Michael Uses

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

Quick links:

• My uses repo
• My /uses web-page
• 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.

Desktop Apps

• I am a recent Alfred convert, and paid for the powerpack.
• I use iaWriter, Notion, Obsidian for my todos, notes. I wrote about Obsidian recently.
• 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
• I'm enjoying ColorSlurp for managing colour palettes

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
• Vital Free VST Synth
• RC-20 Retro Color Plug-in by XLN Audio

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

Work Laptop

Codename: "ingo"

MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021)

Specs

• Apple M1 Pro
• 32 GB

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

My Gaming PC

Codename: "mido"

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 Windows 11

Specs

• AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 4.5-5.4GHz (8-core 16 threads)
• ASUS TUF Gaming X670E-Plus DDR5 Motherboard
• Corsair Vengeance RGB 32GB (2x16GB) 6000MHz DDR5 RAM
• Gigabyte Nvidia 2080 Super 8GB Gaming OC mk2 GPU
• be quiet! Dark Rock 4 CPU Cooler
• 1x Western Digital m.2 NVME (2TB) - Windows Boot Drive
• 1x Samsung 860 Evo SSD (4TB) - Games Library
• 1x Samsung 860 QVO SSD (1TB) - Still need to give this a task :)
• be quiet! Straight Power 11 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply
• NZXT H7 Flow case
• Samsung C32JG5x 144Hz 2560x1440 Display

Previous build(s)

• Intel Core i7-9700K 3.6GHz (8 cores/8 threads)
• ASUS ROG STRIX Z390-F GAMING Motherboard
• Corsair Vengeance 32GB DDR4 3000 Memory
• 1x Samsung 860 Evo SSD (250GB)
• Corsair H100x Liquid CPU Cooler

NAS / Media Server

Codename: "impa"

Asustor AS6604T

Specs

• Intel® Celeron™ CPU @ 2.00GHz
• 8.00 GB RAM
• Running Portainer CE and a whole suite of self-hosted web apps

Drives

• Cache: 2x 250GB m.2 SSD drives (Acting as cache for Drives 1 and 2)
• Volume 1: 2x 2TB WD Red drives (RAID 1 / EXT4 / M.2 Cache)
• Volume 2: 2x 4TB SeaGate IronWolf drives (RAID 1 / EXT4)

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, has a broken R1 button I've never bothered to fix)
• Raspberry Pi 3b 🍇