00:00:00
you couldn't tell, there's nothing I
00:00:01
love more than finding a tool that
00:00:02
solves a problem that I have. I made a
00:00:04
video all about some underrated tools
00:00:06
that I really liked last year, and y'all
00:00:08
loved it. The feedback on the video was
00:00:09
nuts, and I knew I had to film another.
00:00:11
So, I collected a pile of tools that I
00:00:13
love using, filmed the video, and then
00:00:16
non-stop news. Been sitting on this one
00:00:18
for a little bit, so apologies if I like
00:00:20
trying out tools that make your life
00:00:21
easier, both as a dev and as a non-dev.
00:00:23
There's a lot of cool stuff in this
00:00:25
video. I still use all the stuff in it
00:00:26
every day. Hopefully, you benefit from
00:00:28
it. So, uh, without further ado, let's
00:00:30
hear from Blondon Theo. This tool is
00:00:32
interesting. It's an extension for the
00:00:34
browser that fixes a lot of the
00:00:36
annoyances I have with GitHub. It's
00:00:38
called Refined GitHub, and I cannot
00:00:40
believe I didn't know about this before
00:00:42
or that I didn't have it start, so I
00:00:44
just fixed that. Refined GitHub has a
00:00:46
lot of little nicities that have made my
00:00:48
life much better. Small things like it
00:00:50
changes the color based on recency here.
00:00:54
But the one I've relied on the most is
00:00:56
in projects that have a lot of poll
00:00:57
requests like this one, quickpick, which
00:01:00
my video just came out on and people
00:01:02
flipped on. I had a ton of PRs open on
00:01:06
this. It is so much easier for me to go
00:01:08
through things due to it. First off, it
00:01:11
will change your default sort. So, if I
00:01:13
go from code back to pull requests, it
00:01:16
changes the sort order by default. As
00:01:17
you saw when I switched tabs, now it's
00:01:19
going to be sorted by what's most
00:01:20
recently updated, not what was most
00:01:22
recently opened. This should be the
00:01:24
default sort. I don't know why it isn't.
00:01:25
It's so nice. They just sneak that in
00:01:27
for me. But they also add a little bit
00:01:29
of nicities around here, too, where if I
00:01:31
request changes, it shows that there. It
00:01:33
shows the updated time there. Really big
00:01:35
letters. It makes navigating things on
00:01:38
GitHub and dealing with giant projects
00:01:40
with a lot of contributors significantly
00:01:43
easier. I've been enjoying it a lot. You
00:01:45
should give it a shot. Next is a tool
00:01:46
you guys are probably familiar with
00:01:48
because I use it for all of my videos.
00:01:49
But do you know what else I have in all
00:01:51
my videos? A sponsor. So, let's hear
00:01:52
from them. Really quick, do you know
00:01:54
what T3 Chat is? If you do, cool. But if
00:01:56
you don't, let's do a real quick
00:01:57
overview. It's the best AI chat app ever
00:01:59
made. And when I say that, I mean it. I
00:02:01
used all the other apps. They sucked.
00:02:03
So, I spent way too much time building
00:02:04
my own. And I've been blown away with
00:02:06
it. Both in how hard it is to make, but
00:02:08
more importantly, how supportive y'all
00:02:10
have been since I put it out. We have
00:02:11
tens of thousands of people using T3
00:02:13
Chat every single day, and none of them
00:02:15
can go back to the other sites because
00:02:17
they kind of suck to use now. be it the
00:02:19
model picker with literally every single
00:02:21
model you'd ever want to use. The image
00:02:23
gen that actually works using the OpenAI
00:02:25
image gen stuff. So yeah, you get 100
00:02:28
images a month plus access to all of
00:02:30
these other models. 1,500 messages a
00:02:32
month to the vast majority of them. A
00:02:34
couple expensive ones are locked under a
00:02:35
premium tier. You'll see all that when
00:02:36
you sign up. Our free tier is also super
00:02:38
generous. If you stick to models like
00:02:40
Gemini 2.5 Flash, you can probably use
00:02:42
this for free. But if you want the fancy
00:02:43
models, it's only eight bucks a month
00:02:45
for everything I just showed. I know you
00:02:47
probably think we're going bankrupt, but
00:02:49
it's it's on the line. I know it's one
00:02:50
of the best deals in AI because again,
00:02:52
I've used all the other apps. We picked
00:02:54
this price for a reason. I'm really
00:02:55
proud of what we built. If you haven't
00:02:57
signed up yet, definitely give it a
00:02:58
shot. You can try it out for free or if
00:03:00
you want one free month of the pro tier.
