The laptop is something of a splurge. I am wanting to leverage it to learn some AI and the extra processing power will allow me the headroom to run some AI development tools. I also like to run some VMs to keep up to date with basic technology implementation and automation in non Apple products.
My basic tools of choice are part of Microsoft Office. I have apple’s office products loaded but rarely use them. For image editing I have been a long time fan of Adobe’s suite, but am thinking of working with some lower cost alternatives.
Some of the other tools I use on a regular basis are:
BBEdit - A Mac based text editor by Bare Bones. I used its predecessor TextWrangler for a number of years as an alternative to Notepad++. Notepad++ was my early goto when I was a PC user twenty years ago and I needed an alternative when I switched. This fits the bill nicely and has a variety of features I have grown to love.
CleanMyMac X - I’ve been leveraging Clean My Mac by MacPaw since version 2 I think. The tool does a great job at cleaning up the computer. I found it when I was on another machine and had too many VMs established and needed to keep the drive as clean as I could or they would crash. The software’s monitoring activities are silent in the background but it easily notifies me when there is an opportunity to tune my performance.
Disk Daisy - My introduction to visual disk mapping tools on the Mac. I used a free application to track and find large files and clusters of files on Windows for a long time that leveraged a visual representation. The Windows tool, SpaceMonger, has gone commercial and hasn’t kept up with the times. Disk Daily was the first tool I found that did the same on the Mac. I’ve run across other tools that do something similar, but this pie chart looking layout is great.
Divvy - When I was using four computer screens I started having issues managing some of the layout of my workflow. I started using Divvy to control layout since I always ran at the highest resolution. When I switched to 4K monitors the problem was worse and Divvy kept up nicely. When I need a complex layout for monitoring, reading, and especially development Divvy handles all my layout needs. I utilize Magnet as well. It offers some quick layout options that can be executed without opening a gadget to make adjustments,
Parallels Desktop - I used to be a diehard VMware tools fan but it has felt for a while that VMware was abandoning Apple products with the release of Apple Silicon. Parallels has always had undying support and was a product designed from the beginning with a commitment to cross platform users.
I’m working on getting back into some of my hobbies and a new work adventure so I think I will end up adopting some new tools and workflows in the near future.