My personal tech setup

If you’re curious how I get things done as a tech journalist, both in my office and around the house, I’ve put together this easy-to-read list of everything that I’m using.

The inspiration comes from the various “Uses” pages that many developers put together to describe the tools they use to write code. My version instead covers what I use for writing, research, gaming, and other tech hobbies.

Of course, what you see below is subject to change over time.

Hardware

Computers:

• Beelink SER5 desktop PC running Windows 11 for most everyday work, still a great value even amid rising RAM and storage costs.
• M1 Mac Mini for home server applications and occasional work. (More on those shortly.)
• MacBook Neo for travel and around-the-house computing.
• Lenovo Yoga C940, once my main laptop, now just a backup.
• Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen2 for experimenting with Linux distributions.
• Desktop gaming PC (Ryzen 5 2600, Radeon RX 7600) running Bazzite in my basement.

Peripherals

• Dell Alienware AW3423DWF curved 34-inched QD-OLED monitor. These days I prefer one ultrawide over multiple monitors.
• Logitech MX Master 3S, the Cadillac of mouses.
• 8BitDo Retro Mechanical Keyboard. I love the NES theme, but the functionality is what keeps me using it every day.
• Logitech Z533 desktop speakers and subwoofer. The sound’s okay, but having a subwoofer as a footrest is great.
• Logitech C920 webcam. I bought it ages ago and it does the job without issue.
• Logitech Litra Glow light for conference calls and presentations. Logitech’s Tune app lets you adjust both the webcam and the light.
• Blue Yeti microphone for the occasional podcast appearance.
• Baseus 65W GaN5 Pro Desktop Charger, a great multi-device charger with snappy retractable cable that is strangely discontinued.
• Seagate Expansion 14TB HDD, connected to the Mac for media server applications.
• WD 4TB Elements HDD, connected to the PC for extra backups.
• Generic USB 3.0 switch selector for moving the mouse, keyboard, and webcam between the Mac and PC with one button push.
• Portable monitor from a brand called BIGASUO, as covered here.

Phones

• Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max for about half the year, and when I’m not reviewing something else.
• Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 for the other half, while wishing I had one of the newer, thinner foldables.

Tablets and e-readers

• Apple iPad Mini (6th-gen), mostly for interview notes in Notability.
• Kindle Paperwhite (11th-gen), though my daughter has mostly commandeered it lately.

Wearables

• Apple Watch Series 10, though I often neglect to wear it. Health tracking never stuck for me and I find the experience a bit naggy.
• Pebble Time Steel, a lovable smartwatch from 2015 that amazingly still works. I have pre-ordered a Time Round 2.

Home entertainment

• Hisense 65U6H 65-inch QLED in our living room. It’s just okay, but was cheap at the time.
• Sonos Beam Gen 2 connected to the above TV.
• Apple TV 4K (2022) to use instead of the Hisense’s built-in Google TV software.
• Samsung S90C 65-inch QD-OLED in the basement. Brilliant colors and high refresh rates make it great for gaming.
• Samsung HW-Q990C 11.1.4ch soundbar system to go with the aforementioned OLED.
• Vizio M50-e1, an old TV that I mostly just use to test streaming devices in my office.
• Sony HT-G700 soundbar and subwoofer to go with the office TV.

Handhelds

• Lenovo Legion Go S gaming handheld. It shipped with Windows, but I put Steam OS on it instead.
• TrimUI Smart Pro retro handheld, mainly for N64 and Playstation-era gaming.
• Anbernic RG35XXSP retro handheld for NES, SNES, Genesis, and the like.

Accessories

• Apple AirPods Pro 2 for sleep, mowing the lawn, and tuning out distractions.
• Anker 737 Power Bank, a huge battery that can quickly charge a laptop or gaming handheld. Sometimes I just use it around the house like a portable outlet.
• Lisen 5,000 mAh MagSafe power bank for a portable iPhone charge, mainly during travel.
• JBL Flip 7, a great-sounding Bluetooth speaker with no-fuss button controls and a helpful battery level indicator.

Networking and smart home

• Eero 6 Pro mesh router and satellite, which solved some longstanding Wi-Fi headaches.
• Ecobee 3 smart thermostat. This one’s pretty old now, but I see no compelling reason to upgrade.
• Liftmaster MyQ garage door opener gateway, which consists of a smart control panel and ethernet bridge. It’s nice being able to monitor and open the door remotely.
• Amazon Echo (fifth-generation) for the main bedroom.
• Lenovo Smart Display 10-inch for the kitchen, mainly for Google Photos slideshows, timers, and adding grocery items to Google Keep.
• Sonos Move speaker, mainly for the kitchen, but its semi-portable nature makes it great for outdoor use.

Software

Writing and notetaking

• Obsidian for story drafts, ideas, weekly planning, interview planning, and invoice drafts, as described here.
• Notability for taking handwritten notes on the iPad during interviews while also recording the audio. You can tap the writing to hear what was said at the time.
• Raindrop.io for bookmarking tech stories, restaurants, recipes, and entertainment, as described here.
• Google Keep for grocery lists, packing lists, and quick notes that aren’t super important.

Photo and video tools

• Microsoft Paint for quick-and-dirty image resizing or cropping. Seriously!
• A custom vibe-coded app for screenshot edits that suits my particular workflow.
• Photopea for layer-based photo editing.
• EZGif for turning videos into animated GIFs.
• OBS Studio to record screenshots and videos from any device with an HDMI output, using a capture card as described here.

Browser tools

• Helium for a lightweight, privacy-conscious browser that just gets out of your way, though you might not want to use it.
• Kagi instead of Google Search, with no ads, trackers, or forced AI overviews. Learn about how and why to switch search engines.
• Simplify Gmail to make the Gmail website look cleaner while adding some extra features.
• CamelCamelCamel to check the price history of items on Amazon.
• AFineStart to replace my browser’s new tab page with a cleaner list of bookmarks.
• uBlock Origin for lightweight ad and tracker blocking. It’s built into Helium.

Other productivity apps

• Ambie for ambient sounds in Windows, Dark Noise for iOS and MacOS, and Atmosphere for Android.
• Logi Tune to track upcoming meetings and join them with a couple of clicks. No Logitech hardware needed, but the app can adjust my Logitech webcam and light.
• Gestimer to set timers on Mac by pulling down on its menu bar icon.
• Hourglass to set countdown timers on Windows, pinned to the taskbar.
• Minded to discourage mindless visiting of social media sites during the work day.
• Raycast for clipboard history, text snippets, window resizing, quick calculations, folder search, and more as described here.
• Beeper to consolidate text messages, Signal, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, and Slack chats into one app. I use a geeky bridge script on my Mac to make it worth with iMessage as well.
• Claude is the AI app I use more than others, though I bounce around when rate limits kick in.

Server apps

• Plex Media Server streams my personal music collection from the Mac Mini to any device, anywhere.
• Plexamp is the app I use to access that music.
• Channels DVR streams live over-the-air channels, recordings, PlayOn rips, YouTube rips, DVD rips, and MLB.TV streams (via a Docker container) to the Apple TV.
• BlueBubbles lets me relay iMessages from the Mac to my Windows and Android devices, with a bridge that pulls those messages into Beeper.

Want to get helpful tech advice from me every week? Sign up for my Advisorator newsletter:

Subscribe

Thanks for subscribing.