Kira Herdman

Welcome to the new year ! ! I hope you had a good 2024 and have a good 2025. In this post I will go through my tech setup, the hardware and software I use regularly to do my Radio Show and this blog.

Hardware

My main computer is not in fact a computer but an Apple iPad. It’s the iPad 10th Generation with a Keyboard Case from ESR. This is the computer I use the most besides my phone, which is an Apple iPhone 15. I use this for writing blog posts, scripts for TransRadio UK, general web browsing, checking social media and light gaming (Mainly Vega Conflict).

For traditional computers I have an MacBook Pro 2018 that I mainly use to record the radio show and sometimes type blog posts on it as I love the Apple Magic Keyboard I have for it. The mouse is the Apple Magic Mouse. A lot of people don’t like the mouse but I love it, mainly for the mini trackpad on the top of it which I find very useful when editing my radio show. I don’t play any games on the MacBook Pro.

I also have 2 Windows computers, a Beelink SER 5 for gaming/backing up iCloud to my Nextcloud Server and a Peladn Wi6 as a backup PC that I really don’t use anymore.

For servers I have 2, a Application server that mainly runs 3 services I use all the time, a Nextcloud Server, a Plex Server and a Wireguard Server, which is a VPN Server for when I take my iPad/iPhone to a coffee shop. The other server is a TrueNAS server, which is the main storage device in my home. I like keeping the applications separate to the data for security reasons.

For online storage I use iCloud with the 50Gb subscription, that costs 99p per month. I have also turned on Advanced Data Protection for iCloud. This means even Apple cannot access the data I store on iCloud as I have the key for it on my systems. If I loose the key, I loose all the data on iCloud if I don’t have a device thats logged into it. This also means iCloud for web doesn’t work without accepting a prompt from a iDevice or Mac thats logged into iCloud.

The detailed specs of each system can be found on the “Tech Specs” page on this blog.

Applications

1. iWriter Pro (iOS, iPadOS, Mac)

iWriter Pro is a simple application that lets you write distraction free. It uses the markup language which means its cross platform as almost every computer system can read text files, which is all what a markdown file is though with some added characters for formatting. Any text editor can open a markdown file without the formatting being rendered. Markdown file’s extension can end in either .txt or usually .md

Another advantage of Markdown is the file size. As the file is basically just a text file with no special formatting the file for this post in iWriter Pro is 11k. In Apple Pages (see below), which uses its own format, the same document is over 330k.

I use iCloud Drive to sync the files between all my desktop PC’s, iPhone and Tablet.

I also use this app to read the scripts for when I am recording my radio shows for TransRadio UK as I can change the preview font type and size separately from the editing font type and size.

iWriter Pro is £2.99 for the iPadOS/iOS version and £5.99 for the Mac version at the time of writing.

2. Apple Pages (iOS, iPadOS, Web)

Apple Pages is my main word processor I use. I like it as it’s a nice looking word processor, works on both my MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone, obviously works very well with iCloud.

As part of the iWork suite is it free and comes with every Mac or iDevice you can get. There is no Subscription needed to use it.

I mainly use it for any formatted documents I need to write like my CV for instance. iWriter Pro/Obsidian has taken over the main tasks I used to do with this app (write the posts for this blog). The iPad version is just as fully featured as the Mac version.

3. Apple Numbers (iOS. iPadOS, Web)

Apple Numbers is my main spreadsheet I use. I like it as it’s a nice looking spreadsheet, works on both my MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone, obviously works very well with iCloud. Though it is not as powerful as Microsoft’s Excel I don’t need that power for what I need a spreadsheet for.

As part of the iWork suite is it free and comes with every Mac or iDevice you can get. There is also no Subscription needed to use it.

I mainly use it to track my income/outcome and product keys for software. Again the version on the iPad is just as fully featured as it is on the Mac.

4. Apple Notes (iOS, iPadOS, Web)

Apple notes is my main note taking app that I use for personal notes.

5. Lire (iOS, iPadOS, Mac)

Lire is an RSS reader that uses iCloud to sync between devices. While it is expensive for what it is (£10 each for Mac and iDevices) it is very good at what it does and no subscription is required.

It also syncs what articles have been read as well as the feeds between all devices.

6. Apple Reminders (iOS, iPadOS, Mac, Web)

Apple Reminders is a task manager and reminders app all in one. It comes with every Mac/iDevice for free and uses iCloud to sync between devices. If you have an Apple Watch it can sync to that as well so you can tick off tasks you have done without getting your phone out. I mainly use this as my shopping list.

7. Audacity (Mac, Windows)

Audacity is the DAW I use to record my shows for TransRadioUK. It’s free, does the job and is compatible with a wide range of plugins.