00:03:02
We'll give 300 people a free
00:03:04
subscription for a month using the code
00:03:06
cool-tools at checkout. Don't cancel and
00:03:09
resub, by the way. It won't work. It
00:03:10
just hurts our metrics a ton. Seriously,
00:03:12
this will only work for new users.
00:03:14
That's how Stripe is set up. I wish I
00:03:15
could give it to you guys otherwise, but
00:03:16
it is what it is. And thank you all
00:03:18
again for the support. It's been unreal
00:03:20
being able to pitch my own product in
00:03:22
videos like this. This video is all
00:03:24
about tools I use every day. This is a
00:03:26
tool I use every day. If you want to see
00:03:27
why, go give it a shot. Anyways, back to
00:03:30
whatever blond Theo was just saying.
00:03:32
Sorry about that. Need to pay bills and
00:03:34
keep my team fed. Anyways, on the topic
00:03:36
of how I keep my team fed, Excal is an
00:03:38
essential essential tool for us. Sorry I
00:03:41
had it in light mode. It defaults there.
00:03:43
And I honestly like the light mode, but
00:03:44
I know you guys get blinded, so I'll
00:03:46
throw it in dark. Excalador made me fall
00:03:48
in love with whiteboarding. I've had
00:03:51
horrible penmanship my entire life. I
00:03:53
almost got held back in elementary
00:03:55
school because of how unreadable my own
00:03:57
writing was. As such, I've always hated
00:04:00
whiteboarding, especially for
00:04:01
interviews. I was so nervous going into
00:04:03
interviews because if I had to be on a
00:04:05
whiteboard, I wouldn't be able to do
00:04:06
anything. I'd just be frozen trying to
00:04:08
make my letters readable. Excaladraw was
00:04:10
the first time I could do something like
00:04:11
whiteboarding and diagramming without
00:04:14
being limited by my penmanship. And if
00:04:16
it wasn't for Excaladraw, I don't know
00:04:17
if I would have ever started content
00:04:19
creation because when I used this tool,
00:04:20
I could diagram the things I was
00:04:22
thinking and use that to show my teams
00:04:24
and the people I worked with what I was
00:04:26
building or doing or what needed to
00:04:27
happen. And they liked that way of
00:04:29
communication so much that it became
00:04:30
much more common at Twitch for people to
00:04:32
diagram things while they were working.
00:04:34
I started doing that in my own talks
00:04:36
with friends, eventually my own streams.
00:04:38
And then that became my videos. And to
00:04:40
this day, the majority of my top videos
00:04:42
are mostly me just Excala drawing things
00:04:44
out. I fell in love with diagramming
00:04:46
because of this app. And I don't know if
00:04:49
I would have become a creator if it
00:04:50
wasn't for how this taught me to to show
00:04:53
the things I was thinking so others
00:04:54
could understand them. So thankful for
00:04:57
Excal. It's also open source. So if you
00:05:00
want to play with it, embed the canvas
00:05:02
in your own apps or do anything else,
00:05:03
the code's all there for you to play
00:05:05
with. I subscribe to the pro version
00:05:06
both because I want to support them, but
00:05:08
also because I really, really like
00:05:11
having a bunch of different canvases
00:05:13
that I've made as well as teams and
00:05:15
collections and all those things. I
00:05:16
think it's like five bucks a month. I
00:05:18
don't even care. It's so worth it. Now,
00:05:20
back to dev tools. I'm sure a lot of you
00:05:22
are around for the Insomnia collapse. If
00:05:24
you're not familiar, Insomnia was a tool
00:05:26
for testing things against APIs kind of
00:05:29
similar to Postman. It was open source,
00:05:31
but it's been falling apart since it was
00:05:32
acquired. And Bruno quickly got a lot of
00:05:35
attention as an open alternative that
00:05:37
has a ton of useful functions in it. One
00:05:39
of the coolest things is that it works
00:05:41
with Git. So you can have a folder in
00:05:42
your project that has all of your
00:05:44
schemas or the things you want to test
00:05:46
against and then you just open up Bruno,
00:05:48
point it at that repo, and it will let
00:05:49
you replay events directly. The UI is
00:05:52
super simple and minimal. Should look
00:05:54
very familiar if you've used things like
00:05:56
this before. And it's been my go-to to
00:05:58
quickly just hit an endpoint and get
00:06:00
data back to make sure things are
00:06:01
working how I expect. It's been really
00:06:03
nice to work with. Has none of the weird
00:06:04
quirks and crap around variable
00:06:07
management that Postman has. But I was
00:06:09
just informed by my chat there's another
00:06:11
alternative called Yak. Yak is by the
00:06:14
person who made Insomnia. It's also open
00:06:16
source. It's been in dev for a while.
