What I use

These /uses pages are great; sometimes, you wonder what tools somebody uses daily to compare and discover. I occasionally learn of cool new programs or things through them; even if I don’t install or purchase anything, it elicits an “oh wow, that’s cool”.

Nevertheless, I’m not comfortable just listing all of my possessions – and that would just be a boring advertisement. Here you can find some items that I use often and find useful.

Stationery

• Pens
  • Pilot Decimo (Light Blue, Medium): What I’d call a perfect pen.
  • Lamy 2000 (Fine): The nib is extremely capricious on mine, but the design makes it worth it. Would be my favourite pen if it required less attention to how I hold it.
  • Pilot Custom 823 (Amber, Medium): It’s a bit picky about inks, but the capacity is enormous and it otherwise writes well.
  • Hongdian M2 (Brown, Fine): For relatively little money, you get a metal pocket pen with a smooth nib and the most fun clip I’ve seen! It also comes with a normal converter. Move aside, Kaweco, the new king of budget pocket pens is here.
  • Lamy Safari (Yellow, Fine & Charcoal, “Medium”): Their feeds are too small, their width is hilariously inconsistent, but they’re otherwise dependable and really fun.
  • Pilot Kaküno (Panda edition, Fine): I didn’t know a nib could be this thin and this smooth. Wow! It sometimes dries out fast, but is otherwise a great starter pen.
  • (And many more)
• Inks
  • Pilot Iroshizuku Kon-peki: Such a happy, perfect blue. You can’t mistake it for a ballpoint, yet it’s also very practical and closer to a “normal” blue than turquoise.
  • Waterman Serenity Blue: Another perfect blue, this one for the opposite reason. Absolutely formless and shapeless – like water. This is the blue ink.
  • Diamine Sherwood Green: I got this one because I couldn’t find Montblanc Irish Green for sale near me, and it’s absolutely fantastic. An actual, true green ink! The first time I bought a second bottle of an ink before the first one ran out.
  • Sailor Souboku: This is my first (and for now only) pigmented ink, and it’s quite cool. A bit pale, but still a practical blue-black for all your professional form-filling needs. Makes me curious about Kiwa-guro for drawing.
  • (And countless others)
• Pentel GraphGear 500 mechanical pencil: I didn’t use a pencil much before, but recently this one has been a permanent fixture on my desk. Wow, I get mechanical pencil people now, it’s nice. The nib definitely doesn’t dry out :)
• Sakura Pigma Micron 08 fineliner: I got these for Drawabox, and I’m grateful the course forced me to try fineliners. They’re not as comfortable as a fountain pen, but if you need something that leaves lines of pigmented ink without pressure at any angle, these are a solid option – and don’t cost much.
• Mostly Rhodia/Clairefontaine paper: This was the first fountain pen-friendly paper I tried (ironically, before I started using such pens), and I just stuck to them. They’re cheap where I live and feel great to write on. Almost no see-through, and definitely no feathering. From journals and generic notebooks to big multi-subject organised notebooks and sketchbooks, I am Exacompta Clairefontaine’s strongest warrior. :)
• Erika model 155 typewriter: This was such an impulse purchase, but it brings joy to see it on the desk. I got it as new-old-stock for under $45, and while I might’ve overpaid for a typewriter, it’s a great little machine. I don’t get to use it that often during the semester, but only because I don’t get to spend much time around it.

Electronics

• MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, 2021): This laptop has survived a lot and will endure more yet.
• Mac Mini (M4, 2024): I use it when I need more focus; it still blows my mind that this tiny box is a full computer. I heard they’re getting harder to find, which is a shame.
• Sennheiser Momentum 4 & AirPods (3rd gen, 2021) headphones: They sound good enough for me. I have no complaints and the battery on the Sennheisers lasts forever.
• Pocketbook Era e-reader: It’s a pleasure to use. I like the design and the metal frame. Sometimes wish I opted for a bigger reader, but this one fits into even my smallest bag.
• The Steam Deck: I think I’ve been very vocal about how much I love this console. It’s up there as far as both my favourite computers and best purchases in my life go. I’m not sure if it’s a good buy or a good deal these days, as I haven’t been following along, but I see it serving me for many years to come.
• A custom i3 12100-powered server and a Lenovo ThinkCentre M70s (i5 10600) I use as Network-Attached Storage: Both aren’t exactly price-to-performance beasts or the best for maximising storage space, but I love them. They’ve served me well over the years.
• Garmin Fenix 7x Solar watch: At 51mm, it looks enormous on my wrist. The bezel has seen countless scratches and so has the sapphire screen, but with such watches it only adds to the charm. It’s a “smart” watch without any of the annoying smarts and with a battery that lasts a month instead. I wish more watches came with such a simple interface and this kind of screen. I’ve thought about replacing it with an analogue watch, but suspect it will keep annoying my hand for a while yet.

Software

• Things task tracker (new): I’ve only been using this thing for a week at the time of writing, but so far it’s so much fun! I feel that I’ve been getting infinitely more done since powering it on. What a clean and elegant application!
• Zed code editor: It weighs less than Visual Studio Code and looks a bit cleaner. That’s it. I don’t care much about IDEs and editors, this one just felt nice to use. In the terminal, my preferred text editor is Vim.
• Obsidian markdown editor: I do a lot of my writing in Zed, but having a place with notes shared between my computers using iCloud is priceless. I use it for tracking some projects and lists, supplementing my paper journals and notes.
• Debian on my server and TrueNAS on my NAS: Fedora kept annoying me with Cisco’s geoblocking, so I chose the most boring operating system on Earth for my latest server rebuild. As for the network storage OS, TrueNAS was simply the first popular option I saw; I’ve had no complaints about it so far.
• Anki for flashcards: I should use it more. It really works when you put in the effort, a great way to retain lots of information.
• Calibre for organising books: I don’t like Calibre; I prefer to store my important files outside my computers, and the lack of good network storage support (or a good dedicated server, I’d prefer to just store my books on one) makes my setup feel like a crutch and fragile. The official documentation basically says it doesn’t care if NAS-based workflows like mine break. It’s just the least bad option I could find between it and various web services that didn’t work out for me.
• Various self-hosted services:
  • Caddy web server: It’s so simple to use! I guess it’d be prudent to learn more about Nginx. But for my personal needs, Caddy does everything with one easily understandable file. No built-in support for non-HTTP traffic was a bit annoying when I ran a Minecraft server, but it isn’t the end of the world.
  • Forgejo Git server: It was a bit of a gamble to switch to this fork from Gitea when it released, but I’m glad it worked out. I host all my personal Git repositories on there.
  • Navidrome music server with Arpeggi on my phone and Supersonic on my computers: Such a light and simple music server, it covers all my needs perfectly! The clients are also extremely good; Arpeggi in particular is everything I could dream of from a mobile music client.
  • Firefly III finance manager: I chronically fall behind in inserting my transactions, but it has somewhat helped keep track of how much money I have, can spend, and should spend – all in one place, and not split between several banks and cards.
  • Jellyfin media server: It does the job well! I’ve watched several long TV shows through it and currently try to watch the classic movies on there; yet to see any big bugs. Metadata imports don’t work well in Russia, but it’s otherwise solid.
  • qBitTorrent torrent client: What shall we do with a drunken sailor?
  • Vaultwarden password manager with Bitwarden clients: Starting to manage passwords with a dedicated app instead of reusing the same few passwords everywhere and relying on the browser’s manager has been a very positive change in my life. It’s both more secure and easier.