I never recommend products that I don’t use myself. Here are a few of my favorites (in alphabetical order) and why I like them.
NOTE: Some of the links below are affiliate links (marked with an *) and I might receive a small amount of compensation with the providers if you buy.
17hats* – a super easy all-in-one online business management app; Projects, quotes, invoices, client management, bookkeeping and more in an excellent interface that almost makes the work a pleasure!
1Password from AgileBits – the best password keeper for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android. I use this software multiple times a day, on my laptop, my iPhone, and my iPad. Reasonably priced and extremely useful. I couldn’t work without it.
Adobe Creative Cloud* – essential software for publishing, graphic design, photo manipulation, and much more; Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, LightRoom, Acrobat, and much more via monthly fee, and all updates and upgrades are done for you.
Backblaze* backup solution – personal, business, and B2 backups; super easy and runs in the background! You can never have too many backups. I’ve used this service to backup and retrieve software, photos, and email.
BeaverBuilder* – WordPress theme and page layout plugin for building web sites with ease
Camtasia from TechSmith – “The best all-in-one video editor and screen recorder” for Mac and Windows. Excellent product for capturing, editing, and publishing video.
Coda 2 from Panic – For Macs, a text editor, FTP and SSH client, and file manager all wrapped up in one package. Web designers and developers will love it. Alternate: Sublime Text for Windows and Mac.
Deposit Photos* – Great stock photos and vector graphics at reasonable prices. Watch for sales and specials for great prices on subscriptions.
DesktopServer* from ServerPress – makes developing web pages locally very easy. FREE for up to three sites. Awesome tool for designing and developing web sites offline, with built-in features to deploy live.
Envira Gallery – The best premium WordPress gallery plugin with many features to customize galleries and portfolios.
Evernote – THE best note-taking, document-organizing, PDF storing, graphic-saving, search-and-find-anything app anywhere and everywhere. Did I mention that it’s FREE?
Gravity Forms* from Rocket Genius – the best premium form builder for WordPress, hands down. All my professional colleagues use Gravity Forms because it has the most capabilities to customize web forms.
Gravity Perks* from Gravity Wiz – enhance the utility of Gravity Forms. Great addons that extend the feature set of Gravity Forms.
iThemes – “Premium WordPress Plugins and Tools since 2008;” The makers of the Builder framework and themes, plugins like BackupBuddy, Exchange, and iThemes Security, and services for managing web site like Sync.
Knownhost* web hosting – Fully managed VPS hosting at great prices; my choice for hosting (after trying several others) and highly recommended by colleagues
MyBookTable from AuthorMedia – a WordPress plugin to help you sell your books. Adds “buy now” buttons, descriptions, graphics, and more. Great tool for authors and publishers.
SEE Finance from Scimonoce Software – comprehensive and customizable personal finance software for your Mac. (I’ll never rely on Quicken again.)
SiteGround* web hosting – an excellent choice for inexpensive shared hosting
Website Magazine – FREE print subscription for those who work in marketing, design, and development
