Computing Technology I Use

I strive to avoid lock-in to a particular technology, product, or company. I tend to select technology that have well designed, standards based interfaces. Likewise, I tend to select applications which run on the most common platforms. Ideally this would include native support of iOS, Android, OSX, Windows, and provide a web interface. Supporting a native Linux application is a bonus. I like my content to be local-first, and encrypted so cloud operators don’t have access.

I have always encourage my team to select the best technology for the problem they need to solve, even if it means going with a product / company they loved to hate, e.g. I have no patience for “religion”. In the 1990s, the discussion was often about Microsoft products which were typically terrible in “production”, but often the best choice for “corporate” computing.

Apple

In the last couple of years I have changed my strategy at bit. I still insist using technology that provides a way to export my content into rich, standards based formats, but I am ok if the applications only run in the Apple eco-system which I now inhabit. OSX and iOS have less security vulnerabilities than Windows and Android while providing higher quality applications than is typically found on Linux or ChromeOS. I appreciate that Apple implements end-to-end encryption which helps keep my data secure while making sharing easy (AirDrop, iMessage, Photos, Notes, Files, etc). Apple supports hardware longer than most other manufacturers which reduces the frequency that I need to upgrade my devices. The downside of Apple is a closed eco-system and products tend to be more expensive. I am sad that Apple, like most manufacturers, no longer make small phones or ultralight laptops. The Apple products I am currently using:

MacBook 12″ from 2017 (2023) This is the last ultra portable made by Apple. It’s 2lb, decent keyboard, and enables me to complete daily tasks with a minimum amount of friction. Can’t run the current version of OSX but security patches are still available.
Apple iPhone 16 Pro (2024) Too big, but can’t find a usable small phone :(. Camera on the 16 pro is quite good, appreciate the action and camera button, and the satellite messaging might be useful. On T-Mobile (2022) which has good international coverage but mediocre coverage in USA compared to Verizon. Purchased the 16Pro when my iPhone 12 mini’s battery couldn’t last more than a few hours.
Apple AirPod Pros (2021/2023) are nicely integrated with the Apple eco-system and just works. Noise reduction is “ok”, and the “ambient mode” provides situational awareness. The case is part of the “Find My” eco-system. Downside is battery can’t be swapped when it no longer holds a charge. I have written about other headphones.
MacBook Pro 14-inch (2006/2022) When I am at home this is the device I use. When I am traveling it is left running in a safe location and I access it remotely via Tailscale. Holds the family’s archives: pictures, videos, ripped CDs, digitized books, and documents. I select a configuration with enough storage for 2x my current usage (4tb at the time of purchase) and the maximum memory available which has allowed me to use the same MacBook Pro for >5 years before I feel the need to upgrade.

Supporting Technology

“Tech Kit” items are stored in a small litesmith zipza pouch (2023) which is the perfect size, mostly waterproof, light, and a different texture than anything else in my bag so easy to find by touch.

Nomad 65w Slim Charger (2024) hangs down rather than out so doesn’t lever itself out of loose outlets and packs well. 65W to one slot, 45W/20W when using both. Replaced an Anker 523 which is powering devices in our home.
Nitecore 10000 Gen2 (2023) power bank with USB-A out C in/out. Lightest and most compact 10k battery I have found. Comfortable in my pocket while charging my phone. Can slowly charge my MacBook or mostly power the MacBook while charging my iPhone. Supports pass through charging so I can charge this battery while my MacBook is plugged into. Has a bug that when you hold the “low power” button too long it puts the battery in standby mode which is only ended when you plug it in to be charged which is fixed in Gen3. Spreadsheet of many power bank options.
Cables: A 6ft USB-C cable, 2 6″ USB-C cables
Adaptor tips from USB-C to (A, micro, Lighting, Garmin), and 2 USB-C to A converter.
Mogics Adapter MA1 (2023) is the smallest and lightest universal power adaptor I have found. For type E remember to unscrew and extended the type C prongs. Some trouble in UK outlets due to round pins: sparking until I got it set properly.
Tempo Logging Thermometer (2022) which lets me keep track of the conditions I experience.
Etymotic HF3 (2013/2023) Great sound isolation. Provides me with around 40db of noise reduction which is better than any consumer grade active noise cancelling headphones I have tried. Carried with FiiO KA11 (2024) USB-C DAC and airplane double jack adaptors. Second foam eartips for when current pair stops sealing.

