Here are nine cool pieces of software I like to use!
Soulver
Soulver is a combination of a calculator and a notebook. It’s like Jupyter Notebook but the cells are math expressions instead of Python and are run automatically on changes (along with dependencies). It’s like a spreadsheet but with a bunch of lines in sequence, and with comments.
Logseq
I use Logseq to manage my personal memex where I track all my notes. It has a lot of cool features like being able to see a graph of your page network, and is pretty straightforward to use. It also has a flashcards feature which I haven’t actually used but seems pretty cool.
Thunderbird
I use Thunderbird to manage all my email inboxes from my main computer. It’s nice being able to manage all my mailboxes from different providers in one place, with a consistent interface for all of them. Plus it’s pretty efficient for quickly handling a lot of email.
tmux
tmux is command-line software that lets you create virtual terminals you can attach and detach from, so you can run programs forever without needing to keep the terminal open. tmux is great for running servers and other long-running processes in the background without needing to keep your SSH session open forever. I used to use GNU screen, but tmux is more powerful and a bit easier to use.
Todoist
This is the app I use for tracking all of my to-dos. It doesn’t implement any elaborate tracking system or anything, but it does just work. (I’ve been meaning to try Things as a replacement task tracking app, but it doesn’t have an Android app. I could probably make do with managing all my tasks from my laptop though?)
Draw.io/diagrams.net
Draw.io is a great visual diagram creation tool. I use it whenever I need to quickly make a flow chart or diagram to illustrate something.
iA Writer
This is a really great markdown writing app. I just started using this yesterday to author blog posts, and I’ve found it better than all the web app text editors (Google Docs, HackMD, Hedgedoc, StackEdit) I’ve tried during Inkhaven. It has a very clean interface and is easy to figure out and use.
ProjectionLab
ProjectionLab is a web app I use to make projections for my personal finance. I can define my future income and spending patterns, and it makes projections of my future asset growth and net worth based on historical data. It’s super useful for things like figuring out the optimal stock/bond allocation and working out which if my plans are financially prudent. It’s also been getting more support for Canada-specific stuff (e.g. built-in support for CPP/OAS) recently.
Flighty
I use Flighty to track all the flights I take, and to get real-time updates for them while I’m at the airport. It has the best flight data among the flight tracking services I’ve tried. It also has a bunch of cool graphs and statistics about your flight history.
