Zotero

PDFs, bookmarks, and ePubs all go into Zotero. It has replaced Google Play Books (GPB) which originally displaced Apple Books. The issue with Apple Books is inability to easily export book citations and an annoying disclaimer for any copy-paste from a book. Though GPB exports citations to Google Docs for easy searching, having all books live on the cloud was annoying when the service once went down. GPB also doesn't have PDF annotation tools as of 2024, which some books come in. Amazon Kindle was unflexible and locked uploading libgen books save for some convoluted emailing process. Calibre didn't meet UI needs.

Zotero works for classwork and research. Its management and auto-retrieval of citations is top-notch, combined with easy export to BiBLaTeX. I see no reason to use paid software such as Mendeley or EndNote.

I do a highlight based reading system where blue is for new vocab, red is for thoughts I disagree with or that I think are false, yellow is a good point, green is questioning, neon pink is a significant point, purple is a reference to another work, and orange denotes humor from the author.

Tools like Omnivore, Raindrop, or Readwise which also profess to manage your PKM system yet are mostly online make me doubtful due to that reason. I feel like these apps fall into "productivity porn" rather than actually being useful.

Zotero has a few downsides. Sometimes the website screenshotter doesn't work and spams the dev console. The Android app is in beta, which limits its usage on eReaders. It doesn't download favicons for websites. However, as an open-source platform with plugins, I'm confident about its future. I hope to see a Zotero database augmented with LLM tools to make a true "second brain," facilitating easy retrieval of both highlights and content, in addition to a resurfacing tool to prompt memory. A tool which takes a Zotero collection and turns it into an audio playlist would also be much loved. The ElevenLabs app works for now.

NetNewsWire

NetNewsWire is the best RSS tool for iOS and MacOS. Combined with kill-the-newsletter, this is a great solution: staying informed with what you want while not being sucked into garbage "news." I recommend combining this with "Most Read" article summarizes such as hn-rss and ft-rss.

I tried a lot of options before this such as Feedly, Inoreader, Instapaper, Pocket, and so on, but was never happy with the paid nature of those apps. Though Zotero has an RSS reader, I think separating long-term reading from daily news is important.

Obsidian

I haven't quite figured out exactly how Obsidian will fit in my workflow. It currently functions as two things: a journal and for inductive learning. I disagree with people creating graphs and backlinks for all their knowledge—I think that will be impossible to upkeep. But using it to track things such as decisions and deducing principles does work.

Obsidian is often compared to Notion, which I used to like but not anymore. You can't access your data without internet, the search functionality isn't good (experience from previous internship), and my best guess is that people like it for it looks nice and you can share pages, so startups sometimes use it as a recruiting page or people create personal websites from it. Here's another negative experience from someone who uses Notion. There are much better task managers, calendars, and documentation tools.

Anki

I exclusively use Anki to memorize words in Chinese and German. I'm doubtful of memorizing anything more than an alphabet or simple facts in Anki, such as sentences with Cloze. Though people use Anki for medical school, I wonder if this memorization leads to dogmatism and lack of seeing the bigger picture.

Figma

I'm not much of a designer these days, but I like Figma for its whiteboarding tools. I'd like something more local in the future, but it's working fine for now.

MacWhisper

Best transcription tool for internet meetings I've found. I'd be nice if it took screenshots here and there. Being local and a one-time purchase, I'd recommend it over Otter.ai.

However, I'd like something that has real-time live captions too. It may be that implementing this is non-trivial.

Chrome

Very conventional choice, I know, but I think browsers like Arc are overhyped. Orion by Kagi seemed useful, but it was a bit laggy on my M1 Macbook. Safari doesn't have the extensions I want. Standard shoutout to the Onion Browser for the privacy-focused. Firefox doesn't seem to be developing serious products these days, or at least its browser doesn't feel unique and differentiated from Chrome in any way. Unsure about just using Chromium instead of Chrome. Running Chrome in a container is something I want to do.

