---
title: Our Daily Drivers: The Tools We Use
slug: our-daily-drivers-the-tools-we-use
published_at: 2024-02-05 16:00:00 +0000
updated_at: 2024-05-29 13:53:48 +0000
summary: 2024! This week, we&#39;re sharing the various tools we use day-to-day in our work and side projects. Let us know if you have any favorites on Twitter @buildandlearn_BuildingCJ: working on a side project, https://buckets.cjav.devColin: working on some fun docs projects at workLearning: Sharing Our Tools in 2024Tools by CategoryTerminalEditorAPI tools/clientsContent Creation/EditingMac Helper AppsNotesCalendarEmailCJ&#39;s ToolkitWarp terminal ohmyzsh with my own theme which is based on Sarah Drasner’s night owlRaycastneovimfzf and telescopetpope: vim-rails, vim-commentary, vim-fugitivevim-testale - lintingAI: copilot + butterfishSkitch for screenshot annotationsPostman (Used to use Insomnia a lot, but many companies have Postman collections so that’s easy to drop in)Descript for screen recordingsTuple for pairingColin&#39;s ToolkitiTerm2 as my main terminalohmyzsh with Dracula ThemeVSCode as a daily driver for code and markdown (also Dracula themed)RapidAPI client (formerly Paw)Descript for audio-editingScreenflow for screencast video editingMac Workflow AppsCleanshot for screenshotting, annotations, and recording screen gifsRaycast for moving around apps quicklyMagnet for window managementHandMirror for monitoring videoHiddenMe for hiding icons on desktopNote Apps (too many lol)Notion for work and podcast notesObsidian for 2nd brain, brainstormingTextmate for scratchpads while working on a projectApple Notes for personal on-the-go and collaborative notes for homeFantastical for desktop calendars Apple Mail on phone for personal inboxes, Gmail app for work emailsBuild and Learn around the webTwitter: @buildandlearn_Colin: @colinloretzCJ: @cjav_dev
description: &lt;div&gt;2024! This week, we&#39;re sharing the various tools we use day-to-day in our work and side projects. Let us know if you have any favorites on Twitter &lt;a href=\&quot;https://twitter.com/buildandlearn_\&quot;&gt;@buildandlearn_&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Building&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;CJ: working on a side project, https://buckets.cjav.dev&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Colin: working on some fun docs projects at work&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Learning: Sharing Our Tools in 2024&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tools by Category&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Terminal&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Editor&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;API tools/clients&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Content Creation/Editing&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Mac Helper Apps&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Notes&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Calendar&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Email&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CJ&#39;s Toolkit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://warp.dev\&quot;&gt;Warp&lt;/a&gt; terminal&amp;nbsp;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://ohmyz.sh/\&quot;&gt;ohmyzsh&lt;/a&gt; with my own theme which is based on Sarah Drasner’s night owl&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://www.raycast.com/\&quot;&gt;Raycast&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://neovim.io/\&quot;&gt;neovim&lt;/a&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://github.com/junegunn/fzf\&quot;&gt;fzf&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=\&quot;https://github.com/nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim\&quot;&gt;telescope&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;tpope: &lt;a href=\&quot;https://github.com/tpope/vim-rails\&quot;&gt;vim-rails&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=\&quot;https://github.com/tpope/vim-commentary\&quot;&gt;vim-commentary&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=\&quot;https://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive\&quot;&gt;vim-fugitive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://github.com/vim-test/vim-test\&quot;&gt;vim-test&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://github.com/dense-analysis/ale\&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;ale&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; - linting&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;AI: &lt;a href=\&quot;https://github.com/features/copilot\&quot;&gt;copilot&lt;/a&gt; + &lt;a href=\&quot;https://github.com/bakks/butterfish.nvim\&quot;&gt;butterfish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://evernote.com\&quot;&gt;Skitch&lt;/a&gt; for screenshot annotations&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://www.postman.com/\&quot;&gt;Postman&lt;/a&gt; (Used to use Insomnia a lot, but many companies have Postman collections so that’s easy to drop in)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://www.descript.com/\&quot;&gt;Descript&lt;/a&gt; for screen recordings&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://tuple.app/\&quot;&gt;Tuple&lt;/a&gt; for pairing&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Colin&#39;s Toolkit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://iterm2.com/\&quot;&gt;iTerm2&lt;/a&gt; as my main terminal&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://ohmyz.sh/\&quot;&gt;ohmyzsh&lt;/a&gt; with &lt;a href=\&quot;https://draculatheme.com/\&quot;&gt;Dracula Theme&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://code.visualstudio.com/\&quot;&gt;VSCode&lt;/a&gt; as a daily driver for code and markdown (also &lt;a href=\&quot;https://draculatheme.com/\&quot;&gt;Dracula themed)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://paw.cloud/\&quot;&gt;RapidAPI&lt;/a&gt; client (formerly Paw)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://description.com\&quot;&gt;Descript&lt;/a&gt; for audio-editing&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm\&quot;&gt;Screenflow&lt;/a&gt; for screencast video editing&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Mac Workflow Apps&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://cleanshot.com/\&quot;&gt;Cleanshot&lt;/a&gt; for screenshotting, annotations, and recording screen gifs&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://www.raycast.com/\&quot;&gt;Raycast&lt;/a&gt; for moving around apps quickly&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/\&quot;&gt;Magnet&lt;/a&gt; for window management&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://handmirror.app/\&quot;&gt;HandMirror&lt;/a&gt; for monitoring video&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hiddenme/id467040476?mt=12\&quot;&gt;HiddenMe&lt;/a&gt; for hiding icons on desktop&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Note Apps (too many lol)&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://www.notion.so/\&quot;&gt;Notion&lt;/a&gt; for work and podcast notes&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://obsidian.md/\&quot;&gt;Obsidian&lt;/a&gt; for 2nd brain, brainstorming&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://macromates.com/\&quot;&gt;Textmate&lt;/a&gt; for scratchpads while working on a project&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Apple Notes for personal on-the-go and collaborative notes for home&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=\&quot;https://flexibits.com/fantastical\&quot;&gt;Fantastical&lt;/a&gt; for desktop calendars&amp;nbsp;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Apple Mail on phone for personal inboxes, Gmail app for work emails&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Build and Learn around the web&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Twitter:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=\&quot;https://twitter.com/buildandlearn_\&quot;&gt;@buildandlearn_&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Colin:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=\&quot;https://twitter.com/colinloretz\&quot;&gt;@colinloretz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CJ:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=\&quot;https://twitter.com/cjav_dev\&quot;&gt;@cjav_dev&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;
duration: 2604
keywords: []
author: CJ Avilla
co_author: Colin Loretz
url: https://www.cjav.dev/podcasts/our-daily-drivers-the-tools-we-use
embed_url: https://share.transistor.fm/e/82b4d186
share_url: https://share.transistor.fm/s/82b4d186
image_url: 
podcast_show: Build and Learn
type: podcast_episode
---

