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Tools I've been using in 2026

A quick look at my tools in 2026.

Hardware

Self-built PC, MacBook Air 2012 (a solid device, but with 8GB ram it is struggling with Cursor on the board), Xiaomi Redmi 12 Pro.

Desktop

Xubuntu on the PC and the MacBook. Lighter than regular Ubuntu. I’ve been on the lookout for other distros but haven’t seen anything that would make me switch. Put Xubuntu on the MacBook too after Apple stopped updating it and the old macOS blocked installing software.

Deskflow when I want one keyboard and mouse across machines. Stremio for TV. Thunderbird for mail.

Browsers: Brave and Firefox. Chrome disabling uBlock Origin etc. made it easy to drop.

Coding and AI

I still have my PhpStorm subscription but use it less and less. Won’t be renewing most likely.

Mostly Cursor on the 20€ plan. Claude at work. Checked Codex and planning to switch if Cursor tokens are not enough.

Kie.ai for CLI, server jobs and other models (like image generation).

Played with Suno too. Much fun for generating weird covers of my songs and maybe getting ideas for arrangements, but later I found it very repetitive and with that “AI sound”. Cancelled the subscription.

Zed is installed, I poke at it sometimes. Cursor wins for now because of the agent stuff.

This site runs on Astro.

Music

Reaper for recording. Still nothing else comes close.

Spotify for listening, though I don’t open it much lately. Mostly watching vids on YouTube.

Network

Tailscale for VPN. PC, MacBook, phone. Easy to connect to anything from anywhere.

AnyDesk when I need a UI or to help family with something quick.

Domains and network stuff: Cloudflare.

Self-hosted stuff I actually use: links.zelisko.net (bookmark archive with search).

Home automation

Raspberry Pi with 16GB RAM and NVMe disk, Home Assistant, Zigbee. Pretty basic for now:

  • some lights
  • a few temp sensors (one in each room and on the terrace) for tracking temp across the house
  • a rain sensor
  • some repeaters where the signal was low

I moved to another place and couldn’t keep working on it at the old home, but planning to add more: plant watering, maybe some cameras, cat feeder etc.

Cursor as interface

I see Cursor (or any AI agent) becoming more and more an interface for everything: coding, troubleshooting, automation etc. I still need Reaper and a browser.