My personal computer setup

I use a MacBook pro as my main computer.

I use Brave as my main browser, and Chrome as a secondary browser for my always-open tracking documents.

I’ve set up profiles in Brave: Personal and Palisade.

My browser extensions

(Or checklist for setting up a new browser)

Pinned in the toolbar

• 1password

• Onetab

• Wayback machine
• Smart sessions - tab manager
• Go Full Page - Full page screen capture
• Google Translate
• Speechify
  • Pause hotkey set to: cmd + .

Hidden

• Intention - Stop mindless browsing
  • For the following sites
    • twitter.com
    • youtube.com
    • facebook.com
    • quora.com
    • smbc-comics.com
    • xkcd.com
    • existentialcomics.com
    • reddit.com
    • patreon.com
• Adblock plus
• News Feed eradicator
• Video download helper
• Inbox when ready for gmail
• Block site
  • Blocking:
    • Twitter
    • Youtube
    • XKCD
    • smbc-comics
    • existential comics
• HTML content blocker
  • Blocking: All media elements
    • Whitelist:
      • Khan Academy
      • 3blue1brown.com
      • Coursera.org
      • Otter.AI
      • Pateron.com
• Fatebook for Chrome
• Metamask
• Video speed controller
  • Remapping hotkeys (noting that I use Colemak):
    • Decrease speed: S
    • Increase speed: T
    • Rewind: W
    • Advance: F
• Rescue Time

Others software utilities

• Superwhisper
  • Turn off silence removal.
• Spaces Renamer
• CopyClip

Custom hotkeys

Window management

Action	Hot key
Maximize Window to the right half of the screen	shift + control + right arrow
Maximize Window to the left half of the screen	shift + control + left arrow
Maximize Window	shift + control + down arrow
Maximize Window to next monitor	shift + control + up arrow
Resize Window to right third of the screen
Resize Window to middle third of the screen
Resize window to the left third of the screen
Resize window to the upper right corner of the screen
Resize window to the lower right corner of the screen
Resize window to the lower left corner of the screen
Resize window to the upper left corner of the screen

Open/activate tool

Action	Hotkey
Open roam in a new window to the right	shift + control + e
Open a new webpage on this desktop	option + command + n
Open a new blank google sheet in a new window on the right side of the screen	shift + control + s
Open a new claude chat in a new window [or ChatGPT depending on which is my current daily driver]	shift + option + c
Open a new perplexity chat in a new window	shift + option + p
Activate super whisper	option + a [default hotkey]
Activate toggl track (desktop)

Desktop switching

Action	Hotkey
Switch desktop 1 and activate roam desktop app	control + option + q
Switch back to the previously activated window and previously activated app.	control + option + z

Text expanders

I use keyboard maestro to set up some hotkeys for text that I is annoying to type out, or that I type very frequently.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of some examples.

Text	Hotkey
¯_(ツ)_/¯	/shrug
[my calendar link]	/cal
#ankify	/an
[[compression]]	/com
[[quote]]	/qu
#ankify #[[ankify_roam: deck="Spaced Learning Projects::Sources"]] {{[[roam/render]]:((nU1XMzhKA)) "Block UID" }} #[[ankify_roam: suspend=False]]	/source
{{[[roam/render]]:((nU1XMzhKA)) "Block UID" }}#[[ankify_roam: suspend=True]]	/susp
@threadreaderapp @Twtextapp @unrollthread unroll @threader_app compile	/unroll

Other computer setup stuff

• My default keyboard layout is Colmak.
• I’ve set up my a macro on keyboard maestro so adding an an image added to my downloads folder automatically adds that image to the clipboard, for pasting.
• I’ve turned off the default mac setting that cause screenshots to appear as a popup in the bottom right, with a delay until it’s added to the target file, to allow for editing. It’s more convenient to have screenshots appear in my downloads (where I can copy them) immediately.