8. FileZilla (Mac, Windows)

FileZilla is a cross platform FTP client that is free.

9. Day One (iOS, iPadOS, Mac, Web)

Day One is possibly my favourite app I use regularly. It’s a journaling app that I use as a Diary. I like the fact that Automatic, the people who make Day One can not access my data as there is an option to encrypt all your data vis RSA 256 encryption and you can download the key to your iCloud account so Automatic does not have the key to decrypt it. RSA 256 bit encryption is the same level of encryption that is used by banks so is very secure.

Since I got the app in 2016 I have been grandfathered onto the “Plus” Subscription, which is free but not available to buy. This allows the app to sync between devices, 10 photos per entry and 10 Journals per account. There is a free tier that allows for 1 journal, 1 photo per entry and no syncing between devices and a premium tier that allows unlimited everything. The plus version will not get any of the new features that the premium version gets.

10. Pixelmator (iOS, iPadOS, Mac)

Pixelmator is a lightweight photo editor that was recently bought by Apple, though I bought it in 2016 when it was first released. Although I do have the Affinity Suite that can work on iPad, Mac and Windows I don’t really need that power anymore.

Pixelmator is good enough for what I need, is well integrated in the Apple Ecosystem and doesn’t use a lot of space on my iPad like the Affinity suite does. You cannot buy Pixelmator anymore, Pixelmator Pro has replaced it.

11. Disk Doctor Pro (Mac)

Disk Doctor Pro cleans up junk files on your Mac’s. It cost’s £9.39 at the time of writing.

12. Onyx (Mac)

Onyx is a system maintainer app for Mac’s. While it does clean some files like Disk Doctor Pro does it doesn’t clean everything what Disk Doctor Pro does but it does do maintenance in an easy way to keep your Mac running smoothly, like the weekly jobs, rebuild the indexes etc. It’s also free.

13. Firefox (Mac/Windows)

Although Windows and Mac have there native browsers I think Firefox is a lot better on both platforms. Thanks to iCloud the bookmarks sync between the platforms and with Safari on the iPhone/iPad. Its Free.

14. Apple Passwords (iOS, iPadOS, Mac, Windows)

Apple Passwords is my password manager of choice. I used to use Nextcloud Passwords but the integration of Apple Passwords with the apple devices is very hard to ignore. It makes making strong passwords very easy to create and store.

15. PlexAmp (iOS, iPadOS)

PlexAmp is a music player that is tied into my Plex Server and is free if you have a lifetime license for your Plex Account like I do. It allows me to download the music I own from my server to my iPhone/iPad as well as edit the playlists.

16. Procreate (iPadOS)

Procreate is what many say the best drawing app on the iPad, if not on any tablet. I like to doodle, trying to get better at drawing and for £10 its a bargain.

17. Apple Books (iOS, iPadOS, Mac)

Apple Books is an eReader app that comes with all Apple devices. It can also allow you to read ePub files you own and are DRM free on your iPad/iPhone as well as buy books from Apple’s eBook Store.

18. FreeFileSync (Mac, Windows)

This is a backup program that I use to backup iCloud to my Nextcloud Server and data from the NAS to external hard drives. The app is free but I donated to the programmer and if you do that you get a version without ads for both Windows and Macs.

19. Perplexity (iOS, iPadOS, Mac)

Perplexity is an AI chatbot like ChatGPT. I mainly use it to fact check things or find out things when I am writing scrips or blog posts. Its free for limited uses and thats fine as I don’t use it often.

20. Clop (Mac)

Clop is a program that monitors a folder on your Mac and if you drop an image into the folder it automatically optimises that image and can covert the image to a different format, I have it set up so it monitors my Desktop, and converts any image I drop in it to JPG and optimises the image, Ideal for images I put on here. There is a free and paid version, I am currently using the free version to see how it goes.

21. Paste Plain Text (Mac)

Paste Plan Text does exactly that, its strips out all the formatting of any text you copy and paste. I use it for when I can coping stuff off the web for my radio show scripts and from iWriter Pro to this blog. Its free.

22. Obsidian (iOS, iPadOS, Mac, Windows)

Obsidian is a markdown note editor and organiser. All my scripts for TransRadioUK and Blog posts are organised in this app, though I use iWriter Pro for writing of them. This is a very powerful program that I don’t use 10% of its features. Most people can just use Obsidian with Community Plugins to act like a distraction free markdown editor like iWriter Pro. It can also sync to all platforms with a cloud service like iCloud (What I use), Google Drive, Dropbox, Nextcloud Drive or One Drive. It uses markdown files for its data. Its Open-Source so free.