Software I Use
Voice
Voice has become a big part of my workflow.
In late 2023 I first wrote a python script with Whipser + MLX to do better on-device dictation, and even bought SpeakeasyMac.com in case I wanted to productize it. I didn’t, and am now a happy paying customer of two products.
WisprFlow
Mac app for dictation. Hotkeys, keeps a record of transcriptions, pastes in easily to whereever you’re working. Does well with removing umm and ahhs and light editing for coherence. Simple, well executed.
Voicenotes
iOS app I use while on the go. I like to walk and think, which is now often walk and ramble to the voicenotes app. I don’t use much of the search functionality though it seems to do it well when I do. Like WisprFlow it does a good job of light editing.
In app
I also use the dictation features in mobile apps like Claude and OpenAI. This is quickly becoming table stakes for modern mobile apps.
Development
IDEs
Cursor
Cursor has been my go-to lately, but largely because we were getting it subsidized at Gauntlet. They are shipping fast, largely following Windsurf UI paradigms, and as a VSCode fork very familiar. The cursor rules is in theory very useful, but in practice I find the LLMs don’t care reliably enough about the rules for me to rely on them.
Windsurf
As mentioned above Windsurf seems a half step ahead of Cursor on UI, and I suspect they are a full step or more ahead on custom models. To the degree there is a winner, I expect them to win because of Codium’s large headstart in inference instructure and enterprise sales.
Cline + VSCode
This is actually my favorite in terms of UI, but as a “bring your own key” solution they are currently losing on price to the VC-subsidized IDEs mentioned above. I like their plan/act mode switcher and the context + cost displays.
Context Managers
Large context windows mean I’m often packaging up bits of code or whole repos into a single text file to send to Gemini or similar. Here’s what I use for that.
Repomix
CLI tool that will turn your codebase into a .txt file, with some optional settings for output types, ignoring files etc.
Repoprompt
Mac app that does the same, with other niceties. I was using the beta while it was free because the filetree browser was a much nicer way to selectively pull in files or directories from larger codebases. I still haven’t ponied up for the paid version now that it’s out of beta, but probably should.
Gitingest
If I want to look into something but not pull down the codebase, use gitingest to do it online. Replace github.com/org/repo with gitingest.com/org/repo and you’ll get a prompt ready output.
Other Dev Tools
Dash
Documentation browser that’s simple, fast, and effective. Integrates with Alfred (below).
Ghostty
My current terminal app. Seems fine, I kinda float around new terminal apps when they come out but never find myself caring that much one way or another.
ZSH + Spaceship Prompt
I use ZSH for my shell and Spaceship Prompt for some niceties.
General
Most of these apps I settled on many years ago. It wouldn’t surprise me to find there are newer, better versions of all of them, but they work well enough for me.
Alfred
Alfred has been my everything app for years. I don’t know what category it even falls in because it does so much. It handles app switching, system search, clipboard management, text expansion, basic calculator, unit and currency conversions, music and more. If you aren’t using something in this category you are probably missing out.
Simplenote
Simple and fast note taking app. I use the iOS and Mac apps though they probably have web as well. Not much to say - it’s fast and reliable.
Fantastical
Calendar UI of choice, Mac and iOS are both well designed and easy to use.
Divvy
Window manager for Mac. Have a few shortscuts set up for different window arrangements, or pull up their little UI with a grid overlay to quickly do more customer arrangements.
NetNewsWire
In this house we believe RSS never died. I was using Reeder and Feedbin for a long time, and they served me well. I recently switched to NetNewsWire with iCloud sync for a free alternative.
Soulver
Soulver is a very neat little calculator app. It’s hard to describe but they say “Notepad, meet calculator”, which basically covers it. Better to go see it yourself if that sounds interesting.