Tools I pay for

The highest form of flattery, something so valuable and useful that I would pay out monthly or yearly for the privileges.

Name Price Purpose
Notion $48.00 / year daily joural, knowledge base, project management, trackers.
Hey.com $99.00 / year Email service in which the economics respect its users.
1Password $59.88 / year Password manager, developer tools, family sharing.
Dropbox $119.99 / year Document, photo, data backup.
Feedly $72.00 / year News feed manager.
Cloudflare Warp+ $4.99 / month Optimized DNS and internet routing - some semblance of privacy.
Cloudflare Workers $5.00 / month General purpose compute platform for cron jobs, games, tools, automation, web widgets and doodads.

Nomie

Brandon Corbin has worked tirelessly for years building beautiful personal journaling software and asking nearly nothing in return. I was happily a (small) supporter of his work monthly via Github Sponsors. Brandon has (very reasonably) decided to move on to new projects. Nomie has always been open source and Brandon has gone further by helping users self-host Nomie going forward. Thank you Brandon for everything you’ve built. So many people love and use your software daily.

I’m now using Nomie versions I’ve hosted on Cloudlare Pages:

My favorite things I track on Nomie: Sneezes, Pushups, Haircuts, Showers.

Other Critical Tools

  • Google Calendar. I’ve migrated to hey for email, but I still host my personal calendar on Google. I’m interested in dedicated tools like cal.com but haven’t yet looked into how to migrate to them yet.
  • Google Sheets.
  • Github.com.
  • Cloudflare Pages. State of the art static website hosting.
  • Apple Health.
  • iOS Shortcuts. Daily Wordle, Daily Face Picture.

Wearables / Body

  • Apple Watch. 45mm, Alumnium, Wifi Only.
  • Oura. Heritage Black, US10.
  • Fitbit. Charge HR 3 (running on fumes, screen no longer works).
  • Garmin. Forerunner 220.
  • Withings / Nokia Healthmate. Withings Body connected scale.
  • Oral-B iO. Connected Toothbrush.
  • BACtrack. Blood alcohol measurement.

Social Media

I’ve made my peace with using these tools in an purposeful (somewhat anti-social) way.

  • Swarm. Location checkins.
  • WhatsApp. Group chat.
  • Linkedin. Professional networking.
  • Strava. Fitness.
  • Reelgood. Movie/TV journal and recommendations.
  • Untappd. Beer journal and recommendations.
  • Vivino. Wine journal and recommendations.

Workflows

  • Feedly (read later and notes) -> IFTTT -> Google Sheets
  • Pocket -> IFTTT -> Google Sheets (link/article capture)
  • Peloton (bike) -> Strava -> IFTTT -> Google Sheets
  • Garmin (running) -> Strava - > IFTTT -> Google Sheets
  • Spotify -> Last.fm -> Last.fm to CSV
  • iOS Shortcuts -> Photo + Geotag -> Dropbox (daily face pic)
  • Wordle -> iOS Shortcuts -> Github.com -> Cloudflare Pages (Wordle results capture)
  • IFTTT geofencing -> Google Sheets (commute tracking)
  • Swarm -> IFTTT -> Google Sheets

Streaming Entertainment

  • Spotify
  • MLB.tv
  • Apple Podcasts
  • Peloton
  • Calm
  • Apple TV+
  • Netflix
  • Audible
  • HBO Max
  • Disney+
  • Shudder
  • Hulu
  • Amazon Prime

Tools I’m not using in 2023

  • Twitter. A car crash. Don’t rubberneck. Feedly brings me the news and links from the sources I value.