-source static site generators. Among its strengths, we find its amazing speed and flexibility.
This website was built using Hugo’s structural paradigms. For example, each blog post or weekly log is written in Markdown which Hugo then compiles and transforms into HTML pages.
Using partials and templates minimizes copying the same code across multiple files.
For managing the versioning of the site, both the part with the Hugo structure and the files of the actual website. Via GitHub, I can retrace all the changes I’ve made since 2020 when I made the site public on this domain.
The particularity of using GitHub is due both to the university period and to the simple integration with Netlify.
A remote-first cloud computing company that offers a development platform that includes build, deploy, and serverless backend services for web applications and dynamic websites. With each new push of the website on GitHub, Netlify automatically updates all the files and makes the changes live for anyone who visits the website.
This is the list of items I’m trying and probing as possible future alternatives to my main setup.
I’ve been a heavy user of systems like Windows, macOS, and various Linux-based distributions.
I have to say that only the Apple system manages to be closer to the experience with a Linux distro.
I don’t miss the full freedom of distributions but I keep updating on their changes.
It deviates from the concept of rolling release but embraces that of “stability”. Major releases can easily be introduced after years. This choice allows the current system to have good stability.
Quoting the Debian wiki: “The reason that Debian Stable is so reliable is because software is extensively tested and bug-fixed before being included”.
Precisely for this reason, I’m intrigued by this distribution, as I said I love the concept of rolling release but at the same time if I have to move all my workflow to a Linux-based distribution, I’m also looking for the best reliability and stability. Always having the latest package updates can be counterproductive.
Used for a few months many years ago. Like openSUSE Tumbleweed, Arch is also a rolling release with the particularity that it’s highly configurable and scalable for your needs. The installation is more complex, but now in 2023, in addition to the official guide on the site, there are endless documents, videos, tutorials, and much more to install Arch without problems.
A possible alternative to all text editors and IDEs out there. If combined with a desktop environment built on tiling, Neovim becomes one of the most powerful and simple software to use.