Michael Uses

My software, hardware and gear - all in one place. Inspired by Wes Bos' uses.tech

Setup stuff

I maintain a macOS setup cheat sheet, a similar one for Windows, and another for Linux.

Editor + Terminal

• VSCodium is my current editor. I made the switch to Visual Studio Code from Atom in 2018, and made the conscious choice to swap to the version with telemetry removed. Before that I used Brackets, Coda and Sublime Text. I wrote my first lines of code with Notepad++ in 2005.
• Default Dark+ theme, default vs-seti icons.
• I use iTerm2 for my terminal. I change the font to Fira Code, and font-size to 14.
• On Linux I use the default PoP!_\OS terminal.
• I use Zsh as my shell, with the Spaceship Prompt theme, via Fig.io (where all my dotfiles and aliases are managed now!)

Desktop Apps

• I am a recent Alfred convert, and paid for the powerpack.
• I use Notion for my todos, notes. I used to use iaWriter.
• I use Carbon Copy Cloner for backups and setups

Design Apps

• Designs in Sketch. However, I stopped buying updates when they switched to a subscription model. For that reason, I also have Figma.
• I manage SVG icons with Nucleo
• I compress all my images with ImageOptim.

Music Apps / Gear

Software

• Ableton Live 11 is my DAW of choice these days. I used to rep Pro Tools 9 hard for editing and mixing.
• Sound Toys 5 sound design plugins
• Loopback for more advanced audio routing

Gear

• KORG VolcaBeats drum machine
• Elektron Model:Samples
• Arsenal of guitar effects pedals
• Yamaha HS50 monitors
• Vox MV50 Clean guitar amp
• Behringer Xenyx Q1202 USB mixer
• Shure SM58 XLR Microphone

Laptop for work

I am now the proud owner of the MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports)!

Specs:

• 2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
• 32 GB 3733 MHz LPDDR4X
• Intel Iris Plus Graphics 1536 MB

All peripherals and display running through the Belkin Thunderbolt 3 dock Pro

My Gaming PC "POOTER"

I built my own custom-made PC in 2012, and have been slowly upgrading it ever since. Running Windows 10 Windows 11 Ubuntu PoP!_OS

Full PC specs:

• Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6GHz (8 cores/8 threads)
• ASUS ROG STRIX Z390-F GAMING Motherboard
• Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR4 3000 Memory
• Gigabyte Nvidia 2080 Super 8GB Gaming OC mk2 GPU
• Corsair H100x Liquid CPU Cooler
• 1x Samsung 860 Evo SSD (250GB) - Windows Boot Drive
• 1x Samsung 860 Evo SSD (4TB) - Games Library
• 1x Western Digital m.2 NVME (2TB) - Linux Boot Drive
• 1x Samsung 860 QVO SSD (1TB) - Still need to give this a task :)
• be quiet! Straight Power 11 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
• NZXT H500 Mid-Tower
• Samsung C32JG5x 144Hz 2560x1440 Display

Other Hardware

• I use the Razer DeathAdder Elite Chroma gaming mouse
• Apple keyboard (with the finger print reader)
• 8bitdo Ultimate controller
• SteamDeck (the lowest tier)
• Raspberry Pi 3b 🍇