I just picked up a new MacBook Pro M1 and decided to take this opportunity to document all of the various applications that I use on a daily basis.
Brave
My go to browser for the past year has been Brave. As a web developer, it offers me everything that Chrome offers, but seems to run more efficiently and I earn rewards simply by browsing
Notion
Notion is my second brain. This is where I organize all of my thoughts, ideas, personal projects, todo lists, work, finances, etc.
Alfred
Alfred is a better Spotlight. I don't even use the dock anymore. Everything I do on my MacBook starts with CMD+SPACE. You can configure Alfred to index your entire hard-drive, which makes searching and opening individual files super easy.
Slack
All work comms go through Slack. It's basically replaced email for me.
Spectacle
I used to be a Windows dev and one thing I immediately missed when switching to a MacBook was window snapping. Spectacle is the missing window snapping tool for MacBook. I use CMD + OPTION + ← OR → to snap windows to the left or right of my screen.
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code has everything I need to work full-stack. I do all of my coding from this single IDE.
Extensions
Canva
I have literally zero artistic ability. Canva makes it super simple to create graphics for blog posts, Twitter, etc.
Spotify
Let's be real, if you aren't jamming out on Spotify while coding, are you even coding? Personally, I love LOFI. Haters may hate.
ITerm2
ITerm2 is the must-have terminal upgrade. I've been using it for years. It includes features such as autocomplete, search, and many other configuration settings.
Oh My Zsh
Oh My Zsh is an open source, community-driven framework for managing your Zsh configuration. It did for the terminal what React did for JavaScript. It basically gives your terminal a framework within which you can customize everything.
Powerlevel10k
Ever wonder how content creators make their terminal look almost futuristic? Check out Powerlevel10k. It has a great configuration wizard, performance, and customizations to make your terminal awesome.
Fig.io
Fig.io adds IDE-style autocomplete to your existing terminal. I use tab-completion all the time, and Fig brings this to a whole other level.
AWS CLI
I do a ton of work in AWS, and the majority of my interactions are done via the AWS CLI.
XCode
Get it from the App Store. I need it for mobile app development.
NVM
Full-stack TypeScript developer here, and NVM is a must have.
nvm install --ltsnpm install -g npm# Upgrades to latest NPM for LTS.which nodewhich npm
Global NPM Packages
I like to install the following packages globally rather than using npx because I find that fig.io works better for these when installed.
npm install -g cdknpm install -g expo-clinpm install -g yarn
Zoom
What can I say? Zoom seems to have won the video conference battle. It works great.
That's it as of now. I'll update this if any new software comes along that I can't live without!
Loom
Like Zoom, but with an L! Loom is fantastic for shooting demo videos of new features and sharing them with the team.
Discord
Can you ever have too many chat programs? Honestly, if I had my way, I'd exclusively use Discord for everything.
Docker
I'm big into Serverless technologies, so I thought I was going to get away with not needing Docker. However, I've recently started to use Supabase, which requires docker to run locally.
Supabase CLI
Supabase makes me feel like I have superhero powers. I click 2 buttons and get a Postgres database, authentication, row-level security, APIs, serverless functions, and blob storage. Seriously Supabase, y'all outdid yourselves.
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