Laracasts Uses
I often joke that, at my funeral, someone will ask, "Which syntax theme did he use?" Pick any Laracasts lesson and you’re bound to find at least one comment that ignores the subject matter of the video entirely, and instead focuses on what’s most important to us all: what theme and font is that?
I’ve put this off for long enough. Following in the footsteps of many developers before me, here’s an exhaustive list of all the tools I use in my daily workflow.
Office Setup
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For a number of years, I relied on my 2015 iMac as my primary workstation. Only recently have I upgraded to the latest 2021 Macbook Pro M1 Max. And the hype is real. This thing is blazing fast.
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Sure, it would be nice to have one of those fancy XDR displays. But, no, I will not spend $5,000 on a monitor. The Mac Studio Display is as much as I'm willing to grudgingly spend. It's not the most impressive monitor in the world, but it gets the job done - and looks nice.
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If I had my way, this keyboard would offer 20% more travel. But, other than that, it’s the best keyboard I’ve used. Gone are the days of the horrid butterfly keyboard.
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I spent many years exclusively using the trackpad of my laptop. Why bother with a mouse? Yo, it’s not the 1990s! And then I, on a whim, tried a traditional mouse again. Oh how I’ve missed you. I can’t say that the Magic Mouse is the most ergonomic - by a long stretch - of the available choices, but, hey, it does its job just fine. I’ve no complaints.
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Anthrodesk Adjustable Standing and Karlby Walnut Countertop
Programmers spend a disproportionate percentage of each day sitting. As we all know, this can have dramatic effects on energy levels and back-pain (not to mention eye-strain). To circumvent this issue, a couple of years ago, I switched to a standing desk. This particular model includes a motorized lift that allows me to switch between sitting and standing position within seconds.
The Anthrodesk doesn’t include the table-top base, so I’ve opted for an Ikea walnut countertop. I wish its depth was 20% wider, but I’ll manage.
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Most desk mats are either too small or cheap-feeling. After seeking recommendations on Twitter, I decided on the 80cm x 40cm black leather desk mat from ULX. It looks great and is exactly what I needed.
Development
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A couple years ago, I came to the conclusion that I could no longer ignore the power of PHPStorm. While the majority of my coding was spent using lightning fast code editors like Vim and Sublime Text, the truth is that PHPStorm has finally matured to the point that I’m far more efficient in it - even after deducting a few points for being understandably slower than its less-ambitious alternatives.
I do, however, prefer that my code editor is as "clear of clutter" as possible. With this in mind, I hide or disable most of PHPStorm’s default buttons and panels.
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Not every coding task requires that I fire up PHPStorm. I’ve reached a nice workflow that combines PHPStorm and Sublime Text to harness the best of both worlds. For quicker edits to codebases that I’m incredibly familiar with, I still prefer the speed of Sublime Text.
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Carbon is a beautiful minimalist dark theme that I’ve been using for a number of months now. Honestly, at this point I’m not sure I’ll ever find the perfect syntax theme, but this one will do for now.
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Monospaced fonts are much like syntax themes. "This next font will be the one that sticks." While I’ve been faithful to Menlo for many years, I’ve recently been enjoying Jetbrains Mono Font.
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A decade ago, Firefox and Firebug (developer tools extension) were the development tools of choice. …And then Google Chrome was released. Fast-forward to today, however, and preferences seem to be reversing once again. I and many others have now switched back to Firefox, thanks to its drastically improved and friendly development tools.
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Up until recently, I used Sequel Pro exclusively for my database management needs. Unfortunately, development seems to have stalled more than I’d like. After months of a rage-inducing bug that would exit the app each time you close a tab, I gave up, pulled up my sleeves, and researched a replacement. That replacement is Table Plus. Though I’m still retraining my muscle-memory, I’m happy I made the switch.
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For years, I was a happy iTerm user. But it took ten minutes with the Rust-based terminal, Warp, to make me instantly switch. Warp feels like a terminal made for 2022. Every video tutorial from me (Jeffrey) in 2022 or later uses Warp.
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If it can be installed through Homebrew, then I’m installing it through Homebrew. And that’s all I have to say about that.
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Frank Deloupe
For the times when I quickly need to grab the hex value for a color, I use a Mac utility app called Frank Deloupe. There’s no shortage of little tools like this, so pick the one that works best for your needs.
Hosting
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I don’t enjoy building up servers and editing nginx files. I find it confusing and tedious. As such, I’m more than happy to offload this work entirely to Laravel Forge.
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All of my projects run on Digital Ocean. I can’t recommend it enough. Even better, its documentation and tutorial offerings are second to none.
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I use Cloudflare to optimize the performance of Laracasts in a variety of ways. Some of it, I understand. And some of it is like black magic. Tick a checkbox and suddenly mobile rendering speeds improve by 50%. I’ll take it!
