Adding to the wonderful thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42079768
Wonder what kind of software do you use that has proven to improve your life for the better. Any price range counts.
I'll go first:
- Bitwarden - password manager ($10+ bucks a year and free for basic use) - pretty much a no-brainer
- Google photos - my iCloud gets full so I sync and cleanup my storage by pushing all my photos to store and maintain (approx. $30 a year)
- Apple One (music, arcade, icloud, tv) - shared with my wife, we are not bit on TV but having all of this in one plan is a great value ($25/month)
- Alpha progression - my go to generated workout app, flexible, easy and has all the customization for various equipment. The founders are nice and also giving out free trials and extension ($100/year)
- Macrofactor - my calorie counter with evaluations on my diet plans. This is MyFitness pal on steroids that actually doesn't care about your burn, but takes in facts about your weight and adjusts macros with various goals. Allows for your own recipes etc. I am down -14kg this year before my wedding thanks to this app ($6/month)
- The way - go to for meditation. Most apps are kind of bloated and not clear where to start, where to progress. This app gives you one trail to follow which is straightforward from one of the Zen masters - Henry Shukman (still on free tier, but $100/year thereafter I believe)
- Cursor - I am still a newbie and learning so this has been obviously a great helper in a toolkit. Last night I learned about securing webhooks from Stripe thanks to this tool's suggestion. ($20/month)
- Raycast - love this command bar with various utility functionality. I use it mostly for quick access to my 2FAs, finder, tailwind docs etc. There is a PRO tier with AI addition to get access to all popular models within a really nice interface. I recently went back to ChatGPT due to some extra interface features (search).
- Obsidian - for notes, scribbles, learning and storing articles in MD. (Catalyst supporter $50 one-off)
- ChatGPT - goes without saying
My general gripe is that there are many products offering access to models with a specific feature set. I've been oscillating between ChatGPT and Raycast PRO + AI but find the generic access to just API is not really enough these days. I can just go ahead and talk to Cursor about non-coding stuff as well (provided the limitation is query limits).
EDIT: Formatting
I keep computer use simple, in service to my two top hobbies.
For photography, Preview.app does nearly all my everyday chores. I use GIMP for anything more complex. I get such great results from Nikon jpegs that I haven't needed to do raw processing yet.
GIMP lets me adjust light along a curve, something that the old xv program did. It's really useful.
For music, I use ForScore. After countless years, I still haven't figured out all the gestures and such, but it does the job and almost all my music is either off copyright or scanned from my printed copies. The space and weight saving is enormous.
Others that have made minor improvements include a couple of image resizers (they change names), Clearview for epubs (Why Apple doesn't handle these natively and sends them all to the cloud/ibooks [1] astounds me.) Calibre helps with book conversion. And I rarely use others by comparison, besides the usual builtins.
[1] Anything "in the cloud" belongs to someone else. Disks are basically free. A Shugart 8" floppy cost $350 in 1984.
1password (I like its UI better than Bitwarden; integrated cloud 2fa and passkey support is awesome, since it can be synced across devices).
Microsoft Todo, a simple cross platform todo list app that is synced to the cloud and easily shared with family. We use it for grocery lists, packing lists, etc. Nice and free.
For hiking, AllTrails and Gaia. For mountain biking, Trailforks and MTB Project. For road biking, RideWithGPS.
For gaming, GeForce Now. This has totally replaced gaming PCs for me (way easier and cheaper).
Small utility apps for Mac: Lunar for brightness adjustments even on desktop monitors, Rectangle for better window management.
Google Photos works really well, been using that for decades. Maps too, especially with offline maps.
For vegetarian food while traveling, HappyCow.
For typing on a phone, Microsoft SwiftKey.
YNAB (You Need a Budget) - The only reason I know where every dollar is (without the cognitive overhead that suggests) is because of this tool
keybr.com - Retrained myself to type on an ortholinear ergo keyboard after 20+ years of bad habits and pecking at membrane keyboards. Went from frequent wrist pains and breaks needed, to being able to type for hours on end. I still take breaks, but not because of hand pain anymore. I used keybr.com to help retrain my typing skills in a few weeks
Rectangle - even though the latest macOS has window snapping, it did not for many, many years. I like how configurable this window snapper is, with hotkeys and customizable window sizes. Easily worth the $4 one-time charge
——
Also - to each their own, but if you’re paying to meditate, you’re doing it wrong
Proton mail suite:
- The mail is great, no ads etc. - I create email aliases for every site I visit, so I can kill spam by killing the alias. - Proton Pass is my password manager and alias creator/manager, better than bitwarden. - Plus 500Gb storage and Calendar.
Chrome web store dev subscription:
- Allows me to create browser extensions - Can make money from them
Wikipedia
- I usually donate - Good source of reading material/history
Claude/GitHub Copilot
- Fun for code
Apple Notes
- note taking - ideas etc
Black Screen (https://blackscreen1.com). It saved me from fatigue of sitting too much by forcing me to make periodic breaks. Before using Black Screen, I felt extremely low after a day of computer work.
- Reading on mobile: ReadEra, Document Viewer (by SufficientlySecure, no longer maintained)
- Music: Windows Media Player, Spotify
- File Management: Syncthing, TreeSize
- Code: Vscode, Github Desktop
Notion for storing an unlimited amount of notes across devices, entirely for free.
Bitwarden - same as notion, but for passwords.
Google Photos - same, for photos.
Google sheets. Having a lightweight place to think is pretty cool. Useful for planning and keeping track of all sorts of things.
- Syncthing - UltraVNC as host on windows, bVNC as client on android - Moonlight + Sunshine - p2p.mirotalk.com
Checkout Dime on App store, its a great personal finance management app! Super sleak UX
Obsidian for taking notes.
Obsidian is a markdown text editor and it is quite fun to take notes now.
Recently, rediscovering online radio services (radio.garden)
uBlock Origin
I created an app for myself to track anything about my life and test life interventions hypotheses like diet changes and supplements. It’s been a wonderful journey and I’ve learned a lot about myself thanks to it. It’s called Reflect - Track Anything.
(https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reflect-track-anything/id64638...)