# Our Daily Drivers: The Tools We Use

*Published: February 05, 2024*
*Duration: 2604 seconds*
*Podcast: Build and Learn*

## Listen

[Listen on the web](https://share.transistor.fm/e/82b4d186)
[Share URL](https://share.transistor.fm/s/82b4d186)

## Show Notes

&lt;div&gt;2024! This week, we&#39;re sharing the various tools we use day-to-day in our work and side projects. Let us know if you have any favorites on Twitter &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/buildandlearn_&quot;&gt;@buildandlearn_&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Building&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;CJ: working on a side project, https://buckets.cjav.dev&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Colin: working on some fun docs projects at work&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Learning: Sharing Our Tools in 2024&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Tools by Category&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;Terminal&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Editor&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;API tools/clients&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Content Creation/Editing&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Mac Helper Apps&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Notes&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Calendar&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Email&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CJ&#39;s Toolkit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://warp.dev&quot;&gt;Warp&lt;/a&gt; terminal&amp;nbsp;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ohmyz.sh/&quot;&gt;ohmyzsh&lt;/a&gt; with my own theme which is based on Sarah Drasner’s night owl&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.raycast.com/&quot;&gt;Raycast&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://neovim.io/&quot;&gt;neovim&lt;/a&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/junegunn/fzf&quot;&gt;fzf&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/nvim-telescope/telescope.nvim&quot;&gt;telescope&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;tpope: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/tpope/vim-rails&quot;&gt;vim-rails&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/tpope/vim-commentary&quot;&gt;vim-commentary&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/tpope/vim-fugitive&quot;&gt;vim-fugitive&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/vim-test/vim-test&quot;&gt;vim-test&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/dense-analysis/ale&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;ale&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt; - linting&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;AI: &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/features/copilot&quot;&gt;copilot&lt;/a&gt; + &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/bakks/butterfish.nvim&quot;&gt;butterfish&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://evernote.com&quot;&gt;Skitch&lt;/a&gt; for screenshot annotations&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.postman.com/&quot;&gt;Postman&lt;/a&gt; (Used to use Insomnia a lot, but many companies have Postman collections so that’s easy to drop in)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.descript.com/&quot;&gt;Descript&lt;/a&gt; for screen recordings&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://tuple.app/&quot;&gt;Tuple&lt;/a&gt; for pairing&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Colin&#39;s Toolkit&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://iterm2.com/&quot;&gt;iTerm2&lt;/a&gt; as my main terminal&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://ohmyz.sh/&quot;&gt;ohmyzsh&lt;/a&gt; with &lt;a href=&quot;https://draculatheme.com/&quot;&gt;Dracula Theme&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://code.visualstudio.com/&quot;&gt;VSCode&lt;/a&gt; as a daily driver for code and markdown (also &lt;a href=&quot;https://draculatheme.com/&quot;&gt;Dracula themed)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://paw.cloud/&quot;&gt;RapidAPI&lt;/a&gt; client (formerly Paw)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://description.com&quot;&gt;Descript&lt;/a&gt; for audio-editing&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm&quot;&gt;Screenflow&lt;/a&gt; for screencast video editing&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Mac Workflow Apps&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://cleanshot.com/&quot;&gt;Cleanshot&lt;/a&gt; for screenshotting, annotations, and recording screen gifs&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.raycast.com/&quot;&gt;Raycast&lt;/a&gt; for moving around apps quickly&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/&quot;&gt;Magnet&lt;/a&gt; for window management&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://handmirror.app/&quot;&gt;HandMirror&lt;/a&gt; for monitoring video&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hiddenme/id467040476?mt=12&quot;&gt;HiddenMe&lt;/a&gt; for hiding icons on desktop&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Note Apps (too many lol)&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.notion.so/&quot;&gt;Notion&lt;/a&gt; for work and podcast notes&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://obsidian.md/&quot;&gt;Obsidian&lt;/a&gt; for 2nd brain, brainstorming&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://macromates.com/&quot;&gt;Textmate&lt;/a&gt; for scratchpads while working on a project&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Apple Notes for personal on-the-go and collaborative notes for home&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://flexibits.com/fantastical&quot;&gt;Fantastical&lt;/a&gt; for desktop calendars&amp;nbsp;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Apple Mail on phone for personal inboxes, Gmail app for work emails&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;div&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Build and Learn around the web&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Twitter:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/buildandlearn_&quot;&gt;@buildandlearn_&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Colin:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/colinloretz&quot;&gt;@colinloretz&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CJ:&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://twitter.com/cjav_dev&quot;&gt;@cjav_dev&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;

## Full Transcript

  
Colin: Welcome to Build Learn.  My name is Colin.  

CJ: And I&#39;m CJ.  And today we&#39;re going to share some of   the tools we use to get things done.  And this is the first episode   we&#39;re recording in 2024.  So we made it  

Colin: Yeah, I figured getting   into some tools is like a good way  to chat about getting things done   without worrying about resolutions  and goals and all that kind of stuff.  

CJ: totally.  Yeah.  I I can&#39;t remember when did we start   like our first podcast recording?  I think it was in the summer after   a RailsConf or after a RubyConf, but  I don&#39;t remember what year it was.  

Colin: Yeah, August 2022 I think   was like when that trailer went out.  And so we&#39;re kind of going   up against what is this?  This is the 37th episode.  And a little fun fact, but when, when   podcasts kind of die, it&#39;s called  pod fading and most podcasts don&#39;t   live past their seventh episode.  So you know, best laid intentions,   people try to, try to do the thing.  I&#39;ve seen a lot of podcasts that   only do like one or two episodes  and then they&#39;re just done.  So not too bad, 16 months, 37 episodes.  We&#39;re still at it.  

