Firefox
In the last year, I moved my personal stuff away from Gmail and Google Calendar (see Fastmail below) so it felt fitting to try a life without Chrome as well. Firefox is not as fast as Chrome, but it more than does everything I need it to. Plus, it helps with stopping the google monopoly of the web.
Joplin
I used to use Notion, but didn’t use the advanced features like the inbuilt database tools enough to justify the cost. Joplin is a free (open source) markdown note taking application that I am using to write this post. It can sync via a variety of backends; I use the S3 backend with backblaze but it also supports Dropbox, Onedrive, Webdav and just using a file system.
It’s great. I can’t recommend it enough, and I am really looking forward to seeing what the new plugin interface allows people to create.
Backblaze
Complete PC backup + S3 compatible storage service for an affordable price.
I use the S3 compatible bucket storage for rclone on my servers, as well as a bucket for Joplin notes. This costs me about $0.40 a month, the PC backup is US$6/month and worth it for the peace of mind.
Rambox CE
Container for web apps - saves having a ton of tabs open in my browser. I use it for my email, kanban boards, my gaming dashboards (grafana), whatsapp web, and my home temperature monitoring dashboard.
Exist
‘life tracking’ / ‘qualitative self’ - This lets me collate all the data I generate: time gaming, time sleeping, productivity, tasks completed, sunrise and sunset among loads of other stuff and produces interesting and useful reports about the correlations between these.
Kanboard
Self Hosted Trello. Nothing else to say, if you use Kanban boards and don’t want to use a service like Trello, you can’t go far wrong with Kanboard. Simple and easy to host, lightweight, and mobile friendly as well.
Pi Hole
Block all the ads! I will be sad when DNS over HTTPS takes over, and this method of ad blocking is rendered useless. For now though, it is 100% the best way to protect your network from ads and other forms of malware.
Spotify
Apple music still doesn’t really support Last.fm therefore I will continue to use Spotify for the foreseeable future. Maybe one day this will change.
Fastmail
Not cheap, but reliable. If you want to move your email away from Google, save 10% and use my link. I find the web interface simpler and faster than Gmail and the app is nicer too.
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