tools

I have more computers than a regular person but not as many as a dedicated ‘homelabber’. I run two always-on servers: a Mac Mini for ArchiveBox and for filtering email with SpamSieve, and a Raspberry Pi git server running gitolite. I’m currently catsitting for a few weeks. I take the Raspberry Pi with me on trips/catsits of more than a few days so my other devices can synchronise their git repositories without too much lag. I’ve also brought my MacBook as work at $DAYJOB will resume while I’m still here. ...

Lists of things I use daily/frequently. Longer explanations may come later. Hardware General principles: Unix-like servers, personal devices from the Appleverse. This is where I’ve landed after learning programming and system administration in Unix environments and later working with history professors and web designers who care about things looking nice. I work in a bring-your-own-device environment, so I only occasionally have to use Windows. everyday devices: MacBook Air, iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad Pro home servers: Mac Mini, Raspberry Pi hosted elsewhere: NearlyFreeSpeech shared hosting for DIY enthusiasts, which allows me to tinker with my static website without the overkill of a cloud VPS Software programming and, for want of a better term, “personal devops” Tailscale connects all my devices in a VPN most code and config is kept in git repositories which live in Gitolite at home and, in some cases, also on Sourcehut or GitHub after decades in bash and many years in zsh, I’ve been using fish as my primary shell since mid-2023 tmux plays nicely with both iTerm2 (macOS) and Secure Shellfish (iOS) Vim is my default text editor; I periodically try to live with Emacs as my default (mainly because of Org Mode) but 25 years of vi muscle memory is hard to resist dotfiles are managed by chezmoi (still in the process of migrating from dotbot) Python is my go-to scripting language for most tasks that don’t interact with the web plain JavaScript for working with web data and APIs, and with iOS automation utilities Hugo static site generator macOS dev tools: Homebrew, iTerm2, MacVim, Visual Studio Code personal automation: Shortcuts, Keyboard Maestro, Bunch, Drafts Microsoft Office to collaborate with work colleagues iOS/iPadOS automation superpowers: Shortcuts, Pushcut, Scriptable, Drafts dev tools: Textastic, Runestone, Working Copy, Secure ShellFish, a-Shell fun/downtime (iOS/macOS) NetNewsWire feed reader Overcast podcast player Triode internet radio Ivory Mastodon client

I’m not going to pretend for a moment that building a personal website is easier than posting to a platform that someone else has already built. I know that updating content for a static site generator in a git repository from the command line introduces a whole lot of friction (and jargon) to the blogging/publishing process, when I could easily post elsewhere with a mobile app from the comfort of my couch or while commuting on a tram. But there are enough development and automation tools available for iOS that I can use my iPad or phone as a portable development lab. Here’s how I write and publish away from a computer. ...