PQVST Blog About

Full-stack engineer, entrepreneur, travel addict, and foodie.

About me

I have a passion for problem solving. I use technology to develop better/new solutions to problems that interest me. I love to travel the world, explore new places, and discover new food. I’ve been working remote for most of my life. During the past couple of years I’ve spent most of my time traveling around Asia, including Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Hong Kong, and now most recently Taiwan. You can find me online at:

My Setup

I use a M2 MacBook Pro (14-inch). It’s a nice upgrade over my 2018 MacBook Pro, which had quite a lot of repairs. See my My MacBook Pro had over 10,000 USD in repairs blog post.

For Windows-only development work (and the occasional game) I use Parallels on macOS to run both Windows 10 and 11 (for testing). I’ll also occasionally install a version of Windows 7 when I need to test installers or drivers. I haven’t tried this since I migrated to Apple Silicon though.

For Linux-only development and testing I use VirtualBox running various distros depending what I need to test. Usually a combination of Ubuntu, Fedora, or CentOS.

My Toolbox

I tend to use services that work across multiple platforms and operating systems (desktop, web, and mobile). This helps avoid lock-in, making sure I can easily switch between devices and operating systems as I wish.

General Purpose

  • Dropbox - Long time Dropbox user for all my storage
  • 1Password - My favorite password manager
  • Simplenote - Simple cross-platform notes
  • Spark - A great cross-platform email client
  • TickTick - An awesome cross-platform task manager

macOS Utilities

  • Raycast - Custom macOS launcher
  • Witch - Replacement app switcher for macOS
  • Rectangle - Move and resize windows in macOS
  • Parallels - High performance virtual machines on macOS
  • Pause - Take a break reminder

Dev & Infrastructure

  • Plausible
  • DigitalOcean
  • Hover
  • Postmark
  • Cloudflare
  • Google Workspace
  • Stripe
  • GitHub
  • Grafana
  • UptimeRobot