Personal Computer Software

  • Mac OS X - My primary operating system at home.
    • TextWrangler - A pretty good and free text editor.
    • iTunesMenu - Displays information about the song currently playing in iTunes in the menubar and also allows quick control via hotkeys or the menubar. Still works with Mac OS X 10.9 (and supposedly 10.10) even though the website only mentions support for 10.4.
    • TinkerTool - A utility that allows you to customize Mac OS X and some of the included apps a little more.
  • Firefox - My primary web browser. Extensions allow you to customize it to work more to your liking.
    • NoScript - Prevents lots of JavaScript from running which significantly improves security and privacy, prevents things from running slowly, saves bandwidth, helps improve battery life, and keep computers running cooler.
    • uBlock Origin - Removes most obnoxious ads from web pages which significantly improves security and privacy, prevents things from running slowly, saves bandwidth, helps improve battery life, and keep computers running cooler.
  • HandBrake - A great video transcoder for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux that you can use for converting DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and other video files into smaller video files that are more compatible with your media playing devices.
  • LibreOffice - A free office suite comparable to Microsoft Office available for most operatings system.
  • Transmission - A great BitTorrent client for Mac OS X, BSDs, and Linux.
  • VirtualBox - Free virtualization software for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux which you can use for running almost any x86 operating system from within your operating system at near native speeds.
  • VLC - A media player for most operating systems that can handle just about any type of media file you throw at it.

Server Software

  • Debian, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD - Reasonably stable, fast, and secure Unix-like operating systems which are nice for servers.
  • OpenWRT - An elegant operating system for many home routers which allows you to do far more things with it than you normally could. Running some things on a home router instead of a dedicated server can be nice because the router is normally on all the time already, uses less power, and is usually completely silent. I'm using my home router for running DNS, file, PXE, and TFTP servers and also for monitoring servers.
  • OpenSSH - An SSH server and client that runs on most Unix-like operating systems.
  • Let's Encrypt - A project to secure the Internet by providing free certificates for anyone.
  • nginx - A web server that runs on most operating systems.
  • Dovecot - An IMAP (and POP) email server that runs on most Unix-like operating systems.
  • Postfix - An SMTP email server that runs on most Unix-like operating systems.
  • Zabbix - Network monitoring software that runs on most Unix-like operating systems to help make sure things are working and performing well.

VPS Providers

  • Vultr - I'm currently hosting this very web site (and a bunch of other things) on a VPS from Vultr. No VPS downtime and only a small amount of network issues after the first four months using them.
  • RamNode - I previously hosted this web site (and a bunch of other things) on a VPS from RamNode for around five years. During that entire time I think there was only one or two occurrences of unplanned VPS downtime/reboots and no significant amount of network issues. I changed to Vultr in 2018 because of better pricing but RamNode is still worth considering.

Web Sites

  • National Weather Service - Plain and simple weather information.
  • Slashdot - Tech industry news and great discussions.
  • Ars Technica - Tech industry news.
  • The Guardian - U.S. and world news.
  • Wikipedia - Get information on just about any topic.
  • xkcd - A great webcomic targeted more towards geeks. Updated every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Also don't forget to hover the cursor over each comic.
  • W3Schools - Great reference site for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc...
  • W3C Markup Validation Service - A nice website for helping to verify that your HTML is following standards.
  • SSL Server Test - A nice website for system administrators and web developers for checking the security for the HTTPS setup on websites.
  • WebPagetest - A nice website for system administrators and web developers for showing web site performance in detail.
  • camelcamelcamel - A great website for checking price history of items on Amazon and setting up email notifications for price drops.