CJ: Yeah, I think one thing that has   helped me this time around is having  you to kind of keep me accountable.  And like, I feel, I feel some like   obligation in a way to show up when  I know that like, Hey, you&#39;re going   to be on the other end of the line.  And so if you know, even on the days where   I&#39;m not feeling it, maybe or whatever,  I&#39;m like, it&#39;ll be fun to hang out.  And so I think that&#39;s one key   is like having a cohost and then  another key for consistency.  Is honestly just putting a   recurring event on the calendar.  Like if there&#39;s something there to   remind you, like, Hey, there&#39;s a  podcast episode that you&#39;re planning   on recording and it can move around.  Like we&#39;ve probably changed   the date and time that we  record like three or four times  

Colin: Right.  

CJ: it doesn&#39;t always work on the day   or the time that we plan, but it&#39;s,  it&#39;s a calendar event that&#39;s there   that we have to like move around or  intentionally decide to delete it.  And so that seems to be a pretty good  

Colin: Totally.  

CJ: consistency.  

Colin: Yeah, it&#39;s tricky because like   when we have a bunch of episodes.  already recorded and in the can, there&#39;s   a little bit more temptation to be  like, well, we could skip this week   cause we&#39;ve got a few to fall back on.  But then you end up using that buffer.  And sometimes like, you know, if we   have trips or someone&#39;s sick, you  know, it&#39;s nice to have that buffer   for the emergency fund of sorts.  So it&#39;s good to, to rebuild   that and just be consistent.  So the magic of podcast editing,   you&#39;re going to be hearing this a  This is the first episode of 2024.  So let&#39;s let&#39;s dig into it.  What, what kinds of things   are you working on right now?  

CJ: tons of stuff at Kraftwerk.  We are building out a bunch   more integrations and things.  But this last weekend I had tons of fun.  I just sat down on like Sunday afternoon   and had like my own little mini hackathon.  As part of the new year, I think we   always sit down and start to like,  talk about our money and our finances.  And a lot of it is around like   tax planning and like starting  to get all the docs together.  And so Nicole and I often will   like sit down kind of like reset  and talk about budgeting again.  And we learned that there is a button   somewhere on YNAB that lets you  say, like, start from scratch and   like, we&#39;re going to try this again.  So we kind of, she went through   and reset all of our budgets.  And now that Mint is shut down, I know we   talked about this a couple episodes ago,  but I was really missing just being able   to go and look at, you know, just high  level, what are the balances looking like?  And there is a new API   that Stripe released called  Financial Connection Accounts.  Which is a way that you can pull   balances and transactions for  lots of different institutions.  And so I was like, Hey,   I want to try that out.  So I built this thing called buckets,   which is, I kind of like think  about managing my money as like   just a bunch of buckets of money.  And It&#39;s up and running and I was able   to finally able to connect almost all of  our accounts, which is like pretty sweet.  And for those that we couldn&#39;t   connect, I like manually added those.  So super, super fun, little   live tweeted hackathon from  my couch on Sunday afternoon.  But yeah, it was a blast.  So  

Colin: have to go look up those tweets.  I&#39;ve definitely missed those, but   it&#39;s a great name for what it is.  I think people think of it   as like envelopes or buckets  and you know, everyone treats   personal finance is personal.  So everyone kind of treats it   differently and everyone&#39;s looking for  the one size fits all app right now.  And it&#39;s like everyone kind of approaches   and thinks about money differently.  And yeah, that&#39;s, that&#39;s cool.  Let&#39;s try pass that.  Now I&#39;ll have to check that out.  I know they were like starting to get   into the more treasury type space.  

CJ: Yeah, I think part of it was,   well, yeah, there&#39;s other, there&#39;s like  other providers that let you do this.  I think FinCity or Teller and some   others and Stripe is just one of them.  And it&#39;s actually quite expensive.  There&#39;s like, for some things   it&#39;s 10 cents every API call.  And so I&#39;m like, that&#39;s kind of wild.  Like, I don&#39;t think I want to do this or   like, I don&#39;t think it makes financial  sense if I&#39;m, if, even if I&#39;m just   trying to pull people&#39;s balances for.  You know, a family that might   have 20 different accounts  spread across different things.  Like, it probably, it would be   tough to get them to pay, you  know, a monthly fee that would   equal the cost just for the API.  So, I don&#39;t know, it would be worth   it to dig in and figure it out, but,  yeah, it&#39;s been, it&#39;s been fun to build   and I&#39;m glad to have some North star  metric that I can pull up now again.  And yeah, so I guess if people   are listening to this later, you  should be able to go to buckets.  cjav.  dev if you want to get on the wait list   and I&#39;ll reach out to you and try to  try to show you what it&#39;s all about.  So yeah, that&#39;s what we&#39;re,   what we&#39;re working on.  We&#39;re building.  

Colin: Very cool.  Yeah, you could I don&#39;t know if it   makes sense to do, like, credits or  make people put a card on file to   pay for those transaction fees, but  

CJ: Yeah, I thought about doing  

Colin: open API credits.  

CJ: exactly like cost plus, like   you just pay as much as it costs  me to make these API calls.  And then like, yeah, exactly.  But yeah,  

Colin: the hard part.  

CJ: yeah, I&#39;d love to show it to you too.  Cause I know that you&#39;ve got like   tons of experience and research  done and in the finance app world.  So,  

Colin: Totally.  

CJ: I have to carve out some  

Colin: Very cool.  

CJ: And,  

Colin: so for me, I&#39;ve been kind of   tinkering around with the docs at Discord.  That&#39;s mostly been my, my day to day.  Got a big project that can&#39;t talk   about quite yet, but I&#39;ll share in a  few episodes once it&#39;s live and, uh,   kind of pushed it out into the world.  So, uh, found like we had this   really strange thing, how we like  generate our sidebar for our docs.  And if any two pages had the same name.  the sub menu would like   unfold under both of them.  And so we&#39;ve avoided just using   the same name of any two pages.  But now I want like, for this   new thing, I want an overview.  And there&#39;s an overview under   monetization, there&#39;s an  overview under like the game SDK.  So I finally figured out like how   the sidebar gets generated, where I  can go in there and figure out how   to like not have that duplication.  So we can have like a   getting started guide.  in a completely different area of the   product than like the main getting  started guide or different reference,   different overview, things like that.  So I think I&#39;ve talked about it a   lot, but just kind of been diving down  that whole docs as code and technical   writer rabbit holes of like the  different philosophies around content.  And kind of as part of that.  I&#39;ve binged listened to almost the   whole backlog of the Write the Docs  podcast which they don&#39;t do anymore.  They have, I don&#39;t know for what reason   they stopped in 2021 but there&#39;s a  few really good nuggets in there.  Some of the things I was dealing with.  Specifically, which was like, how   do you handle doing docs across  multiple repos, multiple projects?  If you want to like keep the docs close to   the source code, or do you put it all the  docs in one place and it&#39;s disconnected   from the source, things like that, that  They didn&#39;t have a definitive answer.  It&#39;s like kind of a, one of   those, it depends on company  culture and stuff like that too.  So  

CJ: Yeah, when you&#39;re ready to launch   this new secret stealth thing, will  it be like a beta to start with,   or are there people already kind  of like in the beta right now?  