00:06:18
People seem to be loving it. I haven't
00:06:19
personally tried this one, but it's
00:06:21
worth a look if you haven't given it a
00:06:23
shot. Next is one that I have a whole
00:06:25
dedicated video coming out for soon, so
00:06:27
keep an eye out for that. It might even
00:06:28
be out already. A editor's note. Stuff
00:06:30
it in. put a little note that says it's
00:06:31
already out and raycast is a replacement
00:06:33
for one of my favorite Mac features,
00:06:35
Spotlight. I have it bound as the same
00:06:38
hotkey that Spotlight used to be. So, I
00:06:40
don't even know if I can access
00:06:41
Spotlight at this point. If you're not a
00:06:42
Mac user, what Spotlight is is the
00:06:44
command space hotkey that lets you
00:06:46
search anything on your computer.
00:06:48
Usually, it's just a quick way to open
00:06:49
up an app, but I use it for so much
00:06:51
more. My favorite thing and the thing
00:06:53
that got me hooked was the calculator
00:06:55
where I can just do math in here, hit
00:06:58
enter, and now the results on my
00:06:59
clipboard. It was so handy for that. And
00:07:02
having a proper calculator history you
00:07:03
can go through to grab data. Oh, I have
00:07:06
relied on that far more than I probably
00:07:08
should have. But you can also bind crazy
00:07:09
things like hotkeys to switch apps. I
00:07:11
have it set up so when I press control 1
00:07:13
through 4, it goes to different apps
00:07:15
that I use a lot. So if I do controll 3,
00:07:17
it goes to my editor. If I go to control
00:07:19
2, it goes to my terminal. Control 1
00:07:21
goes to my browser. Super nice. I don't
00:07:24
know how I would use my Mac without
00:07:25
Raycast at this point. It's free. They
00:07:27
have a pro version. I haven't even
00:07:29
subbed yet. I don't really know what it
00:07:30
offers, but I've heard cool things. All
00:07:32
worth checking out. On the topic of
00:07:34
Raycast, I'm going to do a weird tangent
00:07:37
to this little thing called SVGL. SVGL
00:07:40
has been a lifesaver for me as a content
00:07:42
creator because I regularly need to grab
00:07:44
SVGs of all sorts of things, both in the
00:07:46
dev world and out. Oh, look at that. T3.
00:07:48
Wonder who that is. This is super super
00:07:51
handy if you want to copy an SVG. Now I
00:07:53
have it on my clipboard. I can also save
00:07:55
it or link to it directly. super super
00:07:59
useful. But what's even more useful is
00:08:01
having direct access via raycast. I can
00:08:04
type in SVG comes up with search SVG
00:08:06
logos. Enter. I can type in I don't know
00:08:09
blue sky. Press enter. Now it's on my
00:08:11
clipboard. If I go to my photo editor
00:08:14
that I use for all my thumbnails,
00:08:15
Affinity, now I can just paste things
00:08:18
straight from SVGL. It's so useful when
00:08:20
I like need the TypeScript
00:08:22
logo. I have it. Lifaver.