I'm slowly degoogling myself as I believe more people have uncovered the risk from Google just destroying and locking you out of important things. Part of this starts with the browser. Bookmarks move into Zotero, and Bookmarks act just as a launching board for currently relevant links rather than long-term reference material. Passwords from Google can be archived in tools such as Bitwarden or KeepassXC (along with nice UI app Macpass), but maintaining auto-fill is still important for context-aware security so one does not get phished. The auto-fill extensions for those apps currently do not work well from a UI side, and keeping the vault constantly unlocked is probably also a security risk somehow.

History is a tool that needs to be taken out of Chrome, just like Bookmarks. There are attempts at local options such as HistoryHound, BrowserParrot, but none of them quite fit what I need.

Qbserve

The best productivity tracker I've found. Websites are automatically categorized as productive or unproductive. ActivityWatch was too unpolished for the UI. For example, you would have to visit `localhost` to access it. Perhaps Qbserve runs a server in the backend too, but idk. I still need to look at how different programs on an OS communicate.

Eagle Cool

I never realized I needed something to track my images until I encountered Eagle.

Alacritty

It's the most simple and best looking terminal emulator in my opinion. Other popular ones include Kitty and iTerm2, but Alacritty was just more my style. I'm doubtful of Warp due it requiring a login. However, terminal sharing, AI commands, and stored commands are useful features yet nevertheless found in other shell tools. Supposedly, AI hype has become rooted in iTerm2 as well.

fish

Fish discovered through this article it also talks about asdf. Fish is a shell with good basics such as auto-complete while other shell like oh-my-zsh require lots of plugins. Though fish scripting language diffs from common ones like bash or zsh, LLMs make changing scripts easy so it's not a large concern.

asdf, pyenv, pnpm

I use asdf and pyenv to manage versions for node, Go, Python, Ruby, and so on. It has worked well and creating a local folder for my ML projects' dependencies is large but organized. I do feel the shims sometimes make my shell slow, and I've run into a few issues where too many python venvs were created and things got messed up, but not enough to understand where the issue is coming from. pnpm is faster than yarn or npm and takes up less space is my understanding.

VS Code

This article makes a strong case. I've found the IntelliJ suite too heavy.

ResponsivelyApp

It's a good open-source tool that does what it does. Polypane is similar but paid and BrowserStack tests on live devices, which is a but different. Useful for debugging screen sizes.

Bruno

Not quite as full featured as Postman or Insomnia, but also not as bloated. It's ironic that Insomnia started out as a lightweight Postman competitor only to be bought out and turned into a loaded sign-in only app.

OrbStack

An improvement over Docker Desktop.

OpenInEditor Lite

A button to open VS Code from Finder.

OpenInTerminal Lite

A button to open the terminal from Finder. It was annoying changing the settings to open Alacritty.

Rectangle

Screen tiler for MacOS. Free and works well.

Vimac

Uses the keyboard to help navigate the screen. Useful when you don't want to click small buttons. There's also VimMotion, Homerow (which I find slower and more bloated despite being the succesor to Vimac), and

Shottr

Useful for its scrolling capture, OCR capture from images (though changing the OCR for different languages is annoying), QR recognition, blur tool, image margin cropping, translation, pixel measurement, and more.

IINA

A button to open the VS Code from Finder.

AppCleaner

Useful for removing extra stuff from applications, though it does have a delay. It may be made outdated by Raycast's uninstall feature, which I've yet to try.

Pure Paste

Sometimes I'm copying from one thing to another and I need to strip the formatting. For example, between emails and MS Word.

Klack

Makes your keyboard klacky. It makes me more productive at times, but I also think I turn it on loudly so other people know I'm typing.

MonitorControl

External monitor dimming with external keyboard. Haven't used this in a while.

Hidden Bar

Useful for hiding menu bar icons.

