Link:

My equipment

  • Mac Mini Apple M2
  • macOS + iOS (I only use Windows on work laptop)

Productivity

  • Hammerspoon: automation for macOS with lua. I use it to run emacs-everywhere
  • Raycast: a better launcher
  • Rectangle: easily organize windows

Image processing

  • Shottr: screenshot capture and blur text
  • ImageMagick: command-line tool to edit and convert images
  • Squoosh: online image compressor
  • Piclist: image uploader and manage tool for object storage
  • Cloudflare R2: free 10GB object storage service

Privacy

  • Temp email: temporary email, include a temporary inbox

Media resources

  • youtube-dl: command-line tool to download YouTube video
  • cobalt: online YouTube downloader; can be downloaded as video or audio file

📨 Mail

  • Spark: smart email management. Terrible search though so I only use the iOS for light management
  • mu4e: mu for Emacs

📝 Note-taking

  • Org-roam: plain-text knowledge management on Emacs. Inspired by Roam Research.

✅ To-do/GTD

  • Org-mode: organize your life in plain text in Emacs
  • Goblin.tools: powered with AI to help break down tasks (I found it’s too generic though)

⏳ Time Tracking

📆 Calendar

  • Google Calendar
  • How long left: menu bar app to display the countdown of calendar events
  • Itsycal: cute menu bar calendar
  • Calendr: minimal menu bar calendar

📖 Reading

  • Libby: library app
  • Apple Books: iOS book reader
  • FreshRSS: a self-hosted feed aggregator
  • inoreader: I use it as a read-it-later app
  • Raindrop: bookmark for useful website

🎙️ Podcast and Audiobooks

  • RSS Radio: iOS podcast app, highly customizable
  • BookPlayer: iOS app to play local audiobooks

📜 Editing/IDE

  • Emacs: the editor to rule them all
  • Typora: minimalistic markdown editor
  • RStudio: use exclusively for R
  • Squirrel (rime): open source Chinese input
  • Raw HTML Table Editor: the HTML table editor for markdown

💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance

  • YNAB: You-Need-A-Budget, expensive but so worth it
  • Actual Budget: a self-hosted alternative to YNAB. I switched from YNAB to Actual recently due to YNAB’s bank sync issues and it’s working very well
  • Portfolio Performance: open source investment portfolio tool

🔐 Password Management

💡 Blogging

  • Quarto: blogging solution for my main blog
  • Quartz: site generator for this digital garden
  • ox-hugo: convert org-mode notes to hugo-compatible markdown files
  • Netlify: website deployment
  • Cloudflare: domain provider, website deployment and I also use its R2 object storage to store images
  • Spaceship: domain provider, one of the cheapest in the market

🪷 Meditation

  • Oak: a minimalist meditation timer
  • Mala bead necklace I made

🔧 Miscs

  • IT Tools: handy tools for developers, including various converter
  • Allinone.tools: convert files
  • AnyList: grocery shopping list iOS app

Pixel art tools