I use
Solidworks as my primary CAD program and run it on a
13" MacBook Air through
Parallels. If a design is exclusively going to be laser cut I find putting it together in
Illustrator to be simpler than Solidworks, especially for making reference marks, etching decorative elements, and making repeated hole patterns. I use
Cura for slicing 3D models,
Sublime Text 2 for editing code, and
Arduinos or
Teensysfor making stuff go.