Laptops

When I am creating written content I like using devices with >12″ screens and an attached keyboard I can touch type on which works when it’s sitting on my lap. I want an operating system which lets me quickly switch between overlapping windows / applications, and supports easy copying of information between applications. This means that I want to use a traditional laptop.

Since I am often on the move, I would like this device to be as small and light as possible while providing me adequate keyboard and display. For me, a perfect laptop is <2lb, with a 13-14″ display, running the current version of OSX. There are no devices that meet all these specifications. Hardware that comes the closest:

Apple MacBook 12″ from 2017. When configured with 16gb of RAM provides adequate performance for most of my tasks, though launching new applications can require a bit of patience. OSX 13 still gets security patches, but can’t run current OSX. What I am using most of the time because I am still living a semi-nomadic life.
Current MacBook Air 13″, weights 2.7lb. When my MacBook 12″ no longer gets the job done I will purchase one and cry about how heavy it is 🙁
Fujitsu Lifebook UH-X: Just 1.4lbs, good performance, nice selection of ports. Almost impossible to find outside of Japan, and somewhat difficult to find in Japan.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano: Good all around and more easily found that the Lifebook UH-X. Gen 2 could be configured with 32GB of RAM and motherboard is well supported by Linux making it superior to Gen3
Asus Expertbook B9: Performance and battery life substandard to Lifebook and X1, but a decent option.

None the modern laptops can be turned into a hackintosh because their CPUs are more modern than the last IntelMac made by Apple. The only way to use OSX on one of these x86 based laptops would be to run a host operating system (Windows, Linux, BSD, etc), and execute OSX in a virtual machines. This would mean maintaining two operating systems, paying the overhead of a virtual machine, and dealing with the inevitable hassles of using OSX in an environment it was not designed for. It used to be that you couldn’t log into your Apple account / access CloudKit and other iCloud resources from OSX running in a VM, but I have read that as of OSX 15 Sequoia it is possible to access some of Apple’s cloud resources.

I spin up AWS instances time to time when I need more computing power.

Chromebooks

The OS is easier to maintain and more secure than most other options. Chromebooks boot quickly and are very responsive considering the hardware they are running on. For people who live in Google Apps, using a Chromebook can be good alternative to using a traditional laptop. Most modern Chromebooks are able to run Android applications which provides access to applications which aren’t native on ChromeOS. I used a Google Pixelbook as my primary personal device for awhile until Google stopped providing OS updates. It was a shame that Google dropped support, the hardware was still very responsive, and had better specs that many of the Chromebooks in production at that time.

Low end Chromebooks are cheaper and more functional than budget priced traditional laptops which is one of the reasons they have become popular at schools that send devices home with their students. I appreciate that Google has committed to continue to support releases of ChromeOS for 10 years on hardware produced after 2021. Unfortunately, there are no ultra portable Chromebooks. The lightest Chromebooks are actually tablets with removable keyboards. When factoring in the weight of the keyboard these Chromebooks weight more (and are less ergonomic) than some of the laptops listed above.

ChromeOS Flex is one way to make an out of date laptop usable.

TinyPCs / PalmTops / Subnotebooks

In 1989 I lusted after the tiny Poqet PC. In 2001 picked one of it’s successors, the Toshiba Libretto. It was a tiny PC which fit in the palm of my hand. While the concept of a full powered computer which could fit into my pocket was electrifying… the reality was disappointing. The keyboard and screen were just too small for me to be productive, Years later I tried one of the TinyPC made by GDP. My theory was that I could carry it everywhere and dock it with full size keyboard and screen when at home and work. After a few weeks I gave up on this. I found that it was just too painful to use when away from the docking station. I frequently would use my smartphone rather than pulling out my TinyPC. When I determined I needed to use the TinyPC I would often wait until I got to the docking station. I determined it was better to carry a normal laptop when their was a reasonable chance I might need to do “real world”, and make do with my phone (which had an SSH client) in the case of an emergency.

