Our hardware and software setup

Something I thought would be fun to talk about is the hardware and software that Elaine and I use on a daily basis to do our work.

This list will likely change over time and we aren’t passing judgement by either saying something is the best if we’re using it, or something we aren’t using isn’t good.

The list doesn’t include things we use specifically for certain clients, for example some clients like to chat on Zoom, but that isn’t part of our day-to-day workflow.

Hardware

Here are the physical things we use to do our job:

• we both use Mid-2014 MacBook Pros, with 2.8 GHz i5 processors, 8 GB DDR3 memory, and 13-inch retina displays. (can’t wait for new Macbooks hopefully dropping at the end of the year)
• we both use 25-inch Dell Ultrasharp U2518D Monitor as our main monitors
• we both use 21.5-inch BenQ as second/third monitors
• we both use WASD V2 87 key keyboards
• Elaine uses a generic mouse, which I can’t find names or links for, moving on
• Toby uses an Apple Magic Trackpad 2
• we both sit on IKEA Flintan office chairs
• we both sit at IKEA Bekant desks
• we both use Bose QuietComfort 35 noise cancelling headphones
• we both have iPhone Xs for calls/photos/stuff on the go

Software

Here are the non-physical things we use to do our job:

• Elaine uses VS Code as her text editor of choice
• Toby uses TextMate as his text editor of choice
• we use Slack to communicate
• for email we both use Apple Mail, our company email is with Google
• we do our accountancy using the Crunch web client
• we both use CleanMyMac to keep our machines running smoothly
• we backup with iCloud
• we share files with both iCloud and Google Drive
• Toby uses Omnifocus for his task management
• Toby uses TextExpander to store links and stock replies to things
• we both use Apple Music for listening to tunes whilst we work

Changes since the 2019

Before updating this article in August 2021, Elaine was using Atom as a text editor and I was using RubyMine. We no longer use BackBlaze, using Apple’s iCloud storage instead, which we also use in place of Dropbox.

It is interesting how few things have actually changed in our setup, especially since as part of our quarterly meetings we check in to see if there is anything about our setup we should improve or change.

---