Uses List

Inspired by Tom MacWright’s “Uses” list and the Uses This interview series, here’s mine. Links provided are to the manufacturer’s page, where appropriate. None of the links are affiliate links.

  • Computer: I switch between a desktop Mac Studio M3 Ultra and my MacBook Pro M3. The Mac Studio is the beefier of the two, because it’s connected to multiple storage arrays and hard-wired by 10 Gbps Ethernet to a NAS. The MacBook Pro is just a wonderful little device when I don’t want to work at my home office desk.
  • Desk monitors, keyboard, and mouse: In 2017, I bought 2 Dell P2715Q monitors. They were, at the time, the smallest 4K monitors, and my old 2013 “trashcan” Mac Pro powered them beautifully. They still work amazingly well, and I have no desire to replace them. The keyboard is a Keychron V6-D1 and my mouse is a Logitech Lift.
  • Speakers and audio: I always have music running when I’m working at my desk. My Mac Studio’s connected to a TEAC AI-503 digital audio converter and amplifier combo, with two Micca MB42x speakers doing the honors.
  • Storage and Server Capacity: I have a Dell PowerEdge R740xd 2U rackmount server with about 25 TB of storage, but plenty of computing performance for a number of server and homelab tasks. The server runs Windows Server 2016 and a few Hyper-V containers. My Mac Studio has a Thunderbolt 2 hard drive array plugged into the Mac Studio (using a TB2-to-TB3 converter). The TB2 hard drive array works well, so why replace that?
  • Fancy studio stuff: I have a RØDE RØDECaster Duo connected to a Shure SM7B microphone. (The dream is to have the Cole Electroacoustics 4104 lip ribbon mic, for no reason other than.) For lighting, I have an Amaran COB 60x LED monolight as a key light, an Amaran P60x LED panel as a back light, and odds-and-ends to connect them together.
  • Coding: Visual Studio Code with GitHub. I don’t have a lot of extra herbs and spices with VS Code other than the things I need to support whatever projects I’m working on.
  • Photography: Canon EOS R7 mirrorless camera with assorted lenses. Adobe Lightroom Classic for digital asset management, and Adobe Photoshop for more involved photo editing.
  • Pens and notebooks. I’m a big user of fountain pens. My daily pens are a couple of TWSBI 580s, and my go-to black ink is Noodler’s Ink Heart of Darkness. My standard loose-leaf paper is the HP 32 lb. paper.
  • 3D printing and CAD modeling: I have a Bambu Lab P1s, purchased before the Bambu Labs firmware issues. I create models on Shapr3D and export them as STL files for the Bambu Labs slicer app. The Bambu printer’s on a separate VLAN with appropriate firewall and network precautions made.
  • Other software: Obsidian for notes and the CMS for this website. iTerm 2, usually running PowerShell Core. Microsoft 365, both home and for enterprise. Microsoft Edge. LM Studio for running local copies of LLMs. Claude AI for more intense tasks. AnyList for tracking shopping needs. The iOS Reminders app for task management.
  • This site: This site is generated by Jekyll using GitHub Actions, and the static HTML pages are on Cloudflare Pages.

(Last updated June 2025)