Tablets

I have tried using tablets on and off since 2010… well actually 1993 when I was working at PARC next to the people inventing ubiquitous computing. I have found them wonderful for creating art, consuming information, the iPad also makes a nice portable monitor for MacBooks, but terrible for creating written content… even when using a good Bluetooth keyboard such as the Magic Keyboard. There is too much friction integrating information from several windows and often the app experience on the iPad fell short when compared to the experience on a real laptop. Over the years I have purchased three iPads and a couple of other tablets. While each was useful for a particular task, I have yet to find it a compelling device for general use.

Smart Phones

Like most people I find a smart phone invaluable. I use a phone to capture information, to quickly look up information, and to communicate with other people. My ideal phone would have a battery which would support 24 hours of my normal use without recharging, support the applications I use, and have a 4″ diagonal screen which would allow me to hold the phone in one hand and touch the entire screen with my thumb. An initiative to build a small Android phone seems to have stalled out. Unihertz does make the tiny Jelly phone. I tried the first model and was disappointed. It was missing some of the frequency bands used by Verizon, it was rather thick / chunky, and the screen was a bit too small to be useful.

The perfect phone for me would be an iPhone that was the size of the original iPhone that had a modern CPU, good camera, and a battery which would last for 2 days of light use. Alas, Apple canceled the iPhone mini, and even if they kept it, it was too big. When holding it securely in one hand I couldn’t reach the whole screen with my thumb. In 2024 I switched to an iPhone 16 Pro. The phone is way too big, but so are just about all the phones people use today. I do love the .5-5x camera, the separate camera button, and am hopeful that satellite based messaging will be useful when I am outside normal coverage areas. My biggest complaint (besides size) is that I find the voice support almost useless (Android seems better). First, accuracy seems poor. Second, Apple restricts what can be done via voice when the phone is locked.

There are many people who do most of their “computational tasks” on phones. This has helped drive the adoption of larger screens and the growing popularity of folding phones. As I noted above, when I want to do real work, I much rather use a laptop. A number of the applications I use have excellent web interfaces when using a real computer than render badly on mobile browsers and the native iOS apps are often missing functionality.

I briefly tried some of the “simple” / “low distraction” phones including the original light phone and the Punkt phones but gave up because they didn’t support all the frequency brands used by Verizon in the USA. I might have considered changing carriers, but all the long term reviews I read indicated that people ultimately switched by to a main light phone because the minimalist applications were inadequate for their real (rather than imagined) lives. The those reviewers there were apps I just wasn’t prepared to give up. At the time, my killer app was Evernote which functioned as my second brain.

What makes smart phones deeply useful is the connectivity provided by carriers. In this season of life where I have no idea what country I will be in month to month I am using T-Mobile. They are the best deal if you want a US phone number and will be doing a lot of international travel. I get 5gb of data when outside the US, free texting, and reasonable price phone calls. If I turn of “cell” and make calls via WiFi, my calls to the US are free. There are two downsides. First, coverage is not nearly as good Verizon in the US. Second, they seem to partner the the second best carrier in many markets. For people not using T-Mobile, Airalo makes it easy to acquire an eSIM for wireless data while traveling internationally.

Digital Recording Device

I have found a small digital recording device can be an excellent way to make a quick “notes” to myself when I on the go and to record important meetings. Originally I used a small recorder from Olympus.

I picked up a Plaud AI Recorder through Kickstarter and have used it a bit for on the go notes and recording meetings and presentations. I have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the microphone and it’s useful summaries. The form factor for their NotePin and a similar product from Senstone would likely be even better. Another possibility is the CarbonVoice App on an iWatch. The nice thing about all these is that they have both the voice recording and a full transcript which is organized by a machine learning system. Most of the time, the transcription is perfectly good. When it’s not, you can listen to the audio.

I have tried a number of apps on the phone but have been dissatisfied. The microphone on the phones I have tried was not good at picking up distant voices in meetings. The second issue is that the iPhone doesn’t permit apps to access the microphone when the phone is locked. While a good security feature, it kills my memo on the go use case. I can’t say “Siri Take a Memo” when I have AirPods in and the phone is in my pocket, locked. I can have Siri trigger launching an app stuffing text from a prompt to an app like ToDoist, but the transcript is wrong more often than right.

