Shayon Pal
Shayon Pal
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What Do I Use?

Here’s a quick snapshot of the tech I use, almost every day. I am not sure if anyone would be interested to know about it, but I often like checking out videos and blog posts of other awesome folks on the Internet, sharing their tools of choice. Many a time, I’ve picked up ideas for office set up or new exciting software because of these shares.

For more details on this concept, check out awesome-uses by Wes Bos. If, like me, you also fancy checking out other people’s tools and gears, uses.tech might interest you.

Hardware

Disclaimer: I am a heavy user of Apple products. Primarily because I find them quite effective. And yes, walled gardens do exist 🙂

  • My primary device is the 2019 MacBookPro 16-inch. The configuration is:
    • 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7
    • 16 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
    • AMD Radeon Pro 5300M 4 GB
    • 512GB SSD
  • When not on my computer I am almost always on a 2017 iPad Pro 12.9-inch, with LTE. I also use the Smart Keyboard folio with that. I am not much into drawing, but I love using the  Pencil to take notes on Notability.
  • On rare occasions, I also end up using the early 2016 12″ MacBook.
  • My mobile phone of choice is the iPhone 11 Pro 256GB.
  • I am a fan of the 2nd gen Airpods for most audio needs. For times when I’d prefer to immerse in movies or when I’m flying, I prefer using the Bose SoundLink Wireless Around-Ear Headphones II. Yes, it doesn’t have noise cancellation. However, I haven’t really found enough impetus to upgrade these yet. These are 5 years old now and still run like a champ.

Applications

Productivity

  • Have to mention Notion. Heck, this page itself is built on Notion and is being served on my domain using a bit of Cloudflare hackery. I used to be an Evernote subscriber for over 7 years. But then, I got tired of their slobbery and decided to switch over to Notion a little while back. I love the extensibility of the tool.
  • I use Fantastical to manage my calendar entries. Recently, I’ve also started exploring a new tool called Woven.
  • All my life’s to-do lists (and also checklists) are managed using Things 3.
  • All my writing – ranging from product specs to technology articles – happen in Ulysses. Mostly because I am a big Markdown fan.
  • I also use Drafts as my catch-all tool for all random ideas I might want to capture. I do so by using various automations set up via Siri Shortcuts, IFTTT, and Alfred.
  • I used to design prototypes in Balsamiq. For the past couple of years, it’s been Adobe Xd.

Utilities

  • Every time I set up a new computer (macOS), these are the software I install before anything else:
    • Alfred – I had discovered this app back in 2015, and it’s been a trusted tool since then. It’s not just a great replacement of the operating systems default Spotlight Search bar, but also allows me to do amazing stuff like convert currencies, generate lorem ipsum text blocks, search for an emoji, shorten a long URL into a bit.lylink on the fly.
    • BetterTouchTool – I am an automation nut. Even though I am not a professional developer, I love to code as a hobby. And BetterTouchTool is the best tool to help one achieve that. If you haven’t tried it yet, you must!
    • iStat Menus – I usually remove most of the stock menu bar widgets and replace them with iStat versions. It also helps me monitor my computer’s network usage, weather conditions, and a customized view of the calendar.
    • Bartender – It’s an excellent tool to hide away all the useless icons macOS decides to crowd the menu bar with, along with the various other applications one ends up installing on the system.
  • 1Password is my password manager of choice. It works beautifully on all the platforms I use.
  • Rectangle gives me the customizable keystrokes for moving my windows around on my desktop.

Communication

  • I am a big fan of asynchronous messaging. Naturally, my most preferred communication tool of choice is E-mails. Yes, I’m traditional that way. My e-mail app of choice is Newton Mail.
  • For work-related instant messaging, I mostly use Slack. On the personal front, I am reachable at iMessage, WhatsApp (popular in India), and Telegram.
  • Not much of a Facebook user even though I still have an account there. I’m much more active on Twitter and Instagram.

Project Management

  • When it comes to project management, I’m yet to find a tool that can beat Atlassian’s JIRA. Yes, it’s considered monolithic and uncool, but it’s highly efficient in managing huge teams and workload.
  • For managing the product lifecycle and roadmaps, I swear by Aha!
  • Sometimes, when working on passion projects with friends, I end up going for BaseCamp, or simply Google SpreadSheets 🙂

Analytics

  • TablePlus is a GUI-based multi-purpose database management tool. I often use it to query databases and crunch numbers for product analytics.
  • Firebase is my analytics platform of choice for both website and mobile apps’ traffic.
  • I am a big fan of Localytics to understand various engagement and marketing metrics for the products I manage.
This page was last updated 7 months ago