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Updated on April 15, 2025 in #dev-business, #dev-environment

The Tools I Use

the-tools-i-use.jpg

Here's a list of software and hardware that I use on a regular basis as a developer and video creator. I will be keeping it updated.

Quick Jump:

Every once in a while an email rolls in where someone asks me about my development environment or has questions about certain hardware.

I thought it would be fun to list out everything I use here. Keep in mind, I change things around quite a bit, but I will keep this post updated.

If I missed anything, let me know in the comments at the bottom of the post. Also near the bottom there is a timeline going over when and why I switched between tools.

# Demo Videos

Over the years I’ve recorded a couple of videos that pull together the tools that I use from this post so you can see how they all fit together and how they work in practice.

Just a heads up, this blog post will always have the latest updates on the tools that I use. That’s because I don’t record a new video every time a single tool changes.

My dotfiles are public on GitHub with screenshots and an install script.

# OS

  • Windows 10 Professional
    • WSL 2 (Arch Linux) with WSLg support for clipboard sharing + running GUI apps.

# Code Editor and Terminal

  • Code Editor
    • Neovim
      • I feel right at home and don’t see myself switching away.
  • Terminal
    • Microsoft Terminal
    • Related Tools
      • tmux for splitting panes, creating windows and sessions.
      • zsh as my primary shell with a few plugins for auto-complete and Vim mode.
      • fzf for fuzzy searching your shell history and other items.

# Notable Apps

  • Dexpot for managing virtual work spaces, I’ve written about it before. It’s very hotkey friendly compared to Windows 10’s virtual desktops.

  • For searching and launching apps I simply use Win + s which is built-in.

  • Ditto to manage multiple clipboards. It’s super handy and I wrote about clipboard managers here (they will save you a lot of time).

  • Most of my web app dev is done inside of Docker. It works seamlessly with WSL 2.

  • For setting custom global hotkeys, Auto Hotkey has served me well.

  • For quickly resizing windows to a specific height and width or measuring / positioning a window I use Sizer. It comes in handy for screenshots and recording videos.

  • For browsers I’m using Firefox mainly for privacy reasons.

  • Momentum is really cool browser extension to keep you on track. I wrote about that in a post on defeating procrastination a while ago.

  • I do most of my training / consulting sessions through Google Hangouts

  • My favorite IRC client is HexChat. I spend a lot of time on IRC which I’ve written about.

  • For password management I use a command line tool called pass. Currently at 300+ passwords.

  • I love listening to music and I’ve been using foobar2000 since the early 2000s. It’s a light weight audio player (uses ~5mb of RAM) with a minimal but nearly perfect UI.

  • To quickly view and resize images I’ve been using IrfanView since the early 2000s. It’s very minimal and has useful batch operations.

  • For image editing like creating Youtube thumbnails and blog post images I use GIMP. If I ever switch to native Linux, it works there too. That’s the main reason why I use it.

  • For finance tracking I wrote and open sourced Plutus which is a command line income and expense tracker.

# Computer, Desk and Phone

# Recording and Music

  • I use OBS to record videos, it’s excellent for both live streaming / recording, it’s open source and cross platform.

  • I’m a big fan of Camtasia 9 for editing videos / screencasts. It’s what I used in my latest Docker course and will be using for future courses. It easily saves me dozens of hours of editing for each course. It also works for MacOS and Windows, and you can use 1 license on more than 1 machine.

  • I use a Logitech c920 webcam for recording video. It captures 1080p video and looks reasonable enough with normal lighting.

  • I use an Audio-Technica AT2005 dynamic microphone. In my opinion it’s the best screencast / podcast microphone you’re going to find unless you spend $800+. It’s what I used for the Dive Into Docker course (and all courses in the foreseeable future). I’ve written a massive guide on how to record high quality at home btw. Lots of tips and gear recommendations are there along with everything I use.

  • I do all of my audio editing and music listening through a pair of Sony MDR V6 headphones (the MDR 7506 model is linked because the MDR V6s went from $80 to $350 and supposedly the MDR 7506 is similar). I’m extremely pleased with them. I wrote a huge guide on how to pick headphones before, so check that out. I think I will use the MDR V6 headphones for the rest of my life.

  • I picked up a Scarlett 2i2 3rd gen USB audio interface and a dbx 286s pre-amp and processor to go with it. This allows me to process all of my audio in real time without needing additional software or complicated audio redirect tools. I have not recorded any courses with this set up yet but you can check out my recent Youtube videos to hear it in action. They have lasted for a long time and have served me well.

# ⌛️ History / Timeline

I find it helpful to know roughly when I switched between tools. It’s fun to occasionally take a trip down memory lane or see a timeline of events that led to picking something.

Code Editor

  • 2009ish: Sublime Text 3
  • June 2018: VSCode
    • Wanted to see what the hype was about, it looked promising!
    • It was ok but I always felt like it wasn’t quite a good fit for me due to parts of it being closed sourced.
  • February 2019: Vim
    • It served me well, after getting over the initial learning curve I was feeling wins after about a week.
  • March 2025: Neovim

Terminal

  • 2018ish: ConEmu
    • This was around the time WSL 1 just came out, it looked promising.
  • November 2018: Hyper
    • On paper it looked good but it turned out to be very slow.
  • September 2019: wsltty
    • It was much faster than Hyper and I used this until Microsoft Terminal was stable IMO, I bounced between Microsoft Terminal and wsltty shortly after Hyper.
  • March 2020: Microsoft Terminal

Notable Apps

  • For clipboard sharing between WSL 2 / Windows and running graphical apps I used VcXsrv since 2017 and then I switched to WSLg in April 2025.

  • For launching applications, I used Keypirinha in about 2017 and then I switched to Microsoft PowerToys in May 2020.

  • I used Opera as a browser in 2006 for ~8 years, then I tried Firefox and went to Chrome until March 2025 when finally I switched back to Firefox.

  • For finance tracking I used GnuCash from about 2015 until early 2025, then I wrote and open sourced Plutus.

Computer, Desk and Phone

Recording and Music

  • REAPER is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). I used it to process my microphone’s input in real-time (noise cancellation, compressor, etc.) before I switched to using hardware for that. I used it for longer than I can remember until I switched to the current hardware combo listed above in late 2018.

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