Caleb Stauffer Style

Recommends/Favorties

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CleanShot

CleanShot is the best screenshot capture tool I’ve ever used. With immediate annotation, screen recording, scrolling capture (“Need to capture something that doesn’t fit on your screen?”), and cloud upload, sharing beautiful screenshots is easy, quick, and enjoyable. There are more than 50 features for enhancing your screenshots! Plus, it’s a native Mac app, so it’s responsive and stable. And integration with PixelSnap allows you to capture measurements. One of my favorite tools that I can’t imagine not having in my workflow.

Capture your Mac’s screen like a pro with CleanShot.
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PixelSnap

If you do any work with positioning and spacing, PixelSnap is a necessary utility: easily measure elements in any app, as well as space between elements, and calculate aspect ratios.

This little utility has dramatically improved my workflow: quickly measuring design elements and spacing has made creating styles so much faster. And the integration with Sketch (and others) to show accurate measurements even when zoomed in/out is very handy.

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Raycast and Script Commands

The first headline on raycast.com says it all:

“Level up your productivity.”

If you’re a Mac user, you’re likely familiar with Spotlight, maybe Alfred. Raycast is a similar tool that is more advanced than Spotlight and “nicer” than Alfred.

I’ve started using it, and I’ve really been enjoying it, mostly for the following reason:

Script Commands

While Raycast has several built-in extensions and is starting a developer program to allow developers to build their own extensions, Raycast was released with support for Script Commands, which allows developers like me to write scripts to execute tasks on demand in a modal type interface. I’ve already published several from creating a GitHub Gist to saving a URL to the Wayback Machine, and I’m thinking of new ones all the time.

I’ve already had several conversations with the project lead, and am really excited about extensions and what else Raycast will be able to do soon!

If you want to level up your productivity, definitely check out Raycast!

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Chris Ferdinandi’s Daily Developer Tips

Without a doubt, the most valuable newsletter I’ve ever subscribed to! Featuring “code snippets, tools, techniques, and interesting stuff” (primarily on vanilla JavaScript), Chris’ daily newsletter educates and inspires, and unpacks code and decision making step-by-step.

You can (and should) subscribe at his website, https://gomakethings.com/.

In addition to an awesome newsletter, Chris also has many resources, including an online academy, for learning JavaScript.

Web Hosting

Finding a great web host with so many choices can be very challenging; there’s a lot of info to compare, and a lot of technical babble that, if you’re not a web developer or have a degree in IT, you probably don’t understand. So, if you want to (or are already) using WordPress to power your site, here’s my official recommendation:

WP Engine

And here’s why: they’re fast, they handle security, backups (with one click restore), one click staging site, git push (that’s a technical thing that will excite your web developer), and you still have complete control of your entire WordPress installation (there are some plugin exclusions, but mostly because their system handles those plugins actions already). This site you’re on right now is running on WPEngine’s Personal Plan, and has significantly increased my site’s speed compared to my previous web host, Hostgator. Pricing is mostly based on the amount of traffic your site gets, so make sure to research and consider that before buying. Their support personnel are people who actually know WordPress, and they’re fantastic. They have been, without a doubt, the simplest AND best host I’ve ever worked with, hands down.

Please remember, they only do WordPress hosting, so if you’re wanting to use Joomla or some other CMS system, WP Engine is not a great fit for you.