These are the real tools I use—no affiliate links, no influencer fluff. I’m not paid to recommend them. (But if you want to sponsor my next coffee, DM me. I take crypto and strong opinions.)
LLMs & AI
OpenAI ChatGPT
The “don’t-make-me-think” of AIs. I use it for everything: code, writing, existential questions at 2 a.m., and occasionally to diagnose why my life is a recursive loop.
Google Gemini
Google’s AI overlord—great for research, Workspace productivity, and reminding me that Google knows what I’m thinking before I do.
Anthropic Claude
The “well-behaved” one. Reliable, polite, and safe. I use Claude when I want answers that won’t get me on a watchlist.
xAI Grok
Elon’s brainchild—great for news and context, but don’t ask it about unionization. Ideal for technical rabbit holes and Muskian hot takes.
Specialized Tools
LM Studio
Run all the open-source LLMs locally. Sometimes you need an AI that doesn’t phone home—or judge your prompts.
Hugging Face
Open-source model heaven. Think GitHub, but for neural nets and people who unironically use the 🤗 emoji.
Leonardo
AI image wizard. Good for making cybernetic rabbits, steampunk cityscapes, and at least three projects that will never see daylight.
Eleven Labs
The AI voice that reads my emails back to me in a tone of vague disappointment.
D-ID
For when you absolutely need to make a JPEG talk. Great for demo reels, presentations, or haunting your friends with unsettling avatars.
NotebookLM
My digital brain. Helps me pretend I have my notes together. Organizational system: chaos plus a search bar.
Learning Tools
Cisco Networking Academy
For when I want to understand networks—human or otherwise—that aren’t just Discord servers.
Udemy
Where I learn everything from Python to underwater basket weaving. Still waiting for “How to Manage AI Rabbits in Production.”
edX
Ivy League courses, minus the debt and with a lot more midnight snacks.
Website & SEO Tools
Link Research Tools
If you care about backlinks more than sleep, this is the toolkit. Link Detox, Link Simulator, and enough data to make your head spin. Side effects: sudden insights, mild paranoia.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
The only spider I don’t scream at. Finds broken links, crawl errors, and stuff you forgot you published.
Siteliner
Finds duplicate content, broken links, and the ghosts of blog posts past.
Majestic SEO
Measures your site’s “Trust Flow”—which is more than most people have. Still the gold standard for link nerds.
SEMrush
Slick interface, powerful tools. Keyword research, competitor stalking, dashboards for days.
Ahrefs
Raw, powerful, and so detailed you’ll wonder if it’s watching you through your webcam.
Dev Tools
Pycharm
Best Python IDE, period. Fast, robust, and feature-rich (I’ve only unlocked 20% of it). And yes, you can dev in other languages too.
Junie
The JetBrains coding agent. Handles routine tasks, plans, tests, and probably dreams of escaping the IDE. I keep it busy so it doesn’t unionize.
Python
Automates my tasks, powers my data obsession, and lets me build backends that (mostly) don’t break.
Next.js
React, but with actual superpowers. Fast, modern web apps, smooth routing, less crying in production.
React
My UI engine of choice. Lets me build interactive components so users can click things and feel accomplished.
Tailwind
CSS, minus the therapy bills. Utility-first, direct-in-markup styling. I’d marry it if I could.
I’m Clapping…
If you read this far, congratulations:
You now know more about my workflow than most of my clients. For questions, recommendations, or to suggest a better IDE, hit me up. If you’re looking for a secret weapon—I already listed it. (It’s caffeine.)