Colin: yeah, we have some   people using the current docs.  They&#39;re kind of like private   and then we&#39;re making them more  public docs for something that   we&#39;ll be able to talk about soon.  

CJ: Got it.  Is it like a hosted set of docs,   like they&#39;re going to be, or is  it kind of like in the GitHub   repos, or how does that work?  Mm  

Colin: That has been like the big   struggle of like, do you keep the docs  again, like with the, the GitHub repo,   or do we put it in our like discord.  com slash developers docs?  And we do want them to be there.  So they are going to   be in the public docs.  But it&#39;s one of those things.  It&#39;s like, do people, when they   find something on GitHub, do they  expect the docs to be fully there?  Or is it annoying?  Like, would it be annoying   for you to read the readme and  then have to go to the docs?  I don&#39;t think it&#39;s necessarily annoying.  It&#39;s just, we have to pick one.  And we have to make sure we support that.  And so that we don&#39;t end up with like   broken links and things like that.  

CJ: Yeah, it&#39;s interesting.  I don&#39;t know what the product   is but the, yeah, depending on  what is in the repo, like if the   repo is a library that&#39;s using.  An API or something, it&#39;s kind of tricky   because you want to document how the  library works in their GitHub repo,   but you want to document how to use the  library, maybe somewhere else or something   like, yeah, they might be like two  different things, which, yeah, it&#39;s, it&#39;s   definitely a tricky balance to strike.  And I&#39;ve definitely.  I&#39;ve seen, you know extremes   in both directions recently.  Like people have like getting started   and you just click this link and it  brings you to some hosted docs page.  That&#39;s nice and beautiful   and searchable and whatever.  And other times it&#39;s just like a giant   read me with all the steps, you know?  So  

Colin: It&#39;s like a link to   a random Apple notes on some  developers phone or something.  

CJ: Yeah.  cool.  Awesome.  Yeah.  It sounds like that&#39;s coming along.  I I&#39;m sure it&#39;s there&#39;s a lot of   anticipation and excitement around  launching too, and probably like   maybe a little bit of a little  bit of anxiety, but I&#39;m, I&#39;m I&#39;m   excited to see what you guys launch.  

Colin: Yeah.  It&#39;s going to be fun.  

CJ: Awesome.  Let&#39;s talk about tools.  Tools are so fun.  Yeah, it&#39;s like the, one of the, I don&#39;t   know the things we like to nerd about,  

Colin: Totally.  Yeah.  I figure, you know, a lot of   podcasts do like a year in review.  This will be more of our tools in review.  So I broke these down into categories   and we can kind of just go back  and forth and kind of riff on them.  If there&#39;s any other ones that   come to mind, we can add those in.  But yeah, I guess, I mean, it&#39;s almost   like a, an Emmy award show or something,  but let&#39;s do the first category is   what terminal are you using these days?  

CJ: terminal.  So right now, and probably for the   last year and a half or so, I&#39;ve been  using warp, which is I think they   pitched themselves as an AI enabled.  Terminal.  They&#39;ve got a few interesting   features built in where you can use  like a pound sign and then type out,   you know, a request and it&#39;ll ship  it off to GPT and then come back   with some command that you can run.  And I want to say it&#39;s written in   rust so it&#39;s like pretty fast or  whatever, but it is not as feature   rich as some other terminals.  So yeah, warp.  How about you?  What are you rocking for   the terminal these days?  

Colin: I am just rocking   iTerm2, so a classic.  I don&#39;t really I don&#39;t think I use   most of the features, I just, very  bare bones you know, I go in and   replace the original terminal and  the dock and all that stuff every   time I have a new computer to set up.  But yeah, pretty straightforward.  And then, uh, I guess the next category   would be, like, how we customize that.  So I use Oh, my Z shell for the most   part and love to use the Dracula theme,  which we can, we&#39;ll, we&#39;ll post links   to all of these things, but I use the  Dracula theme, which I should know   who designed this, but there&#39;s like a  whole website for it, which is amazing.  Just Dracula theme.  com.  

CJ: Yeah.  I find that when I&#39;m feeling particularly   like like I want to procrastinate, I go  and mess around with themes like my Vim   theme and my terminal theme and whatever.  So yeah, I&#39;m also using Omai Zeesh   with a custom theme that is forked  from Sarah Drasner&#39;s Night Owl.  And I th Yeah, it was, I think it   was like the closest one I could find  to stripy colors back in the day.  And so then I just copied it and   tried to make it feel on brand.  And so, yeah, I&#39;ve kind of just   continued to use that as my, my default.  

Colin: Yeah, I&#39;ll say like I used my main   editor used to be textmate and that the  themes that were in there when it like   first came out have really like literally  influenced like my future themes since   I&#39;m always like trying to find things  like like what I had in textmate which   yeah, kind of brings us to editors.  What are you using as your main editor?  

CJ: My go to right now is NeoVim, and   I have been Actually, like this last  few weeks, I&#39;ve been experimenting with   some new plugins to try to get things  working even faster and smoother.  So FZF, I was using FZF for my fuzzy   finder, but I just installed telescope,  which also uses FZF under the hood, but it   gives you like a bunch of like previewing.  So when you try to open up a   new file or like if you&#39;re in  a project and you basically.  Command P or control P or   whatever to fuzzy find a file.  It&#39;ll give you like a type of   head thing that you can type into.  And then when it finds a result,   like it&#39;ll preview the result  that you&#39;re looking at in a   second pane, which is pretty dope.  And then I use a bunch of T POP things   for Vim rails and comments and get  with Vim fugitive using Vim tests to   like run my tests directly from Vim.  And then.  Ale for linting co pilot,   which is another T POP thing.  And a couple of weeks ago, I installed   this tool called Butterfish, which  was written by a former Stripe.  And this is kind of like the brushes   that are built into VS code, where you  can, from directly from Vim, you can   say like write a Fibonacci function  or something, and then it&#39;ll put it   in line, or you can say like refactor  or explain this or some really cool   tools that are built directly into.  Directly into your editor.  So yeah.  How about you?  What are you rocking these days?  

