List of tools and software I enjoy
I have a strong preference for tools that are open, secure and respect privacy. I don't like being the product when "consuming" software. Naturally I use a lot more services, tools and software but here are some I would like to recommend.
In general I would advise everyone to have: Password manager, end-to-end encrypted (by default) chat app, (a paid plan) privacy focused email provider for an email-domain you own (or self-hosted is ideal, but a high bar), a VPN (your own, like tailscale with exit node, or a trusted third-party provider), a good at home and off-site encrypted backup solution, full disk encryption on all devices, a privacy respecting browser with the appropriate plugins for blocking trackers (e.g. LibreWolf or Brave). Lastly: your own personal website!
Hosting services at home, on your own off-site servers or even on a VPS is easy and rewarding. If you are able: donate money or time to software products you use, make it worthwhile to fight for the users.
For work I have primarily has been using Go the past few years and I am very happy with the small and simple language.
I spent many years writing in Scala before that and have also used Python quite a bit. I enjoy both of these languages as well.
Besides this I have tinkered and worked in a lot of languages from time to time (JavaScript, Java, C, Haskell, PHP etc.)
Available on Email, Signal, Matrix, Nostr and Urbit.
Audiobookshelf (self-hosted audiobook and podcast library), Urbit (self-hosted personal server), Borg (encrypted backup software), Newsboat (terminal RSS reader).
I split my time between working on MacOS and various Linux environments so this will be a mixed bag.
For MacOS: Yabai/Aerospace (tiling window managers, been using Yabai for a time but trying out Aerospace right now), skhd, brew.
For Linux: Hyprland, archlinux.
For both: tmux, neovim, ghostty.
Affinity Publisher, Procreate, pen and paper.
Pilot Vanishing Point (Fountain Pen), Midori Traveler's Notebook.