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For many years now, Hover has been my preferred source for new domain purchases. It's incredibly convenient to have a single entry-point for every domain you own.
Team Workflow
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The true value of Trello didn’t click until I began working with a team of people. By myself, Trello is an appealing workflow that I’d quickly abandon after a week or two. As part of a team, however, it’s a vital component of my daily structure. We use it to signal our progress on a variety of important projects.
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When working with my UX designer, Adrian, we use Marvel extensively for basic wire-framing and prototypes. It allows me to first review how a website feels before writing a single line of HTML.
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Once we’ve agreed on a new design, Adrian hands it off to me via Zeplin. With this application, I can instantly grab the relevant SVGs and CSS with the click of a button. I can’t tell you how much time this saves, when compared to the old days of manually slicing up a Photoshop file.
Focus
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When reviewing task management apps, you’ll surely find countless references to Todoist and Things. I’ve used and can recommend both; however, these days, TickTick is my go-to app of choice. Since switching, I’ve lost the desire to research alternatives (something I’d been doing for years).
My life does not work without this application. From family activities to important work deadlines and tasks, everything is filtered through TickTick. My day begins with a review of the "today" tab, and concludes by checking off the final task for the day.
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A replacement for the Alfred app, Raycast is another new addition to my workflow in 2022. Whether quickly opening a browser, or inserting a snippet, or running a custom AppleScript file, Raycast is the tool I use. It's the "20 in 1 pocket knife" of computer productivity.
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For general brainstorming and "thought-dumping," I reach for Bear. Though you can certainly use the notes app that ships with Mac OS, Bear offers a cleaner GUI with Markdown support.
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In a recent effort to reduce my reliance on various Google services, I’ve abandoned Gmail in favor of Fastmail. Though not free, I’ve been quite happy with it.
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Until recently, I used 1Password exclusively for password management. I’ve since switched to the default password manager that’s included with Firefox. I’m told this isn’t a smart idea, but oh well. It works.
Screencasting
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For many years now, I’ve used Screenflow for all Laracasts screencasts. Again, I’m sure there are more sophisticated options available. For my needs, it works great. It’s not without a few bugs here and there, but I’d still recommend it whole-heartedly.
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Shure SM7B with a Fethead preamp
I recently upgraded to the Shure SM7B from my Rode NTG-2. Though it requires a bit more equipment, I think the improved audio quality was worth the effort.
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Unlike simpler USB-based mics, the SM7B requires an audio interface to convert the signal for your computer. If your only requirement is to record basic dialog, keep it simple with something like this (rather than spending thousands of dollars on a fancier solution).
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I, no joke, ran Laracasts for many years by balancing a USB mic on a stack of books while I recorded. Ridiculous, and yet, it did the trick just fine. But, yes, be smarter than me and spend $100 on a decent boom mic stand. The Heil PL-2T took less than five minutes to install and works perfectly.
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For the Laracasts Snippet podcast, I still record and edit in Screenflow - if only because the various keyboard shortcuts are ingrained into my fingers. Once edited, I send the audio through a post production web service called Auphonic.
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There’s no shortage of podcast management services at this point, but I’ve been happy with Simplecast since the beginning.
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Vimeo has provided the video platform for Laracasts since the beginning. It’s an order of magnitude cheaper than every alternative I’ve considered.
Business
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For the Laracasts business checking account, I've been quite happy with Novo. It's a beautiful app and offers everything a small business like mine needs. I'd highly recommend it over most traditional banking options - many of which still haven't gotten the memo that an attractive and functional banking dashboard is a prerequisite in 2022.
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Every Laracasts charge is piped through Stripe’s billing API, and I’d have it no other way. In exchange for a small percentage of each sale, I’m able to offload the incredibly complicated subscription management to Stripe.
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I use ADP for the Laracasts payroll, but can’t recommend it. We’ve stuck with them over the years due to sheer laziness. One day, we’ll migrate to a more modern-feeling platform.
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I enjoy writing code and teaching, but there’s more to the puzzle of running a business, unfortunately. For bookkeeping and tax planning, I offload as much as possible to my accountants at Maher & Company. Some advice to future small business-owners: get yourself a good accountant sooner than later. They’re worth their weight in gold.
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Basic Email Support
If, at some point in the future, I hire customer service reps for Laracasts, I will reach for a dedicated support platform. However, as it’s currently only me answering questions, basic email and tagging works just fine and dandy. Keep it simple.
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Though I rarely send out email newsletters, when I need to, I reach for Campaign Monitor.
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For transaction-related emails, I’ve tried a number of services over the years. Though not the cheapest, Postmark is the first service that I rarely have to think about it. It just works. No unexplainable email bouncing or rejections.