Desk Setup

  • Apple Extended Keyboard (model M0115 with orange Alps switches) from 1987 dremeled to 60% size (a few angles of it here) with new PCB (Alps64) for reprogrammable keys and modern USB connection. Used epoxy putty, paint and dremeled pieces to clean up the right and back sides after cutting down the board. Also added LEDs and a speaker to the new PCB mainly to indicate certain layer changes but also used for a startup sound when plugged in. If you’re interested, I wrote an article about it here
  • Macbook Pro 15-inch 2014 on a Rain Design mStand
  • Seiki SE39UY04 39-inch 4K TV as a monitor (not recommended now but bought when it was as one of the first cheap 4K TVs that programmers were using as monitors). Been using since early 2014, the screen started failing a few years ago but replaced some bulging capacitors on the board and it has been working fine ever since
  • Hackintosh tower that is setup for triple boot between Windows 10, Ubuntu and macOS but spends 99.9% of the time in macOS. Built in 2014 with an Intel i5 4690K, Asus Z97-A motherboard, 32GB RAM, AMD Radeon R9 270X, 2 SSDs, 3 hard drives, and a Blu-ray drive. Also has a Broadcom BCM94360CD PCI card for wifi and bluetooth that uses native Apple drivers so Airdrop and Handoff works with no issue
  • Logicool G502 (it is Logitech but I bought it in Japan and they don’t have the trademark there and so it is branded as Logicool, it says Logicool on the bottom of the mouse)
  • Anker Soundcore Life Q20 (2019 model) noise canceling over-ear headphones. A quarter of the price of comparable Sony or Bose models but probably 80% as good
  • A Belkin KVM switch to switch between the Macbook and Hackintosh
  • When traveling with my Macbook Pro, I am sometimes “that guy” with my custom 60% keyboard on top of the Macbook’s keyboard with nearly the same layout (symmetical bottom row with 7u spacebar, sometimes called Tsangan) as my custom Apple Extended Keyboard. This keyboard uses variously sourced Cherry profile PBT keycaps, a DZ60 pcb, a clear plastic case for portable lightness and also to better seee the DZ60’s LED underglow. I ordered Zealios 67g switches from KDBFans but they turned out to be counterfeit, some call them Stealios, they work fine for me and KDBFans did give me a refund for them. Karabiner-Elements is used to automatically disable the internal Macbook keyboard when the mechanical keyboard is on top of it. My Apple Extended Keyboard would work for this but it is a bit heavy and also kinda priceless, not aware of anyone else who has done the same thing to this model. Usually people harvest the rare orange Alps switches from this board and put them in a new PCB and case. Ok, that is a lot of details but you’ve read this far so you must be interested 😜

Desktop Apps

  • I use PomoDoneApp to do pomodoros that are synced with my Trello tasks. I also have it configured to log the pomodoros to a private Slack channel
  • Toothfairy to quickly connect my bluetooth headphones
  • Rectangle for window management and snap areas
  • Rocket as a quick emoji picker
  • I sometimes use Work at Night to darken my screen even more than f.lux does if I need to work late at night
  • I currently have 27 menu bar icons so I use Bartender to hide the ones I don’t need quick access to and to keep the menu bar looking a bit more tidy

Terminal and Editor

  • I tried to like Hyper but still prefer Terminal.app
  • I love Bash Git Prompt to give me git status details in the command prompt
  • In the early days of Mac OS X macOS 10, MacPorts was great for adding *nix progams but nowadays Homebrew meets my needs just fine
  • Like many others I used to use Sublime Text but now prefer Visual Studio Code

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