Uses

This is an informal list of the hardware, software, and tools that I use in my daily work or hobbies. Inspired by nicknisi.com/uses/.

Development Environment

OS

• Windows 11 with most development work done via WSL2
• Omarchy - testing it out on my laptop, but I still need Office and the Adobe suite for work, so not quite ready to make the jump yet

Editor

• Visual Studio Code or Zed - I use VS Code for most development, but Zed when I want to use local AI
• Dark (Visual Studio) - colour theme
• Cascadia Code - font
• Trying out NeoVim, but it just isn’t right on Windows

Terminal

• Windows Terminal
• gh to interact with git and github
• AI Harnesses:
  • Claude Code - my preferred agent harness, used with the Claude Max plan
  • Codex - only using it to try out the Plus plan
  • OpenCode - great all rounder, will likely settle on this with OpenCode Go
• Package Managers:
  • pipalso using uv in some cases
  • npm
  • homebrew for packages on Ubuntu/WSL
  • winget - to replace the Windows Store

Browser

• Firefox - fast, performant, privacy-focused, no overbearing AI features
• Chrome - some media formats only like Chrome, so I keep this as a backup

Extensions

• uBlock Origin - content blocker
• Bitwarden - password manger, have a self-hosted instance for backup
• WhatRuns - see the tech behind a website
• FoxyTab - adds a bunch of power features to Firefox Tabs

Desktop Apps

Productivity

• Microsoft Office - still love those old school, offline docs
• Blender - for the times I need to deal with 3D
• GitHub Desktop - I really hate using the git cli
• Obsidian - take notes

Utilities

• DevToys
• PowerToys
• Meld - compare code on the fly

Audio/Video

• Apple Music - better for combining with my family plan
• Adobe CC - the best, and most expensive, photo/video/audio production software
• Davinci Resolve - the best free video production software
• OBS Studio - the only serious way to screen record
• ShareX - the only serious way to take a screenshot
• SpeedFan - see computer temps and control fans speeds
• WinDirStat - recover space from every corner of your device

Games

Some of the games in my backlog I am currently working through. If you want to see them all, connect with me through Steam in the footer!

• Need for Speed Rivals
• Shadow of the Tomb Raider
• Forza Horizon 4
• Forza Horizon 5
• Dave the Diver
• Doom Eternal
• Valheim
• Star Wars Battlefront II

Computer Setup

See it on PCPartPicker

• AMD Ryzen 5 9600X 3.9 GHz 6-Core Processor
• MSI PRO B650M-P Micro ATX Motherboard
• 32GB TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory
• 2TB Silicon Power NVMe SSD
• 4TB WD Black 7200RPM HDD
• ASUS TUF GAMING SC RTX 3090Ti GPU
• Lian Li A3-mATX MicroATX Case
• Thermaltake 850W 80+ Gold PSU

Peripherals

• ASUS ROG SWIFT 27” 4K 160Hz PG27UQ Monitor
• ASUS TUF 27’ 1080p 165Hz 1VP279Q-P Monitor
• Logitech G213 Prodigy Keyboard
• Logitech G502 Hero Mouse

Mobile Setup

My laptop is starting to get a little old, and I want to replace it with the Framework 13 Pro, but the current costs of hardware have me pushing that off

• Dell XPS 13 9360

  • Intel i5-7200U
  • 8GB DDR4 RAM
  • 1TB WD Blue NVMe SSD

• iPhone 13 Pro Max

  • in dbrand Grip case
  • with dbrand Teardown skin

• Steam Deck LCD

  • upgraded to 1TB storage
  • in dbrand Killswitch case
  • with dbrand X-Ray skin

Servers

Main Server

See it on PCPartPicker

• Intel Core i7 6700K 4 GHz 4-Core Processor
• Asus Z170-A ATX Motherboard
• 32GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-2133 Memory
• 256GB Generic Micron SATA SSD
• 500GB WD Blue SATA SSD
• 4x 2TB TEAMGROUP T-Force Vulcan Z SATA SSD
• 2x 8TB Seagate Archive 5900RPM HDD
• EVGA SC GeForce GTX 1080Ti GPU
• Corsair Carbide 270R Case
• EVGA 500W 80+ PSU
• Intel X540-T2 10Gb/s Ethernet NIC
• TP-Link TX201 2.5Gb/s Ethernet NIC
• Supermicro 12Gb/s SAS Internal HBA

Additional Servers

• 1x Intel Celeron N3050 NUC
• 1x Dell Optiplex 3050 + Lacie Rugged Mini 2TB HDD

Homelab

Here are all the services I am running, spread across the three servers! All three use Proxmox Virtual Environment as their host OS. I am planning on writing an article for each one of these, so stay tuned for that!

Main “Proxmox” Server

• 2FAuth
• BentoPDF
• Calibre Web
• Convert to it!
• draw.io
• Dreeve
• Gitea
• Gitea Mirror
• Home Assistant
• Immich Machine Leaning Container
• JupyterLab
• Kiwix
• LibreTranslate
• LubeLogger
• MediaLyze
• MiniQR
• Ollama
• OpenGist
• OpenMediaVault
• OpenWebUI
• PairDrop
• Pi-hole
• PlaneSnitch
• Plex
• PocketTTS
• Rackpeek
• Scanopy
• Scrutiny
• Send2Kindle
• Sure
• Tautulli
• Trek
• Unifi
• Uptime Kuma
• Vaultwarden
• wger
• yt-dlp Web UI

”Proxmox Backup” Dell Optiplex

• Better Frigate - I built this myself
• Mail Archiver
• Pi-hole Backup
• Proxmox Backup Server
• Uptime Kuma Backup

”Proxmox Images” Intel NUC

• ADS-B Exchange
• Dawarich
• Flightjar
• Flight Radar 24
• 2x Immich Instances
• 2x Immich Power Tools Instances
• SkyAware

Photography/Videography

• GoPro Hero 10
• DJI Neo
• iPhone 13 Pro Max in RAW/ProRES
• Canon EOS R10
• Looking to get a Blackmagic Pocket 6K if anyone has one for sale…