I’m always curious about how people set up their computers and what software packages they have, so I thought I would share mine. So you know where I’m coming from, I use Windows, Mac, and Linux nearly every day. Part of my goal is to make transitioning between these systems as seemless as possible, but the exact setup varies by operating system. For those of you on Windows, many of these can be installed with Ninite. I do a pretty good job of keeping this list up-to-date, so it should reflect pretty well my recommendations for current software.

Table of contents

General
Programming
Terminals
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
Shells
- Terminal Add-ons
Security
Databases
LaTeX Editor
Hex Editor
Video Conferencing
Image Editing
Photography
Other

General

Text Editors

Sublime Text

I absolutely love this. Use it every day
With package control
Be sure to include the Markdown Editor

Evernote (Ninite)

Really good but I just don’t use it that much anymore
Good for long-term memory stuff, storing pictures (like receipts)

Office Suite

Google Docs

Don’t love it, but great for sharing and multi-person editing

Google Slides

I prefer Excel, but it’s free and I don’t use spreadsheets enough to buy Excel

LibreOffice (FOSS, Ninite)

I prefer this to Google’s offerings but I don’t use this very much anymore.

Utilities

File Explorer

Commander One (Mac only)

Dual-panel file explorer
Much better than Finder

Path Finder (Mac only)

Dual-panel file explorer
Might become my new file explorer for Mac
You might need to customize the hot keys

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Files (FOSS, Windows)

I recently started using this on Windows and like it
Good use of tabs and windows

muCommander

More lightweight than Commander One, so I’m starting to prefer it
This website offers good tips on how to get started with it

Searching for files

Agent Ransack (Windows)

Perfect search tool. I strongly favor this over the (otherwise also very good) alternatives
No equivalent for Linux or Mac, although there are decent built-in options

Screenshots

Greenshot (FOSS, Windows)

This is a perfect screenshot tool. It does everything I want

For a mac I just use the built-in tool

Note that if you want to select just a part of your screen, you should use command + shift + 4, then if you want to copy it straight to your clipboard (so you can paste it), hold control while you draw the outline

Package Managers

Homebrew (Mac)

By far the best pacakge manager for MacOS

Unzipping

7-Zip (Ninite)

The clear winner for Windows

Checking disk space

WinDirStat (Ninite, Window)

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Web Browsers

I always have three or more web browsers on each computer. I use them for different things. All are very good.

Google Chrome (Ninite)
Mozilla Firefox (Ninite)
Brave

Brower Extensions

Media

Spotify (Ninite)

Seems to have won the music player market for now

VLC (FOSS, Ninite)

Audacity (FOSS, Ninite)

Cloud Storage

Google backup and sync (Ninite)

Unlimited photos, very good app
They keep renaming it, and I expect that to continue. It’s Google

Dropbox (Ninite)

Poor website interface but other than that one of my favorites

Microsoft OneDrive (Ninite)

This does syncing very well

Yes, I do use many different cloud services. All for slightly different purposes.

Productivity

Rectangle (FOSS, Mac only)

Makes moving and resizing windows easy on a Mac
Here are the default hot keys

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Alfred (Mac only)

In the running for one of the best productivity apps in existence
This is probably my favorite app for the Mac
Can be as simple or complex as you like

Todoist

Karabiner-Elements (FOSS, Mac only)

Great for remapping keys
You can add the best Windows shortcuts to Mac with it
I use this to make control jump over words
- Lots of useful things under complex rules

Programming

Python Distribution

Anaconda (FOSS)

Now a no-brainer for data scientists

Integrated Development Environment (IDE)

VSCode (Ninite)

Right now it’s VSCode and I’m very happy with it. I have used many of the alternatives and, in general, I think there are a lot of good options, but I like VSCode.
Configuring your IDE that way you like it is essential, and VSCode is incredibly extensible.

RStudio

The clear winner in my opinion for R IDE, although I don’t use R much anymore so this could no longer be true

Version Control

Git

I think git has by-and-large won the version control market
Used in partnership with GitHub
Git is great but frustrating when you can’t figure it out (yes, I’ve done this)
GitHub Desktop is amazing and makes git much more beginner-friendly
- I also recommend the GitHub CLI
- GitHub Desktop also has a version for Linux that I use

Terminals

Mac

iTerm2

The clear winner for Mac and my overall favorite. I wish Linux and Windows had this

Windows

In Windows, I use a mix, mostly because none of them are perfect. Here’s a case (unlike browsers) that I would rather just have one

Cmder

Allows Unix style commands, makes switching between Mac and Linux and Windows much easier

ConEmu

A top contender for the best terminal in Windows. This is a really good terminal

Windows PowerShell

Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don’t…

Anaconda Prompt

I only use this for Anaconda stuff

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

Promising, definite promising. Keep working on it Microsoft!

Ubuntu terminal

Still a work in progress. Gets better all the time but still has room for improvement.
Update: This has gotten much better. I’m now using this with zsh like I do on my Mac and am liking it a lot.

As you can see, I’m strewn across half a dozen terminals in Windows and have found the one on Mac. For me, nothing beats iTerm2.

Linux

Terminator

Favorite for Linux at the moment

Shells

Zsh

Default on Mac now
Manage it with Oh My Zsh
You can also install it on Windows
Overall, I like it. Easy to customize
Also zsh-syntax-highlighting is great

Terminal Add-ons

Pygments

Syntax highlighter
I use it so often I alias it to the letter “c”
it’s like cat but with colors

Autojump

This is the best way to get around a Unix terminal

Security

Malware Protection

I have no loyalty to any of these. I usually just go with the top free one recommended. I’ve also used paid ones in the past but I don’t know if it’s worth it.

Malware Bytes (Ninite)

Password Managers

Bitwarden

I feel like I’ve finally found the password manager that I’ve been looking for. Does what I want without being obnoxious

Managing Updates

Patch My PC (Windows only)

I’m still looking for something to help me automatically update software on my computer. So far I’ve gone with patch my pc but there’s nothing I like

Messaging

Discord (Ninite)

Slack

I can’t believe this took so long to be invented. This is how communication should be

Viber

Beware: has ads, though I don’t find them particularly intrusive

Databases

Navicat for PostgreSQL

Not free but this is my favorite for databases

DBeaver (FOSS)

My current favorite open source to Navicat

LaTeX Editor

Texmaker

Requires a distribution with it. I like MIKTEX
I also recommend pdflatex (through miktex)

Hex Editor

HxD (Windows only)
For Mac I’m trying out Hex Fiend

Video Conferencing

Zoom (Ninite)

Google Hangouts

Image Editing

Adobe Lightroom (Windows, Mac)

As much as I’d like to say GIMP is just as good, it’s no match for the features of Lightroom. For someone who spends serious time editing photos, I don’t think there’s a better alternative.

GIMP (Linux)