Colin: Yeah, I, well before I   do that, I think the, I forgot  about the copilot brushes.  I don&#39;t know why I haven&#39;t, they&#39;re like   in my editor when I&#39;m in there day to day.  But there&#39;s some handy ones in there   and I totally forgot about this.  So yeah, I&#39;m running VS Code.  It&#39;s something that we use   at work, but also just kinda.  I think I had used, I went from like   textmate to sublime to eventually Adam  and now firmly in the VS code land.  Not, you know, writing,   I use it for Markdown.  I have some good Markdown   extensions for that.  Including one that I&#39;ll link that&#39;s   more of like a grammar spelling one.  Which has been nice because there&#39;s some   really cool ones out there for doing like  very intense styling for like your, you   can create a style guide for your company.  But and that&#39;s like veil.  sh would be one of those, but it   was a little too restrictive for us.  And so now I use I don&#39;t actually know   how to pronounce it, but it&#39;s L A T E X.  How do you pronounce that?  Latex.  I think it&#39;s actually pronounced   differently, but I&#39;ve heard  it pronounced differently.  That also could be the French   folks that I was working with.  And so yeah, VS code also   has the Dracula theme.  So my terminal and my editor   match which is always fun.  

CJ: nice.  Yeah.  You got the the matching pants and jacket.  Yeah, I, uh, I think my,   yeah, I can&#39;t remember.  I think my editor is like slightly   different than than the terminal,  but I do like it when it matches.  So that&#39;s cool.  Do you find yourself using   the built in terminal?  That&#39;s like part of VS code when you&#39;re.  Doing terminal stuff or do you   like jump back to iterm two?  Nice  

Colin: both.  So I&#39;ll use the terminal and VS code   the way that we build stuff at discord.  We use something called coder.  So we have like remote instances   that we&#39;re building in.  And so I&#39;m actually remote connected in   VS code to that instance and using that.  And then sometimes I, I think of   my terminal as my local machine and  then the terminal and VS code as.  The remote machine.  So some people I think use iTerm to   do remote connections into their coder  instance, and then, you know, now you have   to know like which terminal is your remote  instance and which one&#39;s your local one.  I&#39;m sure there&#39;s some cool tricks out   there to like change the theme based on  which one you&#39;re connected to and all   that kind of stuff, but I like to keep it.  pretty easy and just use VS   Code for the remote stuff.  

CJ: That&#39;s a, so that&#39;s, I guess   that&#39;s the editor&#39;s category.  Should we jump over to   API tools and clients?  

Colin: Let&#39;s do it.  

CJ: All right.  Next category.  What are you using these days   for like a, yeah, API client.  

Colin: So, I mostly use what&#39;s   now called just the RapidAPI app.  It used to be PAW.  So, I don&#39;t know if, I   think this is Mac specific.  They might have had a Windows version.  But I was always a fan of Paw and   they got bought by RapidAPI, so now  it&#39;s the RapidAPI icon in my doc,   but Very similar to Postman, very  similar to Insomnia, things like that  

CJ: never heard of PA.  I need to check this out.  Okay.  

Colin: yeah,  

CJ: Awesome.  Yeah.  The I&#39;ve been using Postman late,   like most recently, but before I  used insomnia, uh, and the thing   that I, that kind of like sold me on  Postman is that a lot of API companies   will have a Postman collection  that you can download and install.  And so, yeah, I just started saving those   off and kind of building, building like a.  A portfolio of different, uh,   collection of collections and  each collection is like a company.  And then each of those companies has   like lots of different API endpoints  in these directories and syncing   that back to my Postman account.  So that if I open up on a different   machine, it&#39;s kind of like pre  saved all my stuff for dev.  So yeah, I think I&#39;m pretty, pretty   solidly sold on Postman these days, but  we&#39;ll definitely need to check out Paw.  

Colin: Yeah, I, there&#39;s something   about the, how polished Paw is,  like, I want to use Postman, I, but   it&#39;s just, it feels a little clumsy.  To me, or from a design perspective,   it&#39;s a little bit less so, and I don&#39;t  know, I don&#39;t use it that much, but   it&#39;s nice to have like some collections  that I can like rerun and so forth, so,  

CJ: Next category, content   creation and editing.  

Colin: yeah, so podcasting,   video, what, what kinds of things  are you using for all of that?  

CJ: I, yeah, I&#39;ve collapsed all of that   content creation stuff down into Descript.  So I&#39;m using Descript for podcasting,   using Descript for video, screencasting,  vertical shorts, TikToks, all the things   are now happening in Descript for me.  Yeah, it, uh, I like that it   consolidated and removed all of  the different import export steps.  What about you?  What&#39;s yeah, what are you using   these days for that content stuff?  ScreenFlow,  

Colin: Um, I don&#39;t really, I   think Descript is my go to now.  I&#39;m not yet got to the point in the   screencasting course where I&#39;m like  doing too much other video stuff.  Usually my go to is Webflow for,   for videos, not Webflow Screenflow.  Yeah for like kind of screen recording.  Surprisingly, I do like Loom, but I   don&#39;t currently have a subscription  for that in terms of just like.  Talking to the camera and recording   your screen and being able to  get comments and stuff on it is   like in line in the timeline is  probably the biggest advantage.  But yeah, I think for the most   part, Descript has become the  kind of a Swiss army knife of,   of content creation these days.  

CJ: hmm.  Yeah, I sent my first Descript   quick recording, which is kind  of like a loom the other day.  And there weren&#39;t comments on it or   anything, but there were a couple of  integrations in loom that I preferred   where like loom will tell you, okay, your  loom has been watched one or three times   or something, or you got these comments  or these reactions on your loom that are   features I&#39;m sure Descript will launch.  Soon if they haven&#39;t already, but   yeah, it&#39;s nice to just collapse  it all down into one tool.  So,  

Colin: Totally.  And less subscriptions for the,   the buckets of money that you&#39;re,  

CJ: exactly one  

Colin: your budgeting apps.  

CJ: Cool.  

Colin: I think the next category,   let&#39;s do kind of Mac helper apps.  So these are like, I&#39;m thinking   apps that help you move around  windows, menu bar apps spotlight   replacements, those kinds of things.  What, what do you use?  