MeetingBar

MeetingBar is great, but I don't use MacOS notifications for the meeting notification as they are hard to dismiss. A full-screen notification or sound indicator would be better. I'm currently trying to find a phone alarm that rings on meetings.

uBlock Origin

Based on my research, it's the best AdBlocker. A feature of it I use is the dropper tool to pick elements on the page to block, such as Facebook's home page or LinkedIn's feed page. This way, I can still see the important information while removing the unimportant information.

Wappalyzer

Look at the technology of people's websites and figure out their level of skill and expertise along the website-making dimension, which may generalize to other dimensions.

In my opinion, the tierlist for website builders go from Wix as the most noob-common website to Squarespace/WordPress for intermediate levels to Webflow as a more advanced level. The most advanced are custom implementations, where I often see React, Svelte, or the rare Phoenix Liveview. This is mainly in the context of portfolios and personal websites.

For information and content, sometimes blogspots or random websites offer the best result.

Show CSS Outline Style

Use this to see the bounding boxes of various divs. Often you find people doing some sort of hacky stuff and it shows.

Dark Reader

I use the hotkey OPTION (⌥) + SHIFT (⇧) + D to quickly switch between light and dark mode. Sometimes I'm existing in a darker place where lightness hurts my eyes.

Archive Extensions

I use Archive.org and Archive.is extensions to bypass paywalls on news and find old, broken links. Archive.is seems to work better on paywalls. Using both ensures maximum coverage of archived snapshots.

Zotero Connector

Webpage snipping and PDF downloading.

Youtube Extensions

Remove Youtube distractions such as the sidebar, recommended videos, and so on. I also use Theater mode for Youtube and redirect the homepage to my subscriptions.

Redirector Extension

I find myself blocking parts of websites using uBlock Origin's div selector tool or just blocking the URL entirely, but that makes it so that I just go through things and try to get around the block. A redirector is more helpful for reminding me that my attention shouldn't be there. I've used this to get rid of reddit's frontpage and spotify so far. Redirector extensions sometimes have problems with the URL and don't seem to sync properly.

M-series Macbook

Before the M-series, it felt like a good Thinkpad and a Macbook were debatable. There were many bad features such as butterfly keyboards and a weird looking touchbar. But now, there are numerous distinguishing features. The battery life is best in class. The trackpad is glass and only simulates a click with vibrations, so it's less likely to break and easier to use. The curvature is G3 continuity and the metal aluminum case is harder to make than the plastic cases found in many similarly priced but worse laptops such as the Dell XPS series. Also notable is how the largest Macbook has a 100Wh battery, exactly at TSA regulations, while Dell only has 86Wh or so, which shows an attention to detail.

Apple does have annoying tendencies like making extra storage or RAM disproportionately expensive, but the base level laptops are often still a good value. They hold their value longer.

I didn't really like iPhones in high school because of the people who used them, and it's quite disappointing how they use Apple devices not to their full features and functionality. They get it because everyone else has it, and I guess they have money to burn so they just "want it" without thinking too much about what to get. Apple devices are consumer friendly but surprisingly detailed for the advanced user. But Apple devices are also overrepresented in business people and developers, so I came to see another side of it. Being a UNIX system, it's more flexible for computing tools such as Docker and shell tools, though I've heard Excel and Solidworks are better on Windows.

iPad

I got this for taking notes, but I find myself using it less and less these days. I usually do quite heavy work on the computer, so a tablet doesn't suffice. When reading, I'd use the computer or prefer the e-reader instead.

It's useful if I need to screenshare and draw something. Using Zoom's built in "airhost" app, it becomes easy to draw digitally. I'm not sure if iPhone mirroring works for iPads too.

Japanese Screen Protector

Saw this on a reddit thread. High quality one from ELECOM. Cheaper than the other brands. I don't like buying things when I feel like they're making it purposely expensive and ripping people off, such as the common iPad screen protectors.

