Franklin

My Everyday Tools

1/22/2020 tech

This is a documentation of useful tools to boost my everyday efficiency.

# Editors

I used to be interested in NeoVim (commands and cutomizations for coding, but later realize that VS Code is the world's best editor.

# Terminal

Though I have previously tried iTerm, which overloads with all kinds of fancy shortcuts, and Alacritty, which claims to be modern, use GPU for rendering and brags as "the fastest terminal emulator", I still switch back to Mac's plain old built-in Terminal app.

# Shell

I switched from Oh My Zsh (opens new window) to fish shell (opens new window) in October 2019, because my Mac was just updating to Catalina and Oh My Zsh failed to build. fish works as it claims: minimal customizations, intelligent autocompletions, beautiful color schemes, etc. I literally had nothing in my config.fish except alias definitions and path settings. My only grudge, however, is that fish is not POSIX compatible and I have to occasionally switch back to zsh when running some shell commands and files.

# Computer

I bought a Macbook Pro released in mid 2015, after I lost my ThinkPad in April 2017. I was very sad for the loss but quite happy after I have this 15-inch beast. It almost never disappoints me and almost never fails. I love it so much and I will use it until it breaks.

It broke once in September 2021, mainly by my own stupidity. I observed that my Mac battery then was quite bad and could only be used for about 5 hours. Due to the costly repair fee at Apple store, I bought a new battery online and tried to install it properly myself. Sadly, it did not go properly. I used hand sanitizer to replace ethanol when trying to clean the previous glue residue, and tilted my Mac let it soak for a night. Then, in the morning I found my keyboard was damaged. Then, I had to go to a repair store in downtown Munich for repair, which cost me more than what Apple store would have charged me.

It broke again in June 2022. When the keyboard didn't work, I brought it to the same store I went 9 months ago and changed the flex cable. However, one week later, the trackpad broke. I brought it to the guy again, he reset the PRAM and SMC and all was well. After another week, the keyboard broke again. It didn't help even after I reset the PRAM and SMC. I was tired and bought another Macbook Pro.

# Operating Systems

Needless to say, a Mac has macOS as its OS, which I am pretty satisfied with. I tried many other operating systems and want to give a brief overview.

  • Windows: I used to have a thousand stuff to complain about, but now I only have a hundred. The top item is it doesn't have a built-in terminal with usable shell and package manager. Any sensible person would not get hands dirty in the subsystem and dual boot businesses, and use PowerShell outside Windows
  • Linux: I have tried at least half a dozen distros by now (from what I can remember: Manjaro, openSUSE, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Cinnamon, Fedora, Deepin), but none of them satisfy my everyday needs after extensive tweaks. In the future, if and when I become a pro, I will probably try out ArchLinux, given that I would have a boring holiday and assign 3 days for installation. However, I don't think I will ever try out Gentoo, as every package is built from source and it takes periodic rebuilds

# Phone

I was a real Apple fanboy. My mom bought me my first MP3 player iPod in 2010. Then I had an iTouch and iPad. Afterwards I used several iPhone's. However, I gradually grew tired of the terrible camera (especially at night), unreliable battery (short life compared to Android phones & auto shut down when too cold), inflexible screen sizes (only two screen sizes for each version), late support for dual SIMs (only XS and after), and terrible support for 5G (12). Although Apple is still creating beautifully designed products, the products are not groundbreaking and ingenious anymore. Over past few years, iPhone borrowed many design ideas from Android phones and I gradually begin to doubt why I should pay more than twice the price for slow improvements and mediocre experience. The latest iPhone's are only good until the next generation comes out, and the old iPhone's don't drop prices much.

I bought a Xiaomi Mi X 2 before graduation in May 2018 and use it as a secondary phone. At first I thought it's alright, given its fine hardware and marvelous design. The best part I loved about it was the smooth ceramic back. It's the first phone ever to use porcelain for case, but I gradually fretted about its inconvenient heaviness. Last but not least, its OS, MIUI, though well-designed at first glance, is far from usable, broke in many little ways, and wasted so much of my time.

Right after I accidentally deleted all photos from my Xiaomi (sad and long story) and there wasn't a built-in feature to retrieve photos deleted no more than 30 days, I bought a Huawei Honor 20 for 2k RMB, or 300 USD, a Huawei Honor band for 200 RMB or 30 USD (not used as much as the phone), two Huawei Yoyo smart speakers. I am quite happy now.

After about two years, my Honor 20's screen broke. Because I could not repair it in Munich, I had to buy another phone. This time I chose the Honor 50. Most of the time I am pretty satisfied with this new gadget, but occassionally I am terrified of the terrible camera.

# Tablet

I got my first tablet, an iPad 2, in 2011 from my mom. It was very useful for my English learning: Podcast, iTunes U, TOEFL and SAT learning apps, etc. When I was a freshman, I traded it for iPad 4, but it never really was of much use. When I attended my first job in Hong Kong, I bought an Apple iPad Pro 12.9 (2018). I use it occasionally for video streaming, notes taking, and books reading, which could all be replaced by laptops and papers. It's not that useful other than occasional drawing demos.

# Deutsch

I use the following for German learning:

# Coda

"If a workman wishes to do a good job, he must first sharpen his tools"
工欲善其事，必先利其器

Thus, here comes my standards for tools:

  • affordability in price
  • design with good taste
  • boost in efficiency
  • user experience
  • convenience with customer services