My Setup

Apps and tools I lovingly use!

This page documents my dev/academic setup. For the apps and tools I currently use, I also provide alternatives that I’ve used previously or am familiar with.

Fonts and Themes

• MonoLisa, Berkeley Mono
  • Alternatives: JetBrains Mono, Monaspace
• Tomorrow Night Eights, Solarized Light

Must-haves

• Password Manager: 1Password $
  • Alternatives: Bitwarden, Proton Pass, Dashlane
• Launcher: Raycast $, Alfred $
  • Alternatives: LeaderKey
• Browser: Arc
  • Alternatives: Zen Browser
• Keyboard Customization: Karabiner-Elements
  • Alternatives: Kanata
• Clipboard History: Pastebot $
  • Alternatives: Raycast/Alfred clipboard history features
• Window Management: Magnet, Raycast Windom Management
• System Cleaning: CleanMyMac $
• Screenshots/Recording: CleanShot $
  • Alternatives: Shottr
• Reference Management: Zotero + Better BibTex
  • Alternatives: Mendeley, EndNote
• RSS Feed Reader: Inoreader $
  • Alternatives: Feedly

Productivity/Utilities

• System Monitoring: iStat Menus $
  • Alternatives: Stats
• Menu Bar Organization: Bartender $
  • Alternatives: Ice, Hidden, Dozer
• App Switcher: AltTab
  • Alternatives: Use CMD+Tab
• Note Taking: Bear Notes $
  • Alternatives: Obsidian, Notion, Apple Notes, Joplin
• PDF Handling: PDF Expert $, Preview
• Bookmark Management: Raindrop.io
  • Alternatives: Pocket, Instapaper
• Media Downloader: Downie $
  • Alternatives: yt-dlp

Development & CLI

Shell & CLI Tools

• Terminal Emulator: Ghostty
  • Alternatives: iTerm2, Kitty, Alacritty
• Shell Prompt: Starship
  • Alternatives: Powerlevel10k, Oh My Zsh prompts
• Terminal Multiplexer: tmux
  • Alternatives: Screen, Zellij
• Dotfile Manager: GNU Stow
• CLI Utilities:
  • gh: GitHub CLI
  • git-lfs: Git Large File System
  • bat: cat with syntax highlighting
  • fzf: Fuzzy finder
    • Alternatives (for shell history): mcfly, atuin, skim
  • ripgrep: Fast grep alternative
  • fd: find alternative
  • glow: Terminal Markdown viewer
  • act: Run github actions locally

Editors & IDEs

• Zed (+ Preview)
  • Alternatives: Helix, Sublime Text
• Visual Studio Code (+ Insiders)
• Neovim
  • Alternatives: Vim
• RStudio
  • Alternatives: Positron, Radian, VS Code

Programming Languages & Data Tools

• Python
  • Package/Env Management: uv (Alternatives: pip, conda)
  • Linter/Formatter: ruff
• R
  • Formatter: air (Alternatives: styler, formatR)
• SQL & Big Data: DuckDB, PostgreSQL
  • Alternatives: SQLite, MySQL, ClickHouse, Polars

Web & API Hacking

• Bruno: API client
  • Alternatives: Insomnia, Postman
• Mitmproxy: HTTP inspection
  • Alternatives: Burp Suite
• Android Emulator

Documentation & Literate Programming

• Quarto
  • Alternatives: R Markdown, Litedown, Jupyter Notebooks
• Pandoc: Document converter
• Typst: LaTeX alternative

Security & Cloud

• Ad Blocking: AdGuard $, uBlock Origin
• Firewall/Network monitoring: Little Snitch $
• VPN: Hotspot Shield $
  • Alternatives: Mullvad VPN, ProtonVPN, AdGuard VPN, Tailscale
• Cloud Storage: iCloud Drive $
  • Alternatives: Google Drive, Dropbox, pCloud
• File Encryption: Cryptomator

AI Tools

• Chat/Assistants: Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Raycast AI
• Local LLMs: Ollama, LM Studio
• CLI: Aider
  • Alternatives: Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Open Interpreter
• Transcription: SuperWhisper
  • Alternatives: MacWhisper