Uses

This is my "/uses" page — inspired by uses.tech — documenting the tools, software, and setup that power my work in digital literacy research and education.

My choices prioritize open standards, data portability, and privacy by design. I'm mid-migration away from surveillance-based platforms toward local-first and self-hosted alternatives. This page reflects that work in progress.

💻 Hardware

Primary Setup

• Desktop (Main): DIY build — Ryzen 7 5800X3D, NVIDIA RTX 4070 (12GB), running Ubuntu. Primary workstation for everything.
• The Metal Box: Repurposed Intel i7-3770 desktop running Proxmox. Home for all self-hosted services.
• Lenovo T480p: Recycled e-waste, rebuilt on Pop!_OS. Road machine and backup.
• Monitors: LG 32ML600M (32" FHD) plus repurposed Dell monitors.
• Input: Logitech MX Keys keyboard and MX Master 3 mouse. Also experimenting with a Huion Kamvas 13 pen display for sketching and markup.
• Audio: Sony WH-1000XM4 (over-ear) and Sony WF-1000XM4 (earbuds).

Mobile

• Phone: Google Pixel 9 Pro XL
• Tablet: Boox Note Air 5c — primary e-ink device for reading and annotation. Slower screen, intentionally. See E-Ink and Intentional Computing.

🧠 Knowledge Management

Core System

• Obsidian — Primary knowledge management. My entire intellectual life runs through here.
• Digital Garden Plugin — Publishes select vault notes to digitallyliterate.net via GitHub → Netlify → 11ty.
• Zotero — Academic reference management. See Zotero Obsidian Research Workflow.
• Hypothesis — Web annotation and research.

Key Obsidian Plugins

• Dataview — Dynamic content queries across the vault
• Templater — Automated note creation
• Smart Connections — AI-powered note linking
• Calendar — Daily note organization

Local AI

• Ollama — Self-hosted local LLM runner. Runs on the desktop GPU (RTX 4070) so models stay on my hardware.
• AnythingLLM — Interface for chatting with my vault locally via RAG. See Local AI Setup - Ollama and AnythingLLM with Obsidian.

Research Tools

• NotebookLM — Qualitative research analysis, especially for working with transcripts and interview data.
• Connected Papers / Semantic Scholar — Academic paper discovery and citation mapping.

📝 Writing & Research

Academic Writing

• Google Docs — Still using for collaborative drafts and co-authored papers. On the migration list.
• Pandoc — Document conversion and formatting between formats.
• ProtonMail / ProtonDrive — Secure email and document sharing.
• CryptPad / Nextcloud — Collaborative writing and storage for projects where I want something other than Google.

Content Creation

• WordPress — Blog publishing at wiobyrne.com.
• Buttondown — Newsletter distribution for Digitally Literate.
• Canva — Visual content creation.

🌐 Web & Infrastructure

Site Publishing

• GitHub — Version control and digital garden hosting.
• Netlify — Static site deployment.
• Cloudflare — DNS and performance.

Homelab

• Proxmox — Virtualization platform. Runs VMs and containers for all self-hosted services. See Homelab Journey Overview.
• Home Assistant — Local-first smart home automation, running as a Proxmox VM. No cloud dependency.
• Frigate — Self-hosted NVR for home cameras, replacing Wyze cloud. Local AI object detection via VAAPI. See Frigate NVR.
• TrueNAS — Network attached storage and local backup.
• FreshRSS — Self-hosted RSS reader. Paired with Feedflow for mobile reading.
• Calibre-Web — Self-hosted ebook library.

Development Tools

• VS Code — Code editing and markdown work.
• Warp — Terminal with AI assist for command line work.
• Git — Version control.

🎙️ Media & Communication

Communication

• Zoom / Jitsi — Video conferencing.
• Signal — Secure messaging.

🔐 Privacy & Security

De-Googling (In Progress)

I'm actively moving away from Google's ecosystem. Progress is real but uneven.

Security Essentials

• Bitwarden — Password management and authenticator.
• ProtonVPN — VPN.
• Signal — Encrypted messaging.
• ProtonMail — Secure email.

Privacy Tools

• uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger — Browser extensions.
• DuckDuckGo — Primary search.

📚 Reading & Research

• FreshRSS (self-hosted) + Feedflow — RSS reading and management.
• Obsidian Web Clipper — Save and annotate web content directly to the vault.
• KOReader — Ebook reading on the Boox.
• Calibre-Web (self-hosted) — Personal epub library.
• Audible / Hoopla / Libby — Audiobooks.

🎯 Productivity

• Tasks: Testing Obsidian Tasks and Todoist. Not settled.
• Calendar: Google Calendar (migration in progress).

🔄 Why These Choices?

My tool choices prioritize open standards, data portability, and privacy by design. The core principle is tools that enhance thinking rather than complicate it.

In 2025–2026 that's sharpened into something more specific: sovereignty at a reasonable cost. I'm decoupling my research and personal life from surveillance capitalism, favoring local-first software and self-hosted infrastructure where practical. This isn't purist — I still use tools I'm skeptical of — but the direction of travel matters.

I try to practice what I teach. If I'm asking students to think critically about the platforms and tools shaping their digital lives, I should be doing the same work myself.

Happy to discuss any of these. Reach out if you have questions about implementing similar setups.

This page is part of the IndieWeb "/uses" tradition. Find more at uses.tech.

Connections

• Now
• About Me
• Digital Sovereignty Framework
• Local AI Setup - Ollama and AnythingLLM with Obsidian
• Homelab Journey Overview