What I Use

I have an older laptop that I use for daily personal computing, web browsing and a bit of gaming. Personal development work (like this site) is done on a desktop dual screen set-up which allows me a regular setting to do my work and more screen real estate. Details are below:

Hardware

• Machine:

  Apple Mac Mini (2018) - "There are many like it, but this one is mine. Without me, my machine is useless. Without my machine I ..." Sorry, paraphrasing 1987's 'Full Metal Jacket' is all too easy to do when speaking about your computer. Perhaps I shouldn't go into too much detail, but just say that it is a fine machine for doing personal development.

• Monitors:

  A 27" BenQ & a 27" ASUS Monitor

• Inputs:

  Apple Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad & Apple Magic Trackpad

• Web Cam:

  Logitech HD Pro Webcam

Software

• Command Line:

  iTerm2, ZSH, Oh My Zsh, Homebrew, Git.
  If you are into these things, you can check out my dot files.

• Text Editor:

  Atom.io it's highly customizable and open-source.
  With it I use these themes:
  • Atom Material UI Theme
  • Monokai Syntax Theme
  And some commonly used packages:
  • Atom Angular TypeScript & Html Snippets (Commonly used snippets)
  • atom-beautify (code formatter)
  • A Color Picker for Atom (a helpful color picker)
  • Docblockr (helps document your code)
  • Emmet plugin for Atom (a workflow toolkit)
  • Highlight Selected (does what it says on the box - highlights the selected word)
  • linter (a trusty linter)
  • Markdown-Writer for Atom (a Markdown editor)
  • pigments (Display colors in files)
  • Atom Screenshot (editor panel screenshots)

• Workaday Browser:

  Firefox for privacy, performance and to support the open source community.
  With some commonly used extensions:
  • Cookie Quick Manager (To manage those cookies)
  • Disconnect (Block trackers)
  • FireShot (Full page screenshots)
  • Foxy Proxy (Manage proxy settings)
  • HTTPS Everywhere (Force https)
  • JSONView (Easy JSON)
  • Lighthouse (Performance checker)
  • Privacy Badger (a tracker blocker from the EFF)
  • REST Client (Create custom HTTP requests)
  • Wave (Accessibility checker)

• Browser/Device Testing

  • Chrome, pa11y, Safari (Gotta test 'em all)
  • BrowserStack (To test browser/platform combinations)
  • Litmus (To test - heavy sigh - HTML email clients)
  • VirtualBox (no cost browser/platform testing)
  • xCode Simulator (iOS device testing)

• Et Cetera

  • Adobe Photoshop & Lightroom (editing the images)
  • iStat Menu (MacOS system monitoring)
  • Transmit (file transfers)