Eryn Wells

Things I Use

Tech

Hardware

Apple M2 MacBook Air from 2022
24 GB of RAM, 2 TB of disk space. I love this computer. It takes the crown from my previous favorite: an 11" MacBook Air from 2012, a machine I still have and refuse to give away. It’s fast, powerful, and light, with a great display and peripherals.
Apple Studio Display
I was on the fence about a Cinema Display for a long time. I ordered and canceled three times. Ultimately I gave in, and I’m quite happy with it. It’s mounted on a VESA arm attached to my desktop.

Software

Development

Neovim
I’ve been a vim user since the early ’00s when I discovered Linux. Nowadays, if I’m writing a lot of code, it’s often in my second favorite editor, but I still find myself in vim quite often. I recently set up Neovim’s language server support and it’s honstly a game changer.
Visual Studio Code
I discovered VSCode a couple years ago. Honestly the number one thing that makes it usable for me is a really solid Vim emulation. It has a ton of nice features too that make it a great well-rounded development package.
Xcode
I spend a large portion of my engineering time in Xcode because of my work at Apple, and the basic fact that I’m a software developer who chooses Apple platforms. It has come a long way in the last few years. It also has a solid Vim emulation, and its autocomplete features are indispensible when you’re working with an API surface as vast as Apple’s.
Fork
A GUI client for git. I think Fork has totally changed how I use git. I still use the command line for many things, but working through diffs, staging changes, and even rebasing is so much easier in a GUI.

Terminal

Terminal.app
macOS’s built in terminal emulator is solid. The only thing I miss from it now and then is “true color” support, and that’s only when I try to install a new color theme in Neovim and everything goes haywire.
Zsh
I’ve been using Zsh since before it was cool. My shell config is full of bespoke tweaks, including a prompt theme I’m rather proud of.

Hosting

Digital Ocean
DO has hosted my VPS for a number of years. I moved there from Linode because I wanted to run FreeBSD on my server.
FreeBSD
My server OS of choice. It’s secure, simple, and resilient, and I appreciate the less-encumbered BSD license.
FastMail
I’ve used FastMail for years now as my email host. Their annual fees are quite modest and they have a great feature set including a Sieve email filter editor, and Masked Email for genearating ad hoc email addresses. I’ve never had a problem with uptime, and the few times I’ve contacted support, they’ve been helpful.
Hugo
This whole website is built with Hugo.

Mobile

Doppler
File-based music player.
Ivory
My Mastodon client of choice for macOS and iOS.
Overcast
My podcast player of choice.
Reeder
RSS feed organizer and reader. I’m doing a lot more RSS these days.
Transit
Helps me stay on top of bus schedules in San Francisco.

Music

Logic Pro
Apple’s DAW is full of features and plugins (far more than I could ever use) and it’s hard to beat the corporate discount, much as I also love Ableton.
Shure SM7B
The SM7 is an iconic mic, and has been the go-to for voice actors, podcasters, and musicians for 50 years. The excellent podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz did a great deep dive episode on its history and place in the audio industry. I have one on my desk at home, and it makes me sound great on work video calls, and the occasional audio recording.
Moog Matriarch
I’m a bit of a Moog fangirl, and this might be my favorite of their synths. It’s just hard to beat the sound of a Moog.
Kawaii CA-65
I’ve been playing piano since I was seven years old. A digital piano is perfect for the small apartments I’ve called home. This one has a fantastic realistic action and it sounds great.

Coffee

Baratza Encore
It’s affordable and does a pretty good job.
Kalita Wave
The Kalita is probably the easist single serve pour over dripper I’ve used.
Chemex
If I’m making coffee for more than just me, the Chemex is the biggest pour over vessel I have. Makes yummy coffee too.

Gaming

Nintendo Switch
Most of my gaming happens here. I play a lot of Mario Kart online with friends, and I’m a big fan of both of the major Legend of Zelda titles that have come out for it: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
PlayStation 5
I also have a PS5. I’ve played a ton of Horizon: Zero Dawn and the new Final Fantasy 7 games.
Analogue Pocket
When I want to play my stock of Game Boy games, this thing is great.