A product / feature I am hoping for I first saw around 2016 on kickstarter? It was a wrist device which have a 2? minute continuous recording loop running. A button press dumped the buffer to storage. The idea was wonderful. Someone says something profound. We don’t want to forgot it, but when someone says “That’s brilliant. Say it again so I can get that down”. and the response is often “I don’t know. What did I say?”. Unfortunately the product’s execution was poor. The device was much better at picking up background noise, rustling from shirts cuffs, etc than recording meaningful content.

Software

Google Apps: Currently verber.com is a Google Apps business account. Originally it was set up as a free domain allowing me to shutdown much of the computing infrastructure in my home. At some point I had to upgrade to a business account. I am not using many of the features, and quite frankly it feels overpriced. Furthermore I don’t trust Google not to be evil. I am primarily using gmail for my email which works reasonably well and they do a good job of protecting me from unwanted spam. On OSX I use web apps. I use Google Calendar, Google Maps, and Gmail iOS applications. When working with others I will use docs, sheets, and slides because they have powerful collaborative features. I sometimes use drive when I have files I need to share out. At some point I will point my MX records to some other mail provider and cancel my gApps business account. Making this sort of change would have been easy years ago. These days, the combination of aggressive spam in the largest male providers functioning like a Cabal make it more challenging. I am not prepared to put all the effort required to make that transition right now.

Apple Files: Data is end-2-end encrypted so Apple does not have access to my content. Permits me to share files (or folders) with others as needed. All the meta data lives on all devices. The actual contents are always present in the Cloud. Content is pulled down to a device on demand. It’s possible to explicitly clear the local copy, force a download, and pin the content to always be retained on the device. Historically I used sync.com. I selected sync.com because it was one of the early systems that provided end-2-end encryption and works on OSX, iOS, Android, Windows, (but not Linux). As an early adopted I have 7GB of free data. I moved away from it because 7GB isn’t enough data for all my needs, the people I wanted to share data with didn’t want to install sync.com, and currently I am just using Apple devices. I also have access to 1GB of “free” storage via Microsoft’s OneDrive. I place non sensitive, bulk data here since they don’t support end-2-end encryption.

Bear: is a beautiful note taking application with a clean, intuitive user interface. I find markdown lets me quickly create nice looking notes. I am paying for the premium version which enables syncing between aApple devices using iCloud. This allows me to have all my context (editable) even when I am offline. Bear’s sync is built on top of Apple’s CloudKit so the data is well protected with end-2-end encryption. Hierarchal tags lets me organizing my content. It has a fairly powerful search (though it can be a bit slow). It’s easy to crosslink notes. Biggest downside is that I can’t share my notes with others. When I need something to be shared with others I either put it on my website, share it out with Google Apps, or place it in an Apple Note. I leave a stub behind in Bear with a pointer to where the shared document lives. Bear has excellent import and export features which allows me to painlessly migrate from Evernote, and should enable me to switch to some other system if I decide to leave the Bear ecosystem. This was important because I had thousands of notes I had created since 2009 in Evernote. I decided Evernote was hopeless bloated and buggy and it was time to move to a new system. I tried switching to OneNote but was frustrated by its organizational features, its poor support of important/export, and it lacked encryption. Bear is my principal knowledge management system. I am really stretching it for this task. At some point I will likely investigate Obsidian and Anytype. I took a quick look at Logseq (complex and lacked polish), Craft (didn’t have fully functional version I could try for free) and Joplin (feel short of the user experience of Bear without obvious benefits). While powerful, the lack of offline supports removes Notion and Roam from my consideration.

Messaging: I mostly use iMessage/Facetime when communicating with friends and family. It just works… if others are using Apple products :). I use other apps based of what apps my friends are using. WhatsApp is the second most common system… seems to dominate the EU, Signal for my tech/security buddies, LINE for people in TW/Japan, and Telegraph for a couple of friends who are in Eastern Europe/Middle East. I generally don’t use Facebook Messenger.

Todoist: A list keeping app which had just the right balance between simplicity and powerful features. I am using the free version, I can get along without the added features which required a subscription. I switch from Asana when I was no longer collaborating with my team on task lists.

