Tools

List of tools and software I enjoy

I have a strong preference for tools that are open, secure and respect privacy. I don't like being the product when "consuming" software. Naturally I use a lot more services, tools and software but here are some I would like to recommend.

In general I would advise everyone to have: Password manager, end-to-end encrypted (by default) chat app, (a paid plan) privacy focused email provider for an email-domain you own (or self-hosted is ideal, but a high bar), a VPN (your own, like tailscale with exit node, or a trusted third-party provider), a good at home and off-site encrypted backup solution (3-2-1), full disk encryption on all devices, a privacy respecting browser with the appropriate plugins for blocking trackers (e.g. LibreWolf or Brave). Lastly: your own personal website!
Hosting services at home, on your own off-site servers or even on a VPS is easy and rewarding. If you are able: donate money or time to software products you use, make it worthwhile to fight for the users.

Communication

Available on Email, Signal, XMPP, Matrix, Nostr and Urbit.

Sovereignty

Immich (self-hosted photo and video management, replace iCloud and Google Photos)Audiobookshelf (self-hosted audiobook and podcast library, replace Audible), Urbit (self-hosted personal server), Borg (encrypted backup software, together with Syncthing replaces eg. OneDrive, Dropbox and iCloud), Baïkal (CalDAV calendar server, replaces Google Calendar and iCloud), Newsboat (terminal RSS reader, replaces algorithmic feeds made by people selling ads), LibreWolf (privacy/security focused browser, replaces Chrome).

Productivity

I split my time between working on MacOS and various Linux environments so this will be a mixed bag.
For Linux: Niri, Hyprland, archlinux.
For MacOS: Yabai/Aerospace (tiling window managers, been using Yabai for a time but trying out Aerospace right now), skhd, brew.
For both: tmux, neovim, ghostty, vimium-c.

Programming languages

For work I have primarily has been using Go the past few years and I am very happy with the small and simple language.
I spent many years writing in Scala before that and have also used Python quite a bit. I enjoy both of these languages as well.
Besides this I have tinkered and worked in a lot of languages in years past (JavaScript, Java, C, Haskell, PHP etc.)

Writing role-playing games

Affinity Publisher, Procreate, pen and paper.

Hardware

Most notably: Framework 13 repairable laptop shipped without an OS ("This isn't our computer. It's yours."), pure joy (running arch/niri). Daylight Computer, an e-ink tablet (with very quick rendering speeds), calm and with option to have no blue light. ZSA Moonlander keyboard, a split, mechanical, keyboard with programmable firmware (modified to improve sound i.e. increase thockiness).

Low-tech

Pilot Vanishing Point (Fountain Pen), Midori Traveler's Notebook.