JetBrains All Products Pack: Worth every penny, it makes me a better coder and makes my work much more enjoyable. I use JetBrains products every day (have been using this for almost 10 years), and I am extremely satisfied, they continue to amaze me with what an intelligent IDE can do. 3 years onwards and the annual fee is only $149, feels like a steal.
GitHub Copilot: I hugely underestimated what GitHub copilot was capable of. Now I can trust GitHub Copilot to generate code for me. I have been using it for a few months now, and it has been a great experience. I have been able to write code much faster, and it makes the process of writing code more fun. It could even help me write sentences for my blog. (much like ChatGPT, and it integrates with the IDE seamlessly)
Adobe Creative Cloud: I use it for photo / video / audio editing. Lightroom and Photoshop are what I use the most. I also use Premiere, After Effects and Acrobat sometimes. It’s quite pricey, I’m an amateur at video editing, so I don’t get the most value out of the Creative Cloud subscription. But I guess this service is a must, there’s nothing that can take the place of Photoshop.
Docker: I use Docker Pro not only because it is now not allowed to use Docker Personal commercially, but also because the private repositories and image build features offered by DockerHub is really helpful. I use docker for all my side projects. It feels very good to set up GitHub integration with DockerHub, so that whenever you push code to GitHub, a Docker image will get built. To deploy that service, I just need to do docker run.
YouTube Premium: I have learnt so much from YouTube, it taught me much more than my college education did. There are so many great content creators in YouTube, a YouTube Premium subscription is well worth the price.
Audible: I enjoy listening to audiobooks while commuting. Audible has got all the top-quality audiobooks, and it’s very convenient to use. I have been using Audible for 10 years now, with Audible I can read 2-3 books every month. (I find that I don’t read books as much as I used to, but I listen to a lot of audiobooks - listening to audiobooks is so much easier)
dida365: I’m a TODO list fanatic. I frequently add items to my TODO list and check it, therefore I rely significantly on these applications to plan my day. This service is efficient and enables sharing of my to-do list with family. Although I haven’t looked into other options, I believe this one is enough.
GitHub Pro: GitHub offers so much and only costs $4 each month. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t pay for it. CI/CD on GitHub is really sweet, actually I host this blog on GitHub.
ForwardMX: This service serves my vanity. With this service, I could use catchy email addresses such as me [at] ke.wang, and have emails sent to this address forwarded to my Gmail / Proton account. Also, they offer SMTP services, allowing me to set up my Gmail to send emails from me [at] ke.wang to other people. Another advantage is that if I ever decide not to use Gmail, I could quickly change the configuration and have all emails forwarded to another email service provider. (Maybe there are cheaper alternatives, value for money is so-so, because I don’t have any other team member to split the cost with. And occasionally I suspect some emails get lost in the forwarding process.)
RescueTime: This is a productivity tool that helps me track my time spent on different applications. It also helps me understand how I spend my time, and how I can improve my productivity. It satisfies / motivates me to see how productive I have been each day.
BitWarden: BitWarden is an open-source password manager. I used to use KeePass, but all the hassles of backing up and syncing the database finally led me to BitWarden. BitWarden has got a solid implementation, almost as good as 1Password. The best part is that you can self-host BitWarden, so all the data goes with you, and it’s also cheaper than 1Password. (I’m not worried that 1Password may leak my data - I know it’s theoretically impossible for them to peek into my data. The primary reason for self-hosting is that we have difficulty in accessing 1Password services from Mainland China. Anyway, I’m just saying password managers with sync features are great apps to have, now I use a different random password for every website, I also store credit card information in it, and use them for time based one-time passwords too. If there are cases where I need to save recovery codes (like, BitLocker or 2FAs for some websites), I upload these files as attachments.)
Proton: I don’t know what made me sort of go from Gmail to Proton. Proton’s service just feels very likeable. Proton Unlimited is reasonably priced, and it gives you 15 email aliases (and 3 custom email domains). I suppose I just want to try new things, even if I could have accomplished the same goal with Gmail and ForwardMX. Another pleasant surprise is that their service (Android app) works out-of-the-box in Mainland China. I guess that’s why I chose it.
healthchecks.io: This is a great service for monitoring any periodic tasks. I use crontab to back up my data automatically, but how do I know the backup actually happened? I use healthchecks.io. Just append a && curl https://healthchecks.io/.. command to crontab, and you’re done. When the backup fails, you’ll get an email and SMS notification. Just remember, without monitoring, backups are useless.
