/uses
If I tried to list everything I use day to day, we'd be here a while. Mostly because the honest answer is "it depends." It depends on the moment, on what I need, and on whatever I happen to be doing.
But there's a small handful I won't give up, and those follow me around most of the time.
Before we start, a tiny disclaimer:
1 — I don't use, and don't like, Apple or its ecosystem.
There. The end.
Heh. I used a lot of Apple stuff back in the day, but after a few adventures I just couldn't go back. My last MacBook was in 2023 and it sat inside its box for a whole year before I decided to sell it. It was a gift from my mom.
I mention all that to justify why most of what follows leans toward Linux and Winblows.
The metal
I carry an Avell notebook around for work — the Storm 590x, "Essential" tier, with a lovely 128 GB of RAM. It goes up and down everywhere with me.
I've also got three other desktops and a 2023 Dell XPS 13 that I'm frankly too lazy to write about right now, so I'll focus on the main rig only. Here it is:
HESSE (main)
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Host/Node: hesse
OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro (64-bit)
Manufacturer: ASRock
Motherboard: X870E Taichi Lite
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 9950X — 16 cores / 32 threads
RAM: 192 GB
GPU: RTX 5090
Display: LG UltraWide 49"
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Before you ask what on earth I need that much RAM for — if you saw my system tray and how many processes I leave running without ever closing a single one, you'd get it.
Funny thing is, as great as that machine is, I actually spend more time on the notebook and the Dell. Those two are my main instances. The Dell has its humble 32 GB and runs Kubuntu, fully (and I mean fully) customized to my needs. It's where I do most of the actual work.
Software I won't shut up about
Among the things I put on the Dell and genuinely love: Ghostty and good old vim. And lately — I have to mention it — I'm learning Emacs and Org mode.
Emacs is currently a hybrid creature living across both my Windows and Linux. Still on Linux, Thunderbird and Ghostwriter are non-negotiable, as is Pandoc (also hybrid between Linux and Windows), and so is Termius. That last one — Termius — is absolutely indispensable to me. I even use it on my phone.
Halloy is another piece of gold I share between Windows and Linux. I only started using it recently, together with soju, and it's already proven irreplaceable.
For code, I use the classic vim already mentioned plus Visual Studio Code — another one I share with Windows. (VS Code, to be precise.)
Now, about Windows...
And why Windows? Because of one cursed name: Adobe.
I've been a hobbyist photographer for 17 years and managed to build up a "small" archive of more than 120k photos over that time. I've tried other solutions, Apple's included, and none of them served me better than Adobe's — which only run on Windows. Chief among them: Adobe Lightroom.
The Windows indispensables are:
And that's it. Heh. Quite the list, right? Man, I love Notepad++. I do everything with it — it's my right arm. I load it up with add-ons and it gets even more powerful.
The phone
On mobile, I use a Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra.
And I'll keep adding to this list as time goes on.