Some of my favourite things around the web
I always appreciate people sharing some of their favourite tools and reading materials as it’s a great way for others to get started or find some new things to make their lives easier. So to pay it forward hears some of my favourite things that have tickled my brain or made life a bit easier as a software engineer / technical writer over the years. Will do my best to keep this updated ober time but always appreciate reaching out via the contact page if you have any new suggestions!
Tools & Technologies
Development
Vs Code
This has been my go-to development environment right now. Extensions are easy to use and install since I work across many languages and projects. By using things like dev containers and works[aces], I can refine how I work with certain projects well and get up and running on a project fast.
Ray Cast
On a Mac platform, Ray Cast has been a nice tool to speed up your day-to-day activities as a developer, like searching for files, opening programs, performing quick calculations, or looking up references. Ray Cast brings these all into the familiar spotlight search, and with Ray Cast extensions, you can interact more with the applications you work with daily.
I'm still waiting for a Windows version to be released.
Productivity
Notion.so
I have been using notion for many years now to plan and execute almost anything. The ability to use building blocks to build whatever layout and workflow I need has been absolutely crucial in organising my life and getting things done when they need to be done. I have been very happy with the features that have been released over time and don’t see that stopping any time soon for notion.
Claude.ai
Incorporating AI into some of my work processes like ideating editing and generating code has been helpful to explore new things faster and get a quick sounding board for ideas before socialising them further. So far I have been pretty happy with
Equipment
Keyboard - Keychron K8J1
I originally backed this keyboard on Kickstarter as I wanted a wireless mechanical keyboard with arrow and function keys without a numpad to make it a bit smaller. I could not have been happier with the K8, and it has done me well through gaming, university, and professional life, allowing me to write 10s of 1000s of words. If I were to upgrade, it would probably be to a later model of the Keychron K8, as my current version cannot use the better management firmware from Keychron.
Mouse - Mx Master 3
This has been my favourite mouse for some years now, with me upgrading through the Mx Master 1 and 2, each time being very happy with the upgrade. This mouse has an amazing battery that can be charged lightning-fast. It has features for productivity but is also just a great day-to-day mouse.
Books and Media
Technology
The Phoenix Project - Gene Kim et al.
A very influential book for me as a young engineer that described so well some of the frustrations I was facing trying to build and release software and large organisations and some of the solutions to them with this new thing to me at the time called DevOps.
I think the way that the story gets information across makes it so engaging and i really wish there was more books in this style of a format that are somewhere in between case study and fiction.
Superintelligence - Nick Bostrom
With AI taking over more and more of our processes and thinking this books has been a good overview of the the whole idea and what the end state is for AI with artificial general intelligence and what that might mean for humanity as a whole. Is this an existential threat or an opportunity to evolve further as a species.
I have not quite decided where I site with a lot of the ideas put forward by this book but its definitely given me some more mental models to understand these problems better as the AI space evolves further.
Work and Getting Things Done
Essentialism - Greg McKeown
This book has been very big for understanding some of the thinking around how to prioritise life when you have so much going on at one time. This book introduces the idea of essentialism and trying to strip down what you need to do to just the essential.
This book and its idea has helped me balance personal life, university and a career all at once for many years whilst still allowing me to achieve everything i have wanted too. So its fair to say its ideas have been quite impactful so far.
Building a Second Brain - Tiago Forte
I am a big organiser of my thoughts and projects and this book by Tiago has been a cornerstone of understanding that you can get control of all the digital noise thats involved in getting things done. By combining the ideas in the second brain with tools like notion i have been able to build some custom workflows and methods for capturing ideas that work for all of my current areas of life that tasks just seem to keep sprinning up.
If someone has already read most of the common productivity advice and books this is a great place to get an understanding of how to implement it.
Fiction
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) - Dennis E. Taylor
Been loving this series of book, somewhere between comedy and sci-fi and a tear jerker all at the right moments. This is one of those sci-fi books thats great background noise while your working away on something else as the narrator explains their though process as a once human consciousness comes to understand its now an AI that is tasked with exploring the universe to save humanity.
The Three-Body Problem - Liu Cixin
I am very glad i decided to read the books before watching the Netflix show. This was me dipping back into sci-fi and i got hooked again hard.
Loved the whole series of books and loved the overall idea it was trying to get across with the existential problems we can face when creeping out of our own little solar system. This book is very well paced to keep you engaged so would recommend it to anyone.
Podcasts
Soft Skills Engineering
It takes more than great code to be a great engineer. Soft Skills Engineering is a weekly advice podcast for software developers.
Software Defined Talk
A weekly dose of all things Enterprise Software and Cloud Computing! Join us as we dive into topics including Kubernetes, DevOps, Serverless, Security and Coding.
