May 13, 2026

I recently upgraded my laptop to a MacBook Pro M5 Pro from a MacBook Pro circa 2019 - still an Intel CPU. I am not sure what I will do with this new found power, but the machine is very fast. I thought it would be interesting to track what I install as I set it up for development.

Mostly in order of installation...

Chrome: Preferred browser
Firefox: Cross-browser testing
1Password: Password manager
Brew: Package manager for Mac
Git: Source control
Docker: Containers
OrbStack: Fast, lightweight Docker Desktop
Bun: Preferred JavaScript runtime
NVM: Node version manager
Node: JavaScript runtime
Netlify: Serverless functions/deploy
VSCode: Preferred code editor
GitHub Desktop: GUI tooling, please
TextMate: Quick, fast, easy text editor
TablePlus: Database GUI client
Insomnia: API testing GUI
Obsidian: Personal memory management
Illustrator: Vector illustration
Photoshop: Image editor
Claude Code: AI-assisted development
LM Studio: Local LLM support (Qwen 3.5 9B)
Xcode: Mostly for iOS Simulator
Ice: Menu bar customization

* Python (not on list) ships on MacOS