00:08:26
lifesaver for the type of stuff that we
00:08:27
do. I don't know how I would make my
00:08:29
thumbnails as quickly as I do without
00:08:30
SVGL. Huge shout out to Pablo for making
00:08:33
this and also open sourcing it. I know a
00:08:34
handful of people from the community
00:08:35
have started contributing. Great tool,
00:08:37
great example of solving an annoying
00:08:39
problem in an open source way so it's
00:08:41
solved for everyone else going forward
00:08:43
now that we're kind of back into dev
00:08:44
tools with this. Might as well go allin,
00:08:46
right? Next, we have Orbstack. I've been
00:08:49
using Orbstack for a while now because
00:08:51
Docker on Mac was uh rough during the
00:08:54
ARM transition. Orbstack is an
00:08:57
alternative to using Docker Desktop that
00:08:59
let you use Docker containers and have
00:09:01
all the Docker commands without all of
00:09:03
the messy slow bloat that is Docker
00:09:05
Desktop. I can't imagine installing
00:09:07
Docker Desktop at this point. I just I
00:09:09
avoid to the best of my ability.
00:09:10
Honestly, I avoid Docker images as much
00:09:12
as I can for the most part. But
00:09:14
recently, I've needed to use them more
00:09:16
for certain projects, and having this
00:09:18
has been such a lifesaver. Everything
00:09:21
launches immediately apparently as an
00:09:22
update. I'll ignore that. I have my open
00:09:24
web UI, which is for um this is for O
00:09:27
Lama. So, I have a UI to hit my local
00:09:29
Llama instance, which is super cool. I
00:09:31
just have it spin up by default when I
00:09:33
turn on my computer, I guess. And if I
00:09:34
want to spin up any of these other
00:09:35
things that I opened or created via
00:09:37
docker commands, they're all here for me
00:09:39
to hit play, run, use, destroy,
00:09:42
whatever. Super, super handy. It's free
00:09:45
for personal use. I don't know how
00:09:46
strict they are about that. I would
00:09:48
recommend paying for it if you're
00:09:49
actually making money using it, but it's
00:09:51
relatively cheap, so worth considering.
00:09:53
I have been very happy with this, and it
00:09:55
has made using Docker significantly less
00:09:57
miserable for me. On the topic of making
00:09:59
tools less miserable for me, the Discord
00:10:02
experience on computer kind of sucks and
00:10:05
Leg Cord has been helping me a ton. The
00:10:07
history of Leg Cord is interesting. You
00:10:09
might have actually heard about it
00:10:10
before under a different name, Arm Cord.
00:10:12
Arm cord existed because Discord didn't
00:10:14
have an ARM build for Mac for far far
00:10:18
too long. Like hilariously far too long.
00:10:21
You could use it using Rosetta, which
00:10:23
was the x86 emulation layer, but it
00:10:25
meant that Discord used way more battery
00:10:27
and resources than it should have and
00:10:28
felt way slower than it should have. ARM
00:10:31
cord was a fork of Discord that was a
00:10:34
minimal electron wrapper that embedded
00:10:35
the Discord web app and slowly added
00:10:37
more and more native functionality so
00:10:39
that you could have the things you
00:10:41
expected from the native Discord app. It
00:10:42
was named ARMcord because it was for ARM
00:10:44
Max. It slowly became the default
00:10:46
alternative Discord client. And then ARM
00:10:49
came in and DMCAD them because ARM, the
00:10:52
processor standard, is a licensed term.
00:10:55
And they had their account on GitHub
00:10:57
temporarily locked because they were
00:10:59
using the trademark ARM that they don't
00:11:02
own, which is just hilarious to me. So
00:11:05
they renamed it to Leg Cord, and now
00:11:08
they're doing fine. I've been using Leg
00:11:09
Cord and previously Armcord as my
00:11:12
Discord client for a while now. It's way
00:11:14
faster. It doesn't lock you out for
00:11:16
updates every two to three days. The
00:11:18
battery life is better. I've I don't
00:11:20
want to use the default Discord app
00:11:21
anymore. I like Leg Cord. You should
00:11:23
consider it as well. Back to dev tools.