CJ: I have been using Ray cast recently.  In place of spotlight slash   Alfred slash whatever.  And it&#39;s okay.  I, I feel like I, I don&#39;t know, I don&#39;t   use it as much as I could for sure.  I feel like I&#39;m, you know, using less than   1 percent of the tools that are in there.  I&#39;m also using key caster.  What else?  Yeah, I, I don&#39;t actually use a tool   to manage my windows, which probably  sounds like a serial killer type   situation, but no, yeah, I just, I  don&#39;t ever full screen or like I avoid   full screening anything and like.  I just manually adjust   the sizes of my windows.  I would say that most of the time I   stretch the windows to be full size,  but if I&#39;m on a call like we are now,   then I will put the camera or like  the person&#39;s face underneath where   the camera is and then I&#39;ll kind of  like slide the other windows around.  But otherwise, Almost all the time.  I have everything full screen, which   I should probably just get some window  manager that makes that happen for me.  But yeah, do it the Neanderthal way.  

Colin: you&#39;ve lived this long without   one, you know, it does take some  learning to, to get used to it.  So,  

CJ: So what, yeah, like, what are   you using to, to manage windows?  

Colin: I think I use, so I use magnet   right now and my, like, really the only.  use I use it for is there&#39;s a hot key   that will make whatever window I&#39;m  in be half of my screen on one side.  And then the other one I can push   the other arrow and it&#39;ll do half  the other side of the screen.  So I&#39;ll usually do that with like docs   and an editor or terminal and a docks if  I&#39;m like playing around with some, some   other site you know, that kind of thing.  So it&#39;s mostly for half and half   sometimes like I&#39;ve seen some people  get pretty fancy or it&#39;s like bottom   left quadrant and top quadrant.  And when you have more screens, I&#39;d   like to only work with one screen.  So I don&#39;t really have to worry   about like throwing things to  multiple screens and stuff like that.  So I also use Raycast, but   I use it literally the same  way only to launch things.  I think I found Alfred and Raycast   have better index for finding things.  Like, sometimes in Spotlight, you&#39;ll   type in the thing you&#39;re looking for  and it just doesn&#39;t find it fast.  Granted, I also haven&#39;t really   used Spotlight in years,  so maybe it&#39;s been fixed.  But love, like, how Raycast looks.  So, that&#39;s, that&#39;s the one for me.  I have some little particular ones.  I have one called Hand Mirror   that literally just shows  me what my camera sees.  So it&#39;s my little like green   room pre check like all of that.  So like when we&#39;re on a call right   now, I can obviously see it, but you  can pop it open and switch cameras   and just see it without having  to like broadcast your camera.  They have a feature where you can pay and   monitor your audio, but it&#39;s really just  like, is audio coming through or not.  What I actually want if anyone out there   has heard of this scene, this wants to  build this, it&#39;s on my list of things   to build is I want it like a, a DB like  decibel audio monitor in my menu bar.  So that I can see like if   our levels are just too low.  I have like a monitor in front of me,   like a hardware thing, but it, it goes  green, yellow, red for like if I&#39;m peaking   and things, but it doesn&#39;t tell me how.  you know, how quiet or how, how loud I am.  So just because different software   treats audio a little bit differently.  Being able to kind of be consistent,   obviously we use Descript, so  it&#39;s like studio sound and stuff   fixes a lot of that for us.  But yeah, so that&#39;s another one.  

CJ: Yeah.  Hand mirror sounds cool.  I usually open up photo booth and like,   you know, whatever, check my makeup and  make sure that I&#39;m looking fresh before   going on, but or, and also Descript  has like They&#39;re a little monitor   and I think ScreenFlow has a monitor  too, but hand mirror sounds useful.  Another one that I forgot to mention   that we&#39;ve got to drop in here is  Orlando built this tool called Dash Cam.  That is kind of like a dash   cam in your car where it&#39;s  always recording your screen.  And at any point you can say, you can   go back and say like, Oh, I want to  look at the last two hours of my screen.  So it&#39;s kind of like, you know, if   you&#39;ve got a camera in your car as you&#39;re  driving, you see an accident, but you   don&#39;t think to like push the record  button before you, the accident happens.  So this is like recording   kind of like all the time.  And so kind of, kind of a neat tool.  So yeah, if you&#39;re   interested, go check that out.  

Colin: Nice.  That&#39;s kind of like how like the modern   consoles are like recording a buffer  of like the last 30 seconds and so   you can have like your achievement  of like whatever, whatever cool   gaming moment you had you can still  get a video of it without having to   know that you wanted to record it.  

CJ: right, cool.  

Colin: magnet, raycast I think one other   one would be like, in the same kind of  category as like screenshotting, so I   use CleanShot, which I think they have  a free version, but the, I pay for it,   it&#39;s, it&#39;s, I think for you, I know  what you use, it&#39;s like the most modern   version of Skitch, um, it&#39;s very nice,  because I can record Like capture areas,   I can do scrolling capture, I can do  timers, I can record the screen as a   GIF or a video, you can annotate on it.  And it has a really cool UI for like the   screenshots don&#39;t end up in my desktop.  They end up in like floating on   my screen so I can just drag them  into whatever I&#39;m using them.  Like throw them into Discord or whatever,   throw them into a GitHub PR and then  if I want them to be saved to my   computer, I hit save and it&#39;ll save it.  Cause I used to notoriously have like   a million screenshots on my desktop  or in another folder somewhere.  

CJ: I feel seen because   that&#39;s my life, my desktop.  No one ever sees my desktop, including me.  Cause it&#39;s just littered   with like 5, 000 screenshots.  

Colin: Yeah.  Well, do you use an app   to hide your desktop?  That&#39;s another, that&#39;s one I actually do.  

CJ: Any app that is up is   hiding my desktop from me.  

Colin: So I use an app called   hidden me, which literally shows  and hides my desktop icons.  So instead of having to like go clean it   up before I do a screencast, I just hide  all desktop icons and we&#39;re good to go.  Yes.  

CJ: which I&#39;ve been using since, like,   I don&#39;t know, 2013 or 14 or something.  And it&#39;s this, like, free thing.  I think it came out of Evernote.  And I worked with this guy, John,   at MyVR, who is a huge Evernote fan.  And his, like, entire life   was run out of Evernote.  And he fought, like, he, adhered very,   very closely to the get things done,  like life framework and like used   Evernote really, really uh, intensely.  And so he was a big fan of Skitch.  And so I picked it up and then   just never stopped using it.  And anytime I need to annotate, I   just pop in there and point arrows  and draw squares and that&#39;s it.  So but I have  

Colin: one of their longest   running customers at this point.  

