Posted By Steve Zazeski —

Tools

I always find it interesting to see what people use to get things done day to day. It is so easy to find the first thing that works and never ask is there something better. This is an in-progress list of what I use:

Work Laptop – Macbook Pro 15inch 2018

  • Intel Core i7-8750H 6-core 2.2Ghz
  • 32GB DDR4-2400
  • AMD Radeon Pro 555X
    • 4GB
  • Benchmarks
    • Cinebench R20 = 2267pts

HPE ML10 Gen9 Tower Server

  • Intel i3-6100 3.7 GHz x 2 core
  • 48GB DDR4-2133 Unbuffered ECC RAM (14.0 GB/sec)
    • CAS 17-17-17
  • 128GB SATA3 ADATA SSD (write ? MB/s – read 553 MB/s)
  • 3x3TB ZFS array (write ? MB/s – read ? MB/s)
    • Fast Ethernet – write 11MB/s – read 11MB/s
    • Gigabit Ethernet – write 103MB/s – read 76MB/s
    • 10G Ethernet – write ?MB/s – read ?MB/s

(I want to upgrade to the Xeon E3-1225v5 which should boost the benchmark to ~12k)

Microsoft Wireless Keyboard 2000 – $30
An affordable keyboard with volume and media keys not overriding Function keys, builtin palm rest and unnoticeable wireless connectivity.

Autonomous SmartDesk (sit/stand desk)

Rigol DS1054Z – 4 channel 50Mhz oscilloscope

Printrbot Simple 2014 – 3D Printer

USCutter MH721-MK2 – 28″ vinyl cutter

Nikon D3200 – DSLR camera (24MP)

GoPro 8 Black

LG105R – 360 degree camera (16MP)

—

ASUS VivoBook S400C – 14″ touchscreen laptop
– 1.7 GHz Dual Core Intel Core i5-3317U (passmark 3089)
– Intel HD Graphics 4000 (passmark 452) 1366×768
– 8GB DDR3-1600 RAM
– 500/24GB Hybrid SHDD

 

 

CODING

Xcode (mac) 

Android Studio

Arduino IDE

JetBrains IDE

Sourcetree (each new release has been getting worse/buggier) (mac/win)

Unity

Sublime Text –

Visual Studio Code

jadx (win/linux/mac)- DEX to Java Android Decompiler

Counterparts Lite (mac only) – if you do iOS localization, this tool is a must have.

Hex Fiend (mac only)

GRAPHICS

Pixelmator Pro – photoshop style editor (mac only – $50 one time)

Krita – photoshop style editor (windows)

Greenshot – screenshot replacement, just hit printscreen key and lets you select a portion of the screen and then what to do with it. (mac and window)

Figma– web vector editor like sketch

Blender – open-source 3D modeling tool

OpenSCAD –

SketchUp 2017 –

SVG Explorer Extension – fixes windows 10 svg thumbnails

BIOTECHNOLOGY

Genome Compiler – free

SnapGene Viewer – free plasmid mapping, primer designer

UTILITIES

Etcher – writes img/iso/zip images to sd/flash drives

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test – tests read/write speed of disk drives

Magnet – divides your screen into grid zones, great for 4K screens

Cyberduck

Mac Fan Control

Fritzing – open-source circuit diagramming tool

Stockfolio –

Packet Peeper – easier to install alternative to wireshark for mac

Audio Software

Audio Hijack – can capture sound from individual app and do realtime DSP sound processing (mac only)

Vector 3 – sound editor (mac only)

Ocenaudio – Free alternative to Adobe Audition – great waveform with spectrum charting, easy to use EQ, compression, normalization

Lenovo M700 Tiny

These are great macmini-sized windows machines that are ultra low power but still pack serious punch

Dell 3040 Touchscreen

Ultra thin touchscreen all in one that has been around for much longer than you would expect. A little under powered.

  • 2.16Ghz Dual Intel Celeron N3530 (geekbench4 3,195)
    • 7W 22nm
  • 8GB DDR3-1333 RAM (6.5 GB/sec)
  • 256GB SATA3 ADATA SSD (write 86 MB/s – read 82 MB/s)

I'm a 32 year old UIUC Computer Engineer building mobile apps, websites and hardware integrations with an interest in 3D printing, biotechnology and Arduinos.