00:11:26
Here's one you've probably heard about
00:11:28
by now and I've touched on in enough
00:11:29
content, but I wanted to point it out
00:11:31
here because it is something I'm using
00:11:33
every day and liking quite a bit.
00:11:34
Cursors become my editor of choice.
00:11:37
Here's a project that hopefully the
00:11:38
video is already shipped for. One app,
00:11:40
five stacks, where I built the same app
00:11:42
in five different stacks. I do not like
00:11:44
the thought of having to do this without
00:11:47
cursor. It was so nice being able to
00:11:49
write code in one of these app stacks,
00:11:51
like writing something in the Phoenix
00:11:53
version, copying the code, going over to
00:11:56
the Rails version, pulling up the
00:11:58
composer and being like, yo, make this
00:12:01
fit the format of this file from this
00:12:02
Elixir project and it would just do it.
00:12:05
Or even asking it questions or asking
00:12:07
it, how do I do this? and having it all
00:12:09
in the editor doing the right thing. It
00:12:12
made it much easier for me to swap
00:12:14
between languages, frameworks, and
00:12:16
stacks without feeling like I was
00:12:18
entirely underwater with no idea what's
00:12:20
going on. It was really, really nice.
00:12:23
And also, when I was doing things like
00:12:25
deploying on Cloudflare for the first
00:12:27
time in years, the combination of Cursor
00:12:29
plus Claude made me feel significantly
00:12:32
more productive. If you haven't given it
00:12:33
a shot, I do highly recommend it. I was
00:12:36
super skeptical at first and I think I
00:12:37
actually churned twice where I just went
00:12:40
back to VS Code. But it is effectively
00:12:42
VS Code. It's a fork of VS Code that I
00:12:44
have fallen in love with and don't like
00:12:46
the idea of writing code without. So my
00:12:48
endorsement means anything. Consider
00:12:49
giving it a shot. And to close this out,
00:12:52
one more extension, minimal theme for
00:12:54
Twitter. I forget how much I love this
00:12:56
because it's how I've used Twitter for a
00:12:59
really long time now. It's by Typefully
00:13:01
who makes a platform for managing drafts
00:13:04
and keeping track of things that you're
00:13:06
doing on Twitter. They also have an
00:13:07
actual analytics tool. It's quite a bit
00:13:09
more useful than Twitter's. I use their
00:13:12
platform a ton. It's where my drafts
00:13:13
tend to go, but that's not what I'm
00:13:15
talking about here. Like typefully,
00:13:16
cool, fine, whatever. Twitter itself is
00:13:19
significantly more usable if you have
00:13:22
this set up. Ads are gone. All the weird
00:13:25
stuff on the sidebars is gone. When you
00:13:27
look at replies, it's significantly more
00:13:29
minimal. The sidebar is collapsed unless
00:13:32
you hover. And even admittedly, the
00:13:33
hover is kind of broken. It doesn't work
00:13:35
all the time. The one problem with this
00:13:37
extension, and typefully, I really hope
00:13:39
you guys watch this and fix this. I've
00:13:41
been complaining about it for a while.
00:13:42
In certain screen resolutions, buttons
00:13:44
break, and apparently it's working now
00:13:46
because I just resize things slightly
00:13:48
when I made this bigger or smaller. But
00:13:50
it's so easy to get into a state where I
00:13:52
can't hit the back button. And it's
00:13:53
really common at my resolution. So, uh,
00:13:56
yeah, typefully I've tried fixing this
00:13:58
myself. The codebase is not easy to work
00:14:00
in. If you could, now that I've given
00:14:03
you this free promo, please fix my bug.
00:14:05
That's all I got on this one. I'm
00:14:07
planning to do a follow-up in the near
00:14:08
future that is dedicated exclusively to
00:14:10
CLI tools because I have a lot of those
00:14:12
and I don't want that to just be all of
00:14:14
this video. So, let me know if you're
00:14:16
excited for a CLI tools follow-up. Until
00:14:18
next time, peace nerds.
