One of the more common questions I get is what hardware and software tools do I use and recommend. Like others, these change over time. Some of these choices may be of use to you.

Last updated: Dec 4th, 2018

Hardware

Laptop – 2011 Macbook pro with 8GB of ram and a 512mb hybrid drive. It may be a few years old but it still does a great job.  The hybrid drive I purchased several years ago gives it an extra speed kick.  I run both OSX and Windows 7 using Basecamp.

Desktop – A home built PC running Windows 7 with 16gb of ram and a several hard drives totaling 3.5 TB of space. Since I use the Mac more and more the desktop is primarily used for gaming and photo editing work. I try and find apps that work for both platforms.

Printers
HP Laserjet P1102w. Good basic monochrome laser printer. It’s wireless and supports Apple print.

Brother MFC 295-cn all-in-one color Deskjet.  For color printing and scanning we use this one. It is network attached so any computer can use it. The scanning software is excellent as you can scan to your computer directly from the printer without going back and forth between computer and scanner. This is also known as unattended scanning.

For onsite backup and media storage, I use a Dlink DNS323 2 bay NAS with 2 Western Digital 2TB green drives. At some point, I will upgrade to WD 3TB red drives.  We have an Apple TV for Netflix and other such services.

Backup Hardware – Hard drives by Western Digital:
I have used hard drives from all major vendors over the past 25 years. Western Digital provides a line of hard drives to meet people’s needs at a variety of capacities and price points. I have WD drives from three of the companies product line (blue, black and green) and I have been very happy with them.

Hard Drive Docks – Thermaltake
Thermaltake makes a wide variety of products including a great selection of hard drive docks. Simple to setup and use, these docks get out of the way and allow me to get on with my work.

Document Scanning – I use a Fujitsu Snap Scan s300. Yes, it’s a bit pricey but it worth it. It just works with whatever I can throw at it. Features include double-sided scanning and integration with Evernote. It works flawlessly with both Mac and PC.

Network Gear
Networking is done via a Buffalo router running ww-drt and switches are Trendnet green 1gb switches.

 

Other software and services

Browser – Google’s Chrome browser
Still, in my opinion, the best browser out there for the ease of use, security and the ability with add-on’s to customize your browser to what you want to do. I also love the ability to sync favorites and plugin’s across platforms. For example, if I install a new plugin on my Mac, the next time I open Chrome on my Windows machine the plugin will be installed.

Email & Calendar – Gmail with Activeinbox plugin
More and more I’m working between multiple platforms and managing several email boxes for both professional and personal needs. Gmail’s web interface combined with the Activeinbox plugin gives me the ease and control I need. Activeinbox allows me to apply Getting Things Done to my inbox so I am more in control.

Office Suite – Office 365 
Microsoft has come a long way and there Office 365 product allows me to install it on multiple devices and includes OneDrive for cloud storage for a great price.

For other writing tasks I use a mix of tools, depending on what I am writing and my mood.

Focuswriter. A great minimalist app. It presents you with just a blank screen with no toolbars etc. It even has the option to make a typewriter sounds as you type. I find this really helps my flow. I use green text on a black background as I find it helps me focus. Most of the time when I’m just pounding out first drafts I will use Focuswriter.

Scrivener. Writing software for authors. Scrivener not only gives you a place to write but also a platform to store notes photos and other research you may use in the writing process. Many authors use it as their only tool for projects. Ray Edwards has a blog post on how he uses it. Scrivener also makes formatting to Kindle and other ebooks formats very easy. At the moment I use it mainly for editing and final formatting. The Mac version is much more advanced than the Windows version.

Task Management
Workflowy – Ask 10 people about what task management software they use and you will get 10 different answers. For me right now I’m using Workflowy. It integrates with Chrome so I can have two separate lists for my professional and personal tasks. The ability to have subtasks is a must for me when following the GTD project management approach.

Blog software.
WordPress – I’ve been using WordPress as my blog platform for several years and it more then meets my needs. There is a wide variety of themes and plugin’s both pay and free that can do almost anything you want to do in your blog platform.

Web hosting.
All my sites are hosted with Cleverhost, Very reliable web hosting with fantastic customer service.

Other Software

Evernote Their own description describes it best. “Evernote makes it easy to remember things big and small from your notable life using your computer, phone, and the web.” It is my digital ‘Mind’ Evernote is my virtual filing cabinet, allow me to store and find my notes, thoughts, and other things quickly and easily. The paid version allows more storage and the ability to OCR many more different document types. The affiliate link above will give 1 month of premium service for free.

Mailchimp. These days when building a platform nothing is more important than building your own email list. Mailchimp has various service levels starting with free and is very simple and easy to setup and use.

Bufferapp. Studies have shown that if you want the great views to your platform you must post social media updates at certain times of the day when people will be looking. In addition flooding, people with a bunch of updates at once can be counterproductive. Buffer solves these two problems by scheduling your social media updates. You put your updates into a queue and then schedule times for them to be posted. I’ve ben using the service for several years with some of my Twitter and Facebook updates.

Windows Build Tool – Ninite
One of the longest steps about rebuilding a PC is reinstalling all the common software you use. Ninite makes that process much easier, go to their website, select the apps you want and download the installer it gives to you. You run the installer it goes out and grabs the software all without your intervention. I’ve used it on several PC’s here and several friends have used it as well. Recommended.

 

Backup Software

BackBlaze – Unlimited cloud backup to one computer for $5 a month.  Yes please.

Windows – Syncback se and Syncback Pro:
After looking at quite a few different backup programs, I determined that Syncback has the features to cover almost any backup scenario. I use it every day in my own home.

Mac – Time Machine. Apple’s built-in backup software that comes with newer versions of OS X