CJ: I&#39;ve heard great things   about clean shot though.  And every time I tell people that I&#39;m   using sketch, they suggest clean shot.  So I&#39;d need to give it a shot.  

Colin: Hey, I mean, if it,   if it&#39;s not broken, don&#39;t  

CJ: yeah, I love the idea of recording   like scrolling stuff or like just  certain regions of the screen.  My flow is like, I&#39;ll do   like command shift three.  Screen grab, command space, open sketch,   paste, and then draw an arrow to a thing.  Command shift V, like, or then I&#39;ll   like command shift 4 again, re screen  grab sketch itself, and then paste   it into whatever, like, app I&#39;m  using to like send the screenshot.  So that I&#39;m never, like, I&#39;m always   basically just using the clipboard.  Like I&#39;m just into  

Colin: you&#39;re using the   default Apple clipboard.  

CJ: Yes.  Yes.  Straight through the Apple clipboard.  Yeah, exactly.  

Colin: Yeah.  Clean shot is a little aggressive   in that you have to go disable  the default native screenshotting.  Like all of the, you can still   use the keys, but you&#39;re literally  turning off the Apple screenshotting.  And this is like takes over.  So it.  Yeah, it&#39;s just very different,   but also it&#39;s not free, right?  So, Skitch, there&#39;s pros and cons there,   and I think screenshotting a screenshot  on a Mac doesn&#39;t, like, make a copy of   a copy worse, like, like a photocopier,  whereas, like, I don&#39;t know what it   is about some of the mobile apps, but,  like, when people screenshot things from   Instagram and then re upload it, each  one gets progressively worse because it&#39;s   compressed and compressed and compressed.  

CJ: Yeah.  Yeah.  The other thing that is super annoying   about sketch is that when you go to  close it, every time it&#39;s like, are you   sure you want to discard this thing?  I&#39;m like, I never, ever,   ever want to save it.  Like ever.  Don&#39;t ask me this ever again.  And there&#39;s no way to tell it to do that.  And so every single time I go to close   it, I have to like get my mouse and  go navigate over and click the button.  That&#39;s like, no, I don&#39;t care.  Discard.  So,  

Colin: Yeah.  I think we have a list of apps   here that we should talk to about  sponsoring the show in the future  

CJ: oh yes.  Right.  And maybe was that,  

Colin: They&#39;re like, oh we   don&#39;t really use Raycast, but  

CJ: Ah, ah, ah, ah,  

Colin: I will figure out what the   other 99 percent of the features  do if you&#39;d like to sponsor  

CJ: Right.  Yeah.  Yeah.  

Colin: All right.  So the next Emmy awarding   category, we have notes apps.  What are you using for notes these days?  Work notes, personal notes.  

CJ: Yep.  I, I have been using notion more and   more and more, and now I&#39;m, I&#39;m pretty  firmly into notion for a lot of stuff.  I would say, yeah, 99   percent is now in notion.  We use notion at work.  And so I have kind of like personal   profile and work profile that  I&#39;m jumping between all day long.  And Yeah.  That&#39;s where we write we like write   a bunch of meeting notes in there.  We run projects.  Through there, we run this   podcast through there.  I have a, like an ideas board that I&#39;ve   got running in their personal journaling.  Yeah, like basically   everything&#39;s a notion.  Yeah, I have never been like   a huge fan of Apple notes and.  I&#39;ve been kind of a obsidian curious or,   you know, one of those other like note  taking, like intentionally dedicated   apps that are like just for note taking,  but I&#39;ve never, yeah, never spent   time to like invest in one of those.  I guess they&#39;re called like knowledge.  What is it?  Like  

Colin: Yeah.  Like second brain or knowledge  

CJ: Yeah, yeah,  

Colin: type apps.  

CJ: Right.  What about you?  Note, note taking stuff.  

Colin: Yeah.  So I use too many.  I think this is another one of those like   attention deficit things, but a notion  for work and podcast notes like yourself.  I do use obsidian for   like longer form notes.  Like it&#39;s where I put my idea app ideas   when I like want to flush out an app  idea and sometimes I&#39;ll just leave it   there and then might come back to it.  

CJ: Mm hmm.  

Colin: and then I have a strange thing   where like I mentioned text me earlier,  I still put text me on all my computers.  It is not worked on to   my knowledge anymore.  But what&#39;s really cool about it compared   to almost anything else out there.  It&#39;s like when you open text me, you   can open as many windows as you want.  And they&#39;re super fast.  So like I use it as like a scratch pad   for like, I even like use markdown bullet  lists, like format in text mate just   to like make myself focus a little bit.  Or like leave myself a note that I leave   on my screen when I close my computer  for the day and it&#39;s just in text mate.  And so when I work through   those, I will close them.  I&#39;m basically using that as like   a to do list, which is kind of  strange because it&#39;s not that.  But it works for me.  I usually end up with a whole bunch   of text made notes saved to my  desktop, just like my screenshots.  And then finally I do, I&#39;ve   started using Apple Notes.  It&#39;s actually really good.  if you want to share notes   with someone without the  heaviness of Notion and things.  So like, collaborative grocery lists   or like, I remember like for Chanel  we had like a surprise party and   it was like, I was like, just add  a list of all of the friends that   you would want to hang out with.  And I was like, trying to be vague   add them to this list and then like,  who is this person and how do I get in   touch with them and things like that.  So it&#39;s really nice   because You can add to it.  We&#39;ve done it for trips with friends too.  Like this is the itinerary.  When I was over overseas, I was   kind of like updating my itinerary,  like this is like, I made it, I   got on the plane, things like that.  So Chanel could actually see as like,   my trip was progressing, like, kind  of, kind of like a safety check-in,   but also just like knowing where I  was without doing like a creepy find   my friends or something like that.  So,  

CJ: That is, yeah, I could   definitely see the value in, in  sharing or collaborating that way.  We use any list and we have like   a shared grocery list on there and  that has worked really well for us.  But yeah, my brother.  Was doing standup for a little while   and he would write all his jokes  in his Apple notes on his phone.  And he had been writing jokes for   like years in these Apple notes and  something happened and he lost it all.  And so, yeah, since then I&#39;ve been   like a little bit scared to, to use  it or like depend on it too much.  But I thought it totally like synced   to your iCloud and everything, but.  

Colin: I think it does, but there&#39;s   like the magic there that I don&#39;t  know that you could go find the file.  Like, I don&#39;t know how that works.  Like, it&#39;s in iCloud somewhere, but I&#39;m   sure it syncs to your, your, like, mobile  backups and stuff too if you do that.  

