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Setup

5 min read

This document outlines the hardware, software, and workflows I use daily.

Devices

Main Machine: Mac Mini (2020)

  • Processor: Apple M1
  • Memory: 16 GB RAM
  • Storage: 512 GB SSD

Laptop: MacBook Air (2015)

  • Processor: 1.6GHz Intel Core i5
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Storage: 128 GB SSD

Old Windows PC

  • OS: Windows 10 Pro (10.0.19045)
  • System: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
  • Processor: Intel64 Family 6 Model 94 Stepping 3 (~2.8 GHz)
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950
  • Memory: 4 GB RAM
  • Storage: 250 GB Samsung SSD 860 EVO + 500 GB WDC HDD

Phone: iPhone 13 Mini

Peripherals

  • Mouse: Razer DeathAdder Essential

Software

Core Tools

  • Browser: Brave Browser (main), Safari (secondary), Dia (tertiary, with cool LLM integration and memory features)
  • IDE: Zed (main), Visual Studio Code (secondary)
  • Org Mode in Zed: I use the Org extension for Zed to manage my notes and tasks in Org Mode.
  • Terminal: Hyper (main, with hyper-rename-tab plugin), iTerm2 with Zsh (secondary), Warp (tertiary), Ghostty (quaternary)
  • Font: I use Nerd Fonts to get glyphs and icons in my terminal. Preferred: JetBrains Mono, Google Sans Code
  • Launcher: Cling (main) — An instant fuzzy-search finder and launcher for macOS. Raycast (secondary). My AI shortcut is always remapped to Cmd+E.
  • Window Manager: AeroSpace for tiling window management.

Note-taking & Writing

  • Primary: Obsidian and Craft for structured notes and writing.
  • Secondary: Bear, Notion, and Drafts for quick capture and ideation.

AI & Productivity

  • AI Assistants: I frequently use GPT-4, Gemini 1.5, and Claude 3 for various tasks.
  • WisprFlow: wisprflow.ai — An AI-powered voice dictation platform designed to convert speech into text across various applications, enabling users to write, edit, and control documents significantly faster than traditional typing.
  • AI Search: Perplexity AI for research.

AI Enhancements

Tools that sit on top of AI workflows and make them meaningfully better.

caveman

why use many token when few token do trick

A Claude Code skill that cuts ~65–75% of output tokens by making the agent respond like a caveman — no filler, no hedging, just the answer. Technical accuracy stays intact.

claude plugin marketplace add JuliusBrussee/caveman && claude plugin install caveman@caveman

Activate with /caveman. Three intensity levels: lite, full, ultra.

autoskills

one command. your entire AI skill stack. installed.

Scans your project, detects your tech stack, and installs the best matching AI agent skills automatically. If Claude Code is targeted, generates a CLAUDE.md summary from the installed skills.

npx autoskills

Content Creation

  • Video Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro, Descript, OBS Studio
  • Design: Penpot, Framer

Accessibility & Voice Control

  • VoiceCPM — Local voice cloner. Runs entirely on-device (M4). Clone a voice from a short audio sample and synthesize speech in that voice without sending data to any cloud service.

  • Talon Voice: talonvoice.com — A voice-based accessibility software that allows users to control their computer using their voice, eye tracking, or other noises. Highly customizable through Python scripts, runs locally, supports multiple platforms.

Development & Automation

  • Containerization: Docker
  • Automation: n8n for workflow automation.
  • Scripting: A personal collection of shell and Python scripts to automate repetitive tasks.
  • Hosting: Netlify and Vercel for deploying web projects.
  • AI Development: Dria for knowledge-centric AI.

Utilities

  • Firewall: LuLu for monitoring network connections.
  • File Transfer: Folx for managing downloads.
  • Torrents: Flux for torrent management.
  • Music Decoy: Plays fake music when your boss is nearby.
  • MagicQuit: Automatically closes applications when you haven’t used them for a specified period. Helps keep macOS desktop cleaner, frees up memory, and enhances battery life.

Workflow & Philosophy

Cross-Device Sync

To maintain a consistent environment across my Macs, I use symbolic links. Key configuration files are stored in iCloud Drive and linked from their expected local directories on each machine.

Personal Operating System

My productivity system is built on plain text markdown files managed in iCloud Drive:

  • A long-term file for yearly goals and todos.
  • A daily journal for capturing tasks, logs, and ideas.
  • A comprehensive, categorized list of all the software and tools I use or find interesting.

Obsidian Plugins

  • Natural Language Dates: Easy date insertion. Date Format: dddd, MMMM D, YYYY
  • Theme: Azure

Kitty Terminal

Theme

Based on the “Borland” theme:

background            #0000a3
foreground            #ffff4d
cursor                #ffa460
selection_background  #a3a3a3
color0                #4e4e4e
color8                #7c7c7c
color1                #ff6b60
color9                #ffb6b0
color2                #a7ff60
color10               #ceffab
color3                #ffffb6
color11               #ffffcb
color4                #96cafd
color12               #b5dcfe
color5                #ff73fd
color13               #ff9cfe
color6                #c6c4fd
color14               #dfdffe
color7                #eeeeee
color15               #ffffff
selection_foreground #0000a3
tab_bar_edge top

Configuration

hide_window_decorations titlebar-only

CLI Tools

  • Zoxide — Smarter cd with fuzzy matching.
  • rg (Ripgrep) — Fast grep replacement.
  • fd — User-friendly find replacement.
  • tmux — Terminal multiplexer with session persistence.
  • gh — GitHub CLI for repos, issues, PRs from the terminal.
  • doppler — Secrets management, injects env vars per environment.
  • pass — Unix password manager using GPG and Git.
  • jq — Parse, filter, and transform JSON in the terminal.
  • stow — Manages dotfiles via symlinks.
  • fzf — Fuzzy finder for interactive terminal search.
  • suckless tools — Minimalist, high-quality software.
  • whatscli — CLI for WhatsApp.
  • Mole — macOS cleanup and disk analyzer.
  • dooit — Interactive terminal-based todo manager.

Nice to Have

  • Mini PC Geekom MiniAir 11 cu procesor Intel Celeron N5095 pana la 2.9 GHz, 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM, Intel UHD Graphics, Dual WiFi, BT, HDMI, Windows 11
  • Old Compaqnx9420 laptop with Debian 11 installed

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