Mike Fallows

Uses (2024)

A rundown of my setup and the current apps that I use in 2024. (2023 version).

Changes #

Every year I use Adobe less and less. I kept having issues with Spotlight and Alfred, where try as I might to disable the Spotlight shortcut it wouldn’t stay dead – so now I just use Spotlight even though it’s not as good.

Hardware #

My main work machine is a 2020 Mac Mini with an M1 chip which I use with a 5K LG display. Last year I finally replaced my old Intel MacBook Pro with a 15" M2 MacBook Air I can use away from the desk. The Mini’s M1 chip is still going strong and the Air is plenty quick enough and both run silent. I use Mackup and a dotfiles repo to keep my dev setup in sync between the two machines.

My main phone is a Pixel (a 5 at time of writing). I have some wireless AKG N Series headphones for work (very comfortable, but can fall off I’m agreeing too enthusiastically on a call), and Sennheiser CX300s for out and about.

Editor #

I use VS Code exclusively. The ability to customise it is extremely valuable to me because I work across a range of languages, and I got huge value from Caleb Porzio’s Make VS Code Awesome package. That gives me a really elegant setup with very few changes required. Sadly, my VS Code setup is not quite as pretty since an update broke Monkey Patch and Customize UI 😢.

I use the Fira Code font with custom ligatures set.

Terminal #

I tend to use VS Code’s integrated terminal most often, but for tasks not related to a specific project I use iTerm 2 with the Z Shell and Oh My Zsh with the Sorin theme. I use Fira Code here too.

Git #

Most of my project’s code is hosted on GitHub and I use the GitHub Desktop app for most tasks as it’s still much quicker and less error-prone for me to switch between projects and make commits with a visual GUI than on the command line.

Web #

I register domains with GoDaddy as they still seem to cover the most TLDs and I like the ability to access a client’s domains via my own account. The UI is a bit slow, but I haven’t had a serious issue with them yet. I tend to update the nameservers to use Cloudflare as I prefer to manage DNS records there.

For managed hosting I recommend 34SP, but I tend to host on Digital Ocean with servers managed by Forge. That provides me with a nice balance between being able to customise servers without having to leave my comfort zone.

For static sites I go with Cloudflare Pages, but I still have a few on Netlify (including this site).

Misc #