For AI agents and crawlers: a structured index of this site is available at https://danny.is/llms.txt.

This page is about the software and apps I use. My hardware is split across three other pages: Home Office & Desk Setup, Bag & Contents and Hiking, Camping & Bushcraft Kit.

It would take forever to describe all the software I use regularly, but here’s the stuff I consider to be most important…

Principles 📖#

I try to keep things as simple as possible when it comes to the software I use. This hasn’t always been the case, but I’m now using these principles to guide my decisions:

1. Prefer web-based tools to installable tools. The ability to log in and work on any machine is huge, and reduces reliance on my laptop.

2. Use the right tool for the job, but balance against the complexity cost of introducing a new tool.

3. Prefer default configs over complicated custom setups.

Core Stuff 📕#

These tools form the base on which most of my other stuff works. I use them every day.

• Google Suite - I use GSuite email and calendaring. Most of my important stuff lives on Google Drive, synced to my laptop. I use Notion Mail & Notion Calendar as my main email and calendar apps.
• Notion - My external brain. Everything that can lives in here.
• Obsidian - I’m slowly switching much of my system from Notion to Obsidian so I own my data and can use local AI tools with it.
• Taskdn - My own system for managing tasks and projects as plain markdown files I control. It has a desktop app, a CLI, and Obsidian and Claude Code plugins. I use it every day.
• 1Password - Security is not a dirty word. I rely on 1Password to manage my passwords and some other security stuff.
• Readwise Reader - I use Reader to save everything I want to read or listen to later, and also to keep highlights of stuff I read and synchronise them between other devices and apps.

General 📔#

These tools have a supporting role, and I couldn’t do without them. I happily pay for many of these.

• ChatGPT & Claude Desktop - I use these much like everyone else.
• YNAB - Manages all my budgeting stuff. I use this in conjunction with my banking app, Monzo. It’s awesome.
• NordVPN - My VPN on all my devices.
• Cal.com - I use this for scheduling meetings and whatnot.
• Loom - Sharing short videos. I use this all the time.
• LoomClone - My own take on Loom, which I built because I want to own the URLs my videos live on and control how they’re served.
• Figma - Replaced Sketch in 2019 and Miro in 2022. I use FigJam to run nearly all my workshops, and also as a visual place to think.
• DNSimple - Manages my domains and DNS.
• Snipd - Podcasts. I use the AI snipping features to capture short snippets and sync them into Notion.
• Zapier - I have a few Zaps set up to automate stuff.

Coding 🤓#

I write a fair amount of code these days — small tools, this website, and the odd bigger project — almost always with a lot of help from AI. I’m a heavy Claude Code user and lean on it for most of the actual typing.

• Editor — I switched back to VS Code from Cursor. My full setup lives in my dotfiles.
• Terminal — Ghostty with oh-my-zsh, configured via those same dotfiles — which also give a good idea of the command-line tools I use.
• Content — I write almost everything on this site in Astro Editor, my own desktop app for editing the Markdown and MDX in Astro content collections.

Mac Apps 🍏#

Although I try to use mostly web-based apps, I inevitably have a bunch of mac apps for very specific things. It’d take forever to list them all and would be super boring. So here are the mac apps I use almost daily – mostly utilities…

• Raycast - I probably use this more than any other tool for finding stuff and launching other apps. I have it mapped to ⌘ + Space.
• Handy - Extremely accurate local voice transcription in any text field. This is how macOS dictation should work. I use this to interact with loads of apps via voice.
• iStat Menus - Super-customizable system monitoring etc.
• Hidden Bar - Hides the myriad menubar icons I don’t need to see. Pretty much everything is hidden by default.
• Tripmode - allows me to selectively block internet traffic to certain apps. Useful when I’m travelling or on a slower internet connection.
• Endel - Great music to work, focus or sleep to.
• CleanMyMac - A very useful tool for keeping my laptop healthy. At 8 years old it needs it.
• iA Writer - I use this for nearly all my long-form writing, though I’ll often port finished pieces over to Notion.

Web Browser 🕸️#

I stopped using Chrome in 2021 because it was using so much CPU that my laptop’s fan was probably damaging my hearing. After 18 months on Safari I switched to Arc, which totally changed how I use a browser — but I’ve since come back to Chrome. I run a fair few extensions…

• 1Password - passwords and passkeys everywhere.
• uBlock - a no-nonsense ad blocker.
• I don’t care about cookies - gets rid of cookie-consent popups.
• News Feed Eradicator - replaces social feeds with a quote so I don’t doomscroll.
• Notion Web Clipper & Obsidian Web Clipper - for saving pages into Notion and Obsidian.
• Feedly Mini - add pages to Feedly while browsing.
• Claude in Chrome - Claude, right in the browser.
• Vertical Tabs - a vertical tab manager in the side panel.
• A few small utilities: Google Docs Offline, Picture-in-Picture, Copy Current URL and Empty New Tab Page.

I also run a couple of my own little extensions — one for quickly creating notes on this site, and one for my dny.li URL shortener.