Apple Watch

Mainly for the health tools: HRV, blood oxygen, keeping track of blood pressure, resting heart rate, sleep, sunlight, wrist temperature, and so on.

I haven't used Whoop or an Oura Ring, but they don't seem like a significant improvement compared to the Apple Watch and are a subscription.

e-Reader

I use one by Boox these days. The pen and pen holder is a bit lacklustre but it works well enough. It's basically an eInk tablet. The one by Huawei seems good, though it lacks a warm night-light. Since I don't use Google Play Books much anymore, I'd consider buying one if it had the right features.

It's possible to sideload the Zotero Android app (even while it's in beta) to read books.

USB-C iPhone

This took Apple long enough with the 15. I still haven't bought this, but USB-C minimalism is an important step.

Airtags

Best in class tracker compared to tools like Tile.

GAN Charger

Minimalism involves reducing the size of things such as chargers. I use a small 67W GaN rather than the blocky Apple charger (though newer Apple chargers are smaller).

Power Bank

Phone-charging.

AER

AER makes good quality items at reasonable prices. I often see TUMI in airports, which is overpriced garbage. I remember being in Chicago and the TUMI salesperson was wearing a face mask over his mouth but not his nose and telling me about how good and prestigious the brand is. Rimowa is overpriced. Some other backpacks in this space such as Peak Design or Nomatic just didn't seem as quality or what I was looking for. Patagonia, Coxlpatl, Fjallraven likely appeal to different audiences.

There are also some European brands I'm aware of such as Pingponq, Freitag, Sandqvist, and QWSTION, but I don't have any direct experience with them.

The one downside is that AER is quite heavy. I may buy a different backpack in the future just because of this.

Vegetable Cleaver

This doubles as a bench scraper to transfer what you cut into a prep bowl. Though some people buy expensive knives and kits, this one trustworthy chef knife has served almost all my cutting needs. As my experience has increased, I do think having grooves on the side of the blade so that cut food doesn't stick would be nice. Besides this, I might get more precise, smaller carving blade for primal cuts.

Meat Cleaver

Though a meat cleaver doesn't cut through bone, there are ocassional thick cuts that I need to chop through or at the ends of joints.

Kitchen Cart

Moving supplies from one area of the kitchen to the other is difficult. Kitchen cart makes it easier and helps organization.

Prep Bowls

Mise en place. Logistics come before cooking.

Colander

Useful for cleaning leafy greens and straining other things that need to be strained. However, sometimes a good soak or parboil works well for removing antinutrients and so on.

Meat Thermometer

An absolute essential for knowing what temperature meat is cooked at. But also potatoes. When will someone create thermodynamic charts but for food, so there is a frontier of "food doneness" at different temperatures?

Metal Spatula

The issue with a wooden spatula is that over time, mold becomes embedded in the spatula itself. Plastic spatulas melt and are poisonous. Though a metal spatula can scratch non-stick, I use only stainless steel as non-stick is toxic.

Scale

Measure by mass, not by volume. It's more accurate.

Sharpening Stone

A $5 cheapo one probaly works just as well. I got one from the sharpening subreddit that was around $30. Making sure the edge stays and grinding the knife at the right angle is difficult; sometimes I blur the existing sharp edge into the rest of the blade, which is bad.

Baking Pan Quarter Sheets

Useful for serving things but also just for holding random miscellaneous things.

Hooks

Hooks are very useful for storing both pots and utensils. I didn't pick this up until I had lived in Germany. It's much better than storing things in cabinets, which I feel like only hide your stuff, though they do protect it from oil aerosolization and condensation.

Pull-up bar

Used to hang rings and do dead hangs to release shoulder tension more than for just pull-ups themselves.

Rings

Rings allow for reverse rows and core exercises. They are also more fun than a pull-up bar.

Broomstick

For shoulder stretches. Inspired by Tommy Kono's book.

Elastic Bands

Resistance exercises in a lightweight form.