Cleanshot: This is the best Mac screenshot / screen recording software. I used to use Snagit, but I like Cleanshot so much better. It is very easy to use, and it has got a lot of features.
Alfred: This is a famous productivity app for Mac, I guess there’s not much I need to say. I use custom workflows and snippets auto-expansion. Alfred also helps me search through all recent clipboard history, and I can quickly paste the content I want. A must-have for any Mac user.
SmartGit: a classic Git client. Sometimes a GUI is just easier to use than the command line when it comes to Git.
BeyondCompare: I use this app to compare files and folders, works fine. I sync my library (e.g. MusicLibrary / PhotoLibrary) from my local Mac to my NAS (mounted with APFS) with BeyondCompare.
QuillBot: “QuillBot helps you eliminate grammar errors and paraphrase content”. This tool helps me write better English, it is so much better than Grammarly! I feel that this tool is built based on the next generation of neural network, while Grammarly is just Meh.
Speechify: This service is a text-to-speech service, it produces natural and pleasant-sounding voices. I use it to listen to my blog posts before publishing them. I also use it when I have got bad eyestrain and don’t want to read long emails. One final use I found is that I could record some professional-sounding demo videos with this service (the voice produced by is service will be the voiceover for my demo video, though azure speech studio might be able to accomplish this just as well or even better.)
Roon: It feels so good to own a hand-picked MusicLibrary and stream music to anywhere in your household. Roon allows you to do exactly that. I pair it with HQPlayer and DACs for an amazing HiFi experience (I think music is a crucial part of a programmer’s quality of life).
Tidal: I pair Roon with Tidal, I could listen to a large collection of HiFi music with Tidal. And the “Roon Radio” feature really works great with Tidal, I could discover wonderful new music with it, directly from Tidal’s giant library.
Manycam: Virtual camera and streaming software, a better alternative than OBS Studio. It’s a shame that they cancelled lifetime license. You can use this in a Zoom meeting, when giving a live lecture, or when you are trying to record an instructional video.
Waking Up by Sam Harris: A great meditation app. I used to use Headspace then I switched to Waking Up. Headspace is a lot of repetition, and it feels hollow very quickly. Waking Up has much more content, even some very advanced teachings, and Sam’s voice is what I picture as the ideal for a meditation teacher. (Read Sam’s Waking Up book first, if you like it, then you’ll like the app.)
Global Network Acceleration Services: It’s a sad fact for us living in Mainland China, without these services I can’t even work, can’t even pull code from GitHub. All I’d say is that, as a professional, invest in a good one.
Server in Mainland China with public IP: I use this for self-hosting apps such as BitWarden, I also use this for port-forwarding (using frp) so that I can access my home NAS from any location. My server has 50Mbps bandwidth, which would have been very expensive to purchase from well-known suppliers like Aliyun. Instead, I purchased this service from a small provider which I found from Taobao, and it only costs a fraction of what I would have paid to Aliyun. However, be very careful as some small providers may be very irresponsible, they may disappear overnight, and you may lose your server and your data. Choose a trustworthy provider, and have backup for all your data. I never trust providers that don’t provide a server control panel, I always go with providers who do, so I can manage my server myself any time I need to. Currently, I’m using 10cloud.cn (亿付云), and it’s working well thus far.
ToDesk: This is a great remote desktop software, quite like TeamViewer. It has got a lot of features and is very reliable. I use it to access my Desktop computer from anywhere. It’s currently very inexpensive so I’m very happy with the service they could provide.
Magnet: Mac app to “Organize Your Workspace”. Basically, now you can use a shortcut to maximize your windows, or snap windows to a corner of the screen. Sounds trivial, but it is very useful!
Paletro: Command Palette in any applications on macOS by pressing ⇧⌘P. Sometimes you’d like to find a feature from an app instantly, without having your flow interrupted. This app allows you to do that. In this aspect this tool feels like Alfred.
Ludwig: This service is like a search engine for “good English”. It helps me write better English. But TBH it is overpriced, I don’t use it enough.
Vocabulary.com: The best website for building vocabulary, much better than those apps offered free of charge in Mainland China. Especially when you are ready to learn some more advanced words. (If your vocabulary is 20000+ and you still want to improve then you should definitely try this website.)