Just in case you’re curious, here’s a description of the various hardware and software I use to work and play.

This is a work in progress, but over time should reflect the entirety of my toolset. My hope is to keep this up-to-date because things change regularly. If there’s something you’d like to know and you don’t see it here ask in the comments at the bottom of the page!

I realize that the following is an absurd menagerie of gear. I consider it my job to keep up on what’s happening in tech. In fact, it’s probably the main reason I started covering tech in the first place: I always wanted to own the latest and greatest stuff.

One small point, I almost always buy all the tools I use. I generally don’t ask for or use review units or loaners. I think it gives me a more realistic idea of what owning this gear is like, and this way I’m not beholden to anyone. Any exceptions are indicated below.

Home Studio

I have a ~400 sq ft office in the attic of our house with several book shelves two huge desks – one for personal stuff and one Corsair Platform 6 Creator Desk for streaming. Attached to the Corsair are three Sony FX-30 cameras, two Elgato Duo Key Lights, a KinoFlo Diva-Lite 41 LED key light. I have two M1 Mac minis and a M3 Max MacBook Pro on the desk for streaming. The cameras are connected to a BlackMagic ATEM Mini Extreme 8-port video switcher. I use the surprisingly excellent RodeCaster Duo mixer for audio mixing. The Aphex effects on the Rode do a great job of noise reduction and processing. During shows I sit on a Herman Miller Embody gaming chair. The microphone is a Heil PR-40, of course.

My home studio setup

When I’m not working, I relax in a comfy armchair I’ve had for years. There’s also a a massive couch and coffee table and a home theater setup. Including a 65" LG OLED TV connected to Denon AVR S910W A/V receiver which feeds it signals from an Nvidia Shield 2, an Xbox One S, and an Apple TV. We don’t have cable TV - everything is over-the-top. I use Elac Debut 2.0 bookshelf speakers here in a 3.1 system.

I have Apple’s AirPods Pro and Max but my preferred headphones to use with this system are the wired HiFiMan HE-560s.

Computers

Sitting on my personal desk in the office are:

  • 2024 Mac mini with M4 Pro, 64GB RAM, and a 2TB internal drive connected to a 4TB OWC Express 4M2 Thunderbolt 3 external drive
  • Alienware Aurora Ryzen Edition R10 gaming desktop from April 2021
    Ryzen 7 5800 X (8-core, 32MB Cache 4.7GHz)
    Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080 10Gb G DDR6X
    128GB Dual Channel DDR4 XMP at 3400MHz
    2TB M.2 SSD
    2 TB SATA drive
    Dark Side of the Moon chassis with High-Performance CPU Liquid Cooling and 1000W Power Supply

I use a Synology 5-bay DiskStation DS1522+ NAS for backup.

Both desktops are connected to a very nice 55" Alienware OLED 120Hz 4K gaming monitor. I switch devices using the remote control that came with the monitor.

Audio goes to a pair of Audioengine 2 wired speakers with an Audioengine S8 subwoofer beneath the desk. I use (and love) a Wooting 80HE keyboard with Hall Effect switches and a Logitech MX Anywhere mouse. The mouse is capable of controlling multiple machines via Bluetooth.

My extremely messy personal desk

When I’m not sitting at my desk, I primarily use one of my more portable devices:

  • 2023 M4 iPad Pro 12.9" with Magic Keyboard. It’s increasingly my go to device, especially great for news gathering with Tapestry and notetaking with Obsidian. I expect iPadOS 26 will make it even better.
  • 2022 M2 MacBook Air 14" with 24 GB RAM and a 2 TB SSD
  • 2024 A17 iPad mini (mostly bedside)
  • 2023 Kobo Libra Colour e-reader

There’s also a 2016 17" System76 Oryx Pro i7/32GB/2.5TB/GTX980 laptop. It weighs about 10 pounds but I don’t have the heart to put it down. It’s running Manjaro Linux Gnome Edition.

All my systems have synced Document, Source Code, and dotfile directories using the excellent and free open-source SyncThing. I use Synology Drive for backup.

After a long journey with multiple PKMS tools (Roam, Logseq, Joplin, org-mode, org-roam, Notion, Scrivener, Zotero, Notability, Apple Notes, etc etc) I have moved everything to Obsidian and I’m very happy. At some point I’ll do a show about Obsidian and how I use it. It’s markdown based, stores all content locally (but with a paid sync feature that works well), supports all my platforms, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux (Windows, too, if you must). It’s not open-source but the content is all fully portable, so that’s ok. There’s also a very active eco-system of more than 2,500 plug-ins which do anything I could possibly want. I’m a fan.

Smartphones

My daily carry is a T-Mobile iPhone 16 Pro Max in a gray Peak Design Every Day case. I also own a Fi-based Google Pixel 9 Pro Android phone to keep up with Android developments. I’m wearing a Apple Watch Ultra which I love.

Cameras

I’ve gone through a lot of cameras. I started in my 20s shooting and processing Tri-X with a beloved Nikon FM film camera. Once digital became a thing I shot with Olympus, then Canon, then Sony bodies. I gave the 5D Mark IV to my son to start his TikTok career (a good investment) and I still use the Sony glass for streaming.

Now at the end of my photography journey I’ve settled on two cameras: the Leica Q2 with a fixed 28mm f1.7 lens, and a Leica M11-P rangefinder with a 50mm f0.95 Noctilux lens.

My beautiful Q2 in a Pelle case

I carry the Leicas in beautiful cases and straps from Angelo Pelle.

A/V

For Zoom calls and audio recording on the Mac mini, I use a Heil PR-40 mic. It’s connected via USB using a SoundDevices MixPre-3. As I do in the studio, I use custom-molded in-ear monitors from JH Audio or AKG K240 headphones.

Internet

I recently upgraded my home network to Ubiquiti gear including the Ubiquiti UDM Pro Max 10 Gbps Cloud Gateway, a Ubiquiti USW-Pro-Max 48-port PoE switch, and four Ubiquiti U6 Enterprise wireless access points connected to Comcast 1400/40 Business Internet. All the various media centers and computer workstations are hardwired with Ubiquiti PoE managed switches. I also have Ubiquiti cameras and a Ring doorbell outside the house, mostly to keep an eye on package deliveries.

Now that we’re streaming from home I have a redundant Internet connection via Starlink. The UDM-Pro-Max fails over automatically within a few seconds should Comcast drop out.

My Ubiquiti rack

AI

I subscribe to most of the big name AI tools: ChatGPT, Anthropic Claude, Google’s Gemini, and my current favorite, Perplexity. Most of my web searching is via Kagi, not Google. And I use Perplexity almost every day for research. For vibe coding I’ve used Claude Code, but I’m a hobbyist coder so I kind of prefer the do-it-yourself route. For creating imagery I find ChatGPT 4o really good, but have a Midjourney subscription, too. For AI music nothing beats Suno.

Transport

When the weather’s nice, I ride around on a Radpower electric bike, the Rad City Step Thru.

I drive a leased 2023 BMW i5 E40 and love it. Lisa has a 2022 electric Mini Cooper. We really like electric vehicles.