CJ: Mm hmm.  Mm  

Colin: I think, I feel like Apple Notes   kind of did what Evernote was trying to  do, but the tech was not quite there yet.  When, I mean, Evernote was like a darling   of the Notes space for so long and it&#39;s  just like launching it took Too long.  If you want to put something   into a note, took too long.  I used to use it as, like,   screenshots, images, text,  everything went into Evernote.  And I think my account&#39;s still alive.  I&#39;d have to check that out.  But, yeah, that&#39;s notes.  I think we kind of round to the final two   core categories that I think everybody  has, which is calendar and email.  And this is kind of timely because   Things like hey email and hey calendar  

CJ: Mm hmm.  

Colin: Being pretty popular   these days from 37signals.  What are you using for calendar?  And what are you using   for email these days?  

CJ: I use default just like   the browser versions of Google  calendar and Gmail for everything.  Pretty boring, but it works.  I would say like the one interesting   thing, maybe if people haven&#39;t done  this already, as you can turn on hotkeys   or like keyboard shortcuts in your  Gmail, there&#39;s like a setting and then   you can, you can navigate around like  crazy fast with just like with keys.  And so One of like, I would say like   one of my productivity hacks is like go  into Gmail and then use like J and K to   move up and down through the list and  then X to like mark them as read or not   read or like, I&#39;m going to delete these.  And then you can use E to archive it.  And so you can just kind of, I don&#39;t   know, work through pretty quickly.  Yeah, exactly.  

Colin: for email.  

CJ: Right.  Yeah.  And then yeah, Google calendar, just   Google calendar itself works pretty well.  How about you?  

Colin: Nice.  Are you using like Chrome personas   to be able to switch between those?  

CJ: Yes.  Yeah.  So I, okay.  So yeah, so I have my personal Gmail   calendar, which is like my life stuff.  And on there I&#39;ll share things like,   Oh, my son has swimming lessons today or  we&#39;ve got to I don&#39;t know, pay this bill   or we&#39;re going to a wedding or whatever.  And then I&#39;ll share my personal calendar   with my work calendar and vice versa.  So that if I, yeah, if I&#39;m like   looking at my work calendar in my  work persona, then it&#39;ll just see   like, Oh, you&#39;re busy on your personal  calendar for a certain amount of time.  And I&#39;ll know like, okay, that&#39;s   because the kids have, you know,  soccer that day or something.  But.  Yeah, just kind of switching between   those two different personas.  Yeah, before you get to yours, did you   see that Notion released a calendar too?  I think it was like this week.  

Colin: Yeah, is that a calendar   block or is it a calendar feature  in Notion cuz I&#39;m in your Notion   right now So I can&#39;t really tell  

CJ: I think it&#39;s like   a completely separate,  

Colin: cuz calendar view has   been a thing for a while.  

CJ: yeah, no, it is like   a, a whole new thing.  Yeah, so Jay Z, um, this guy worked at   that Stripe now, is now at Notion, and  I know worked on this, like launching   this new calendar thing, which is.  

Colin: very cool so now Notion&#39;s trying   to become the Everything app which I  mean for a lot of Notion stuff like I   think calendar will make sense for people  

CJ: The, yeah, the productivity   in Notion is great.  I&#39;m excited to see where they take that.  So,  

Colin: Yeah.  So for me, I also use the   standard Gmail and Google calendar  for the most part on desktop.  I also use fantastic cow.  So what&#39;s kind of cool about that   is I have all my Google accounts  logged into and you can create a   profile so I can switch between Reno  collective discord personal, or I want   to see all of my calendars overlaid,  which is like, you know, Insanity.  

CJ: yeah,  

Colin: and what&#39;s, it&#39;s fast.  I mean, I think my discord one&#39;s   my default one when I like create  events and things like that.  And I mean, I get away with   probably doing the exact same thing  and Google persona profiles too.  But I, I am a sucker for very well   designed Mac apps and fantastic.  How is that?  That&#39;s why I use pod.  That&#39;s why I like things like clean shot.  And then Gmail.  I use main gmail.  I have a pretty crazy customization to   gmail that I don&#39;t think will translate  to audio But maybe i&#39;ll i&#39;ll try to   find a link to where I found it like  over a decade ago But my email has like   a main feed and then like an urgent  Delegated, scheduled, like side feed   so I can move emails into these little  buckets just with like, with icons   so I&#39;ll maybe we&#39;ll put a screenshot  in the show notes for the first time.  I think I think we can do that.  I don&#39;t know if show notes support   images, but we&#39;ll find out.  Yeah, so I use that.  And then on my phone, I&#39;m using like   the default mail app for all of my  personal and Reno collective email.  And then I use the Gmail.  For work so that if I get it and I only   have notifications on my work email cause  we use discord for almost everything.  So I, if I get an email, it&#39;s like   probably something I need to read.  But we don&#39;t get, we had like   a few emails a day at most.  And usually that&#39;s more like DevRel   inbound stuff than specific stuff.  So  

CJ: Got it.  Yeah, I do the same on on mobile for sure.  Yeah, I love that you can switch   between the different Gmail  profiles pretty smoothly too.  Like that, that just, it works so cleanly.  So  

Colin: Yeah.  Separation of concerns.  

CJ: yes, exactly.  Exactly.  

Colin: Very cool.  I think that&#39;s our winners for   our personal app awards for the  

CJ: Yes.  

Colin: The things that we use, the things   that command our time and attention,  that&#39;s the real winners right there.  

CJ: Exactly.  Yep.  

Colin: Yeah, if you love the   show and want to share what apps  you use, you can tweet at us.  We don&#39;t talk a lot about our Twitter and   our You know, giving reviews for the show.  But if you want to help other people   find the show, you can review us on  Spotify, Apple podcasts, whatever   podcasting app you&#39;re using.  We&#39;re going to start getting   back into tweeting and doing some  audiograms and just trying to pull   the community together a little bit.  There are, there are dozens   of us, CJ, dozens of us.  

CJ: Nice.  All right.  That&#39;s all for this episode.  You can head over to buildandlearn.  dev to check out the show notes   and the links and all the resources  and yeah, we&#39;ll see you next time.  

Colin: Bye friends.  All audio, artwork, episode descriptions and notes are property of CJ Avilla, Colin Loretz, for Build and Learn, and published with permission by Transistor, Inc.  [**Broadcast by**](https://transistor.fm &quot;Broadcast by Transistor.fm&quot;)

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