Chris Wiegman

What I Use

What I Use

As a human, we all have tools we use on a daily basis. I enjoy reading what others use as it is an insight into how they live and work, with lessons both obvious and subtle. As such, I’ve written some version of my “uses” pages since 2012 in order to record tools I’ve found valuable and some that have outlived their usefulness.

With our modern attention spans under constant attack, this archive also serves me as a reminder that constantly changing tools, no matter what productivity or other gains they promise, is rarely worth it.

For 10 years before building this page, I wrote annual posts documenting my tools. While there are a few that have lasted, changes in tech, work and home mean that most of my toolbox has changed drastically over the years. Below is a list of those original posts.

2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012

My Use Case

What do I use this all for? I tend to think my use case is as important as the tools themselves. For instance, I wouldn’t recommend my tools to someone starting out as a developer or to someone who is only writing code for themselves. How we use our tools defines, or at least should define, the tools we use so here are my own use cases.

  • Software Engineering Manager -  My day job requires me to communicate with my teams and organization for mentoring, guidance, strategy and day-to-day operations.
  • Software Engineer – I love building software and have been doing so, both personally and professionally, for as long as I can remember. As time has passed my tooling has changed considerably and the tools listed below are those I use to build and maintain the projects I am currently working on.
  • Blogger/Writer – I love writing on this site and dream of spending a lot of time both on content and the site itself. This role encompasses creating content and writing code to share solutions to problems I’ve encountered in hopes that they’ll be as helpful to others as they were to me.

Hardware

My Office

I work from home where my office has an Uplift Commercial V2 30″x 60″ desk with a bamboo top. I love having a sit/stand desk and transition between the two regularly during the day. I have an Uplift Intuition Ergonomic Chair to go with it. On my desk is a Meross LED Desk Lamp for writing and an Anker Charging Station for keeping my iPad and other devices running.

Computers

This is, I confess, overkill for my needs, though I love it. It sits on an AVLT Dual monitor arm (white) which it shares with an Apple Studio Display. I use the Apple Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad which, though I’ve tried dozens of alternatives, are still the best peripherals I’ve found.

This is my work machine and does everything I need it to do. I swap to a Nuphy Air96v2 keyboard and a Logitech MX Vertical mouse while I’m working as they allow me to swap between my work and personal devices.

My iPad serves a niche role these days. It lives under my monitor and serves as access anything personal I need during my work day. This lets me keep total separation of anything personal and work. It’s my music player, messenger, web browser for anything not directly related to my job, etc.

It has a Nomad Goods Leather Folio and, thanks to the Apple Magic Keyboard, serves as a good travel computer when I need it. I have an Apple Pencil Pro for it but I don’t use it much.

When I’m away from home my phone gets me what I need in its black Apple TechWoven case.

Finally, my Apple Watch is always with me. I use it primarily for health tracking, as my wallet and for general notifications of anything really important. I have a number of bands for it of various types that I rotate through.

Networking and Peripherals

We live in a small but well-built condo which means I haven’t found a single WiFi router that can reach all of it. As a result we have 2 Eero Pro 7 routers connected to an Arris SURFboard SB8200. My building is old enough that it doesn’t have fiber so I’m stuck with broadband provided by Xfinity.

We watch TV using Apple TV 4Ks which serve as HomeKit hubs for a large collection of Phillips Hue and Govee lights and a couple SwitchBot Hub 2 thermometers. We also have an August Smart Lock which means Joy can leave for her morning run without having to take bulky keys or her phone. We have two TVs, a 32” Visio I bought in 2011 that now lives in our bedroom (and rarely gets turned on) and a 55” TCL in our living room. The living room TV is a smart TV but it uses the Apple TV and doesn’t directly connect to the web.

Living in an older condo means the heat is central to the whole building and we don’t have a thermostat to control it ourselves. Buying the thermometers helps us feel more comfortable as we know the temperature (even if we can’t do anything about it). As for the lights, they carry over from our previous home and are one of our favorite “smart” upgrades with numerous automations designed around how we prefer to live.

We have a Brother HL-L2350DW laser printer. I’ve never had to configure it and it really does “just work” from every device we have.

I have a number of  Yubikey 5C NFCs which I no longer use for daily tasks but they do a wonderful job at securing my most important accounts.

Finally, we have a collection of about a dozen Apple AirTags which we put in every bag and on important things such as our keys. They come in handy every time I’m walking away from the house and realize I forgot something.

Meetings, Presenting and Recording

For meetings I use my Apple Studio Display’s microphone and camera combined with headphones that differ depending on what device I’m using. The Studio Display is the best camera I’ve owned. With it I’ve finally gotten rid of all the external cameras I’ve tried over the years.

When I do need a nicer mic I have a Shure SM7B Microphone which sits on a Samson MBA48 microphone boom arm and plugs into a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (4th Generation). With the Studio Display camera it is the best setup I’ve had.

When I’m presenting in person I use a Logitech Spotlight presentation remote which does a fine job.

