/uses

Inspired by Wes Bos's Uses.tech

Hardware

Desktop

  • Workstation:
    • Ryzen 9 3900X, GTX 1080 8GB, 24GB DDR4 @ 3000 MT/s
  • Home server:
    • Ryzen 5 3600, 16GB DDR4 @ 3000 MT/s
  • Monitors:
    • LG 32-in UHD (4K) — Center
    • Acer 27-in FHD (1080P) — Right
  • Peripherals:
    • Wireless: Logitech MX Keys — I mostly enjoy the silent typing and fast device switching.
    • Mechanical: Drop CTRL, Space Grey, Halo Clear — aesthetic, ergonomic, and try-hard.
    • XY-pointing HID: Logitech G305, White — best mouse ever, I have 3 more for backups.
    • Controller: Xbox Wireless
    • Graphic: Wacom Intuos Pen S
  • Audio:
    • Player/Service: foobar2k, Apple Music
    • DAC-AMP: FiiO Mk2
    • Headphones: Sennheiser HD6XX, AKG K7XX
    • Speaker: Bose Sound Bar

Laptops/Mobile

  • Primary: MacBook Pro 16-in (2021)
    • Specs: M1 Pro (10 CPU, 16 GPU), 16GB memory, 512GB SSD
    • Dual boot with Asahi Linux
  • Work: Dell Latitude 5521
    • Specs: i7-11850H, Intel UHD, 32GB DDR4
    • Windows
  • Tablet: iPad Pro 11-in
    Specs: M1, Wi-Fi only, 128GB
  • Secondaries: Dell Precision 5530 (x2)
    • Specs: i7-8850H, P1000 4GB, 32GB DDR4
    • 1 for Windows, 1 for Linux
  • Test: ThinkPad P50
    Specs: i7-6700HQ, M2000M, 16GB DDR4
  • Phone:
    • iPhone 13, Blue, 128GB
    • Pixel 4a 5G, Black
  • Watch: Apple Watch Series 1, Pink
  • Game: Nintendo Switch v2
  • Peripherals:
    • XY-pointing HID: MX Master
    • Apple Pencil 2
    • Dongle: Dell USB-C DA310
  • Audio:
    • Mandatory: AirPods 2
    • Cans: Sony WH-1000XM4

Camera

  • Nikon D700
  • Nikon D7000
  • Sony RX100 II
  • Lenses: 50mm f/1.8, 70-200mm f/4, aaaand etc. that I forgot

Software

Development

  • Editor: VSCode (dracula theme) and vim + tmux
  • IDE: Visual Studio, (dreaded) Xcode, CLion
  • Notebook: VSCode, Jupyter, Colab
  • VM: Vagrant + Qemu (Linux), Hyper-V (Windows)
  • Terminal: iTerm2 (Mac), Alacritty (Linux), Windows Terminal (duh)
  • Shell: zsh with oh-my-zsh (jonathan theme), bash, csh, sh, ps
  • API: Insomnia, Postman
  • Browser: Chrome > Firefox > Safari
  • SCM: GitHub, GCP Source Repository, private GitLab VPS
  • Prototype and Planning:
    • Figma
    • Storybook
    • Draw.io
  • Docs:
    • Obsidian.md
    • Sphinx Doc
    • Confluence
    • Trello

Productivity

  • Font (mono): Fira Code — I slather this beautiful typeface everywhere.
  • Font (sans): Be Vietnam Pro — free, patriotic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, and gorgeous.
  • Graphics: Photoshop, Lightroom, Affinity Design
  • Note-taking: GoodNotes (iPadOS), OneNote (Desktop), Markdown (universal)
  • Mail: Apple Mail, Outlook, GMail

Photos of my Desk Setup throughout the Time

January, 2022

2021

Work office, 2021

2020

Bonus I: Books

  • System Design Interview by Alex Xu & Sahn Lam — Completed, 2022-06-19
  • Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann — in progress
  • Site Reliability Engineering by Beyer, Jones, Petoff, Murphy — in progress
  • DSA Analysis by Clifford A. Shaffer — in progress
  • Pattern Recognition and ML by Christopher M. Bishop — to read
  • Head First Design Patterns by Eric Freeman — to read
  • Linux Kernel Development by Robert Love — to read

Bonus II: Music