1Password: Insecure and reused passwords at the biggest risk for account security. Using a second factor eliminates something like 98% of account breaches. 1Password provides a safe place to store all my credential. It generates secure passwords and integrates well with all the software I use. It supports Google Authenticator one-time passwords and even notifies me when an account I am using doesn’t have a OTP set. I believe 1Password corporate culture and engineering practices makes it the most secure system for storing this sort of information. I have watch system other systems such as LastPass have security issues which did not give me confidence that my secrets would be safe. I originally moved into 1Password because I trusted their security and they supported all the platforms I was using. It’s possible I could switch to using Apple’s built-in system, but the cost is small enough I haven’t been willing to investigate making a change.

Lightroom/Apple Photo: Most of my pictures are taken with the Camera app on my iPhone which automatically feeds into Apple’s Photo app. I don’t like the user interface / organizational features of Apple’s Photo app. I use Lightroom on my iPhone to automatically ingest my pictures into Lightroom. I run Lightroom Classic on my MacBook Pro which holds all my photographs. Once they are downloaded to my MacBook Pro and backed up, I delete new photos in the cloud version of Lightroom. I use features in Lightroom Classic to collect particularly treasured pictures into albums which I replicate into Lightroom Classic. I would like to migrate to Lightroom Cloud, but it still lacks some organizational features I want. Both Lightroom and Lightroom Classic’s auto face-tagging is substandard.

Chat-GPT: Look up specific information, learning new material, assistance problem solving. Also playing with Claude.

Google (and Apple) Translate: Using everyday. To read menus, labels, and documents when in non English speaking locations and when looking at websites that don’t have English. Google Translate on the iPhone 16pro doesn’t switch to macro mode when you are close to the writing who I desire to translate, Apple’s Translate application supports macro mode.

Apple Podcasts: I don’t love the UI, but appreciate that it works well with Siri, the support of transcription, syncs across all my devices. Furthermore, the Apple Podcast app is used by all the people I regularly share recommendations with so it’s easy to send them links / recommendations. Originally I used Pocket Casts which supported multiple platforms and has an excellent UI.

Kindle: I have over 1000 books which were purchased in Kindle form. I find the Kindle app generally works well, though e-reading results is poorer retention of information. I like that my reading location is synced between devices which allows me to switch between devices. I make heavy use of highlighting and notes. My biggest gripe with Kindle is they are using DRM for the books. I know people who have lost their whole collection of books when they were incorrectly flagged as violating Amazon’s Terms of Service. To protect against this I periodically copy all my purchased content off the Kindle and use a DRM cracker to unlock and recode all my content into ePub which I archive. Also use hoopla and libby for library books.

Spotify: They have a massive catalog of music, support offline caching of music, stream directly to smart devices, and most of my friends use so it’s easy to share playlists. The downsides are that I don’t like the UI and they still don’t support lossless audio. When I care about sound quality I use Apple Music to play tracks I RIPPED from CDs I purchased. At one time I was using Tidal, but the system driving my speakers at home was buggy. If Apple Music supported direct streaming to the smart devices I use I would likely switch to it.

Logos Bible: Arguably the best app for serious Biblical study. The combination of analytical tools and rich (but expensive) resource library makes it unmatched for detailed study. Besides the price, the other downside is that the iOS version requires Internet connectivity for many of its more advanced functions. Years ago, when I was downsizing my book collection, I re-purchased many of my Biblical references which saved significant space, allowed me to use them wherever I had a computing device, and made it much faster / easier to lookup information. Before I purchased Logos Bible I used Olive Tree Bible Reader which provide a simple and clear UI smart phones. e-Sword is arguably the best freeware Bible tool.

Passapartout: VPN tool which makes it e as y yo set up OpenVPN and Wireshark connections on all Apple devices, enabling geoshift while traveling (eg looking like I am in the US while traveling outside the country). For some reason using the free OpenVPN would break access to the network after I started and then stopped a VPN connection requiring a reboot… this doesn’t happen with Passapartout.

Quicken Simplify: Track finances. Don’t love it, but haven’t found anything I like better. I miss the early days of Mint… before innovation stopped.