Entertainment and Other Gadgets

My all-time favorite devices are Amazon Kindles and I currently have a Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition. I started using Kindle for travel as I can go through 5 or more books on a 1-week trip and it makes doing so much easier. I always have a book with me which I take full advantage of, whether on the bus, a plane or to pass the time.

While I mentioned our Apple TVs, I rarely watch TV. Instead, I have either music or podcasts playing constantly. I use Powerbeats Fit or Powerbeats Pro 2 headphones which, unlike AirPods, stay in my ears. I prefer the Fit but the Pros come in handy as they clip over my ears when I need a more secure fit. In practice this means I use the Pros for workouts and the Fits for everything else. For work meetings I use Beats Fit Pro which I bought so I don’t have to play Bluetooth games. I’ve recently added a pair of Sennheiser HD 599 SE as I’m often in more than 30 hours of meetings per week and using earbuds that much has started getting painful. These Sennheisers are perfect in that they’re comfortable and don’t have a battery themselves. I just plug them in like it’s 2005 and they work great!

For when I don’t need headphones we have a collection of various Sonos models at home with at least one speaker in each room.

Neither of us are big gamers but we did buy a Nintendo Switch right before COVID and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed a number of games on it. It’s the most practical gaming console we’ve ever had. We also have a PlayStation 5 so Joy could play her favorite Ratchet and Clank games again. It’s fun but we don’t use it as much as the Switch.

Software

A screenshot of Spotlight with the first screen of the software installed on my personal Mac

Daily Tools

I live in the command-line where I use the default Apple Terminal with tmux to manage sessions and multiple panes. You can find my specific configuration in my dotfiles.

My software is managed with Homebrew and the Mac App Store. If I can use the Mac App Store for a given app, I do, otherwise every app I have is installed with Homebrew. It makes standardizing my installs much easier and means I can set up a new machine in about an hour.

I use VS Code connected to GitHub for my code. It uses my own Kana Dark theme which I also use in the Terminal and all apps that support them.

Safari is my favorite browser and it is the only browser I have on my personal devices. I find it to be the best browsing experience of any browser I’ve tried. I switch my search engine to DuckDuckGo and use Wipr 2 as my ad-blocker.

Finally, this site is built with Hugo and hosted on Cloudflare Workers. Cloudflare is the registrar for all my domains.

Personal Software

Nearly all my personal data is in Apple iCloud using an Apple One Premier plan that I share with my family. It handles our calendar, documents (Pages, Numbers, Keynote), email (even for our custom domains), Music, Notes, Podcasts, Reminders, Maps and darn near everything else. I even have their credit and savings accounts as they’re better deals than our other options. I’m very dependent on Apple but, for now, it’s the best option for us.

We use Banktivity to keep track of our spending and finances. It’s the only app I’ve found that actually works well on all my devices while still allowing me to actually manage transactions.

For communications, my family loves iMessage and it works for me. Where I can I use Signal. I don’t have much need for video calls these days so FaceTime can handle the very few I actually do.

I optimize my laptops with Mole which does a great job of keeping them cleaned up.

I follow sites I care about with Unread and I focus my social media use on Mastodon using Ivory but I also have accounts on LinkedIn, BlueSky and GoodReads.

Finally, we use US Mobile (affiliate link) for our mobiles. It gives us each lines on multiple networks, international service and Apple Watch service for less than 1/3 of what we had been paying with major carriers. We secure our connections with Proton VPN when we do go on WiFi we don’t control (usually just hotels when we’re traveling).

As for my mobile devices, they mirror of my laptop, as much as possible. There are a few differences on my iPad where I write in IA Writer and use Working Copy for code and Git.

Work Software

We use Slack, Google Workspace, Jira, Notion and 1Password for nearly all our data.

As on my own devices, I use Safari, Apple Mail, Calendar, Notes and Reminders to access everything I can.

The company uses Fellow and Google Meet to record meetings, and Claude for various tasks where it makes sense.

For connecting to it all we use Tailscale.

While I try to stick with Homebrew and the Mac App Store for app management, the company uses Iru to force install a number of apps such as Chrome which I try to avoid opening.

Analog Tools

My favorite bag is my Rothco Classic Canvas Messenger Bag. I prefer messenger bags or briefcases and also use a Waterfield Muzetto Leather Bag when I need something that looks a little nicer. For when I need more space I swap to a Timbuk2 Authority Laptop Backpack.

I still write with pen and paper at times and use LEUCHTTURM1917 Classic Notebooks with Lamy Al-Star pens using Lamy inks or Zebra Sarasa Grand pens when I need a ballpoint.

I carry a black iPhone FineWoven wallet. It’s all I need and helps make sure I don’t lose my wallet (the Find My feature has come in handy a few times).

The majority of our travel is weekend trips to either my Dad’s or Joy’s sister’s house and my Thule Subterra 2 backpack is perfect for it.

This page was last updated on 24 July, 2026.