All these services are great and free because I’m a cheap ass 😂
In no particular order:
Table of Contents
- VS Code
- SmartGit
- Linux Mint (Cinnamon)
- Chrome Chrome
- Stremio/Trakt
- Trello
- YouTube (Music)
- Sentry
- VLC
- GitHub
- Kite (AI)
- Grammarly
- LastPass
- Pocket Casts
- Gmail
VS Code
VS (Visual Studio) Code is my code editor of choice. After a few years of neglecting it and preferring Atom, I decided to give it a try and fell in love. It was faster and more intuitive. I distinctly remember being able to click a file name in the terminal and the editor opening it, same happened a few minutes later but with something like ./path/file:42 on an error, and clicking it took me to that exact line! 😍
It’s a great editor, fast, reliable, full of features and extensions. At the moment I’m 99% happy with VS Code and don’t intend to change editor.
And I’m even writing this very same article in VS Code! In markdown files!
SmartGit
SmartGit is the tool I prefer to handle more complex tasks on my Git repositories. On my how to be a 10x developer post I’ve previously shared that I use ZSH and have a few aliases for git but when the time comes to do more complex things like merging branches or simply having a bird’s eye view of the entire state of the repository (synced status, local branch, commit history, diffs, etc) I prefer to use SmartGit as it saves me the time of googling some weird commands that I only use once in a while.
Linux Mint (Cinnamon)
Linux Mint is my OS (Operating System) of choice. Why? Free and Open.
I’m a developer and as a developer, I like control and the ability to tinker with what I’m using if it doesn’t fit me I can make adjustments.
With that said, on one hand, M$ (Microsoft) and Apple are too close and don’t let me personalize enough or even contribute back to the OS if there’s a bug and on the other hand we have the Linux distributions.
I used Ubuntu for a few years but got tired of the left side menu and Canonical making dumb decisions (like they still do with snap…🤦🏻♂) and then I settled down on Linux Mint Cinnamon.
Here is a list of the best features:
- Dark theme everywhere out of the box.
- Beautiful accent colors (green for me!) and aesthetic overall.
- Simply works.
- Windows XP style menu on bottom left.
- Small (or big, can be personalized!) the bottom bar.
- Super fast updates!
Linux is simply the choice of most power users. It’s just perfect. What more could you ask for? (bigger adoption)
Chrome Chrome
What can I say? Google Chrome a great browser, it’s leading the way on many fronts and pushing the web forward. There’s just no good enough reason to use any other browser. And nowadays they are all Chromium-based and look 95% alike. Everything! They are just copy cats…
As a power user, I know all the shortcuts and as a developer, I’m very used to the developer tools.
Stremio/Trakt
Stremio and Trakt are my choices when it comes to watching series and keeping track of what I’ve watched and what I have to watch. Nowadays due to adulting, I have less and less time to watch stuff and even less to track it. That means I need help…
I use Stremio (on PC and Android TV) to get my favorite series independently where/when they are (channel/TV network/time slot) and then use Trakt to sync everything across devices so that I know where I left of. I also use Hobi on Android to check shows information and get notified when something is out.
If you are curious check out my profile on Trakt to see what I’ve been watching
Trello
Trello is my tool of choice for organizing projects. From small personal ones to company-wide ones.
It’s so good to know what has to be done (usually on the left), what is being done and what’s already done.
YouTube (Music)
Who doesn’t know YouTube? It’s great right!? But why is it on my list? Because I use it as TV and also as educational information. It’s a great resource nowadays. Imagine having the world information at your fingertips and being able to watch someone doing something and learn from it. It’s an apprentice democratization. You can learn anything, from coding to raising animals on a farm.
Then we get YouTube Music which is a great resource to keep me company while I code, study, or simply have fun dancing 🕺🏻💃
Sentry
Sentry is an awesome product for error and performance tracking. What does that mean? It means you can get the stack traces or error logs from when your app/site crashes/errors. I don’t mean logical errors in your code but actual errors like exceptions that weren’t caught or parsing errors or something you would “see in red”.
Along with those errors, it collects general information like browser version, operating system, time, location, IP, etc to give you a good sense of why something is broken.
VLC
VLC is a media player. Why is it in this list you ask? Because it basically “eats anything”. What I mean by that is that it’s able to read pretty much any video file you throw at it. That means it will be the last media player you will ever need.
GitHub
GitHub is another great resource/service for developers. It empowers most of the code world by providing public and private repositories for free! As well as many other features like GitHub Actions (which are so good!) and access to a huge network of developers around the world! It’s the social network for developers.
Checkout my awesome profile on GitHub.com you will not regret it! Follow me? 😁
Kite (AI)
Kite is an awesome AI (Artificial Intelligence) helper that gives you code suggestions while you are coding based on your current code and AI knowledge. At some points, all you have to do to code entire function(s) is get suggestions and accept suggestions. It’s that good!
Grammarly
Grammarly is a great extension that I featured in my blog post on the Chrome extensions I use and it allows me to do fewer typos and be more professional when communicating in English since it’s not my native language.
LastPass
LastPass is a great service that generates, stores, and syncs your passwords. This way you don’t have to remember anything and can be safer by having better passwords. To read more on why I choose it and use it about it on my blog post on the Chrome extensions I use
Pocket Casts
Pocket Casts is my app of choice to download and listen to podcasts, which I do every single day.
I’ve also written a blog post on what podcasts I listen to and why
Gmail
Gmail is another well know service that everyone uses and loves. The fact that you can get your email free and free of spam is great! It’s fast and reliable and I rarely see spam! 👀📬
These are the services I use the most. Did you find a new one to use?
Do you recommend I try other ones? Let me know on Twitter @rodrigograca31
