Hey guys, it is sharing time.

I put together a listing of many of the tools and services I use. Most of them are FREE.

For those that have never meet me. I'm a long time software developer that started in 1980 creating games for the Atari computer. Over the years I've created over 70 software titles including my most famous QuickPay for Quicken back in 1991. You can read my story here.

If you want to see more posts like this then please upvote and comment to let me know.

Graphic design

Youzign - I use this for all my graphic designs and especially here on Steemit. This is the easiest to use and most professional graphic design tools I've ever used. Try it FREE. Now an alternative that you can use for free is Canva though it isn't as nice as Youzign. For my cover art for steemit I use a custom size of 840 x 500 pixels.

Gimp - Free open source graphic editor. I used to use this before Youzign. But I do still use it for pixel work.

Blender - I found Blender last year and it is an amazing 3D animation and graphic design tool. Totally free! There is a steep learning curve and you will need to look for tutorials on Youtube to get started.

Video and Streaming

OBS Project - Free, open source software for live streaming and recording. Use this to record your screen and/or make presentations.

Office

OpenOffice - This is a free alternative to the Microsoft Office Suite. Apache OpenOffice is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.

Programming

Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2017 - Everything you need to build and deploy your app on any platform for FREE.

B4x - Check out this development tool. It uses an updated form of Visual Basic and is used to develop on many platforms. The cost is very low and some platforms are free.

Genymotion - Google's Android emulator is terribly slow. This one from Genymotion is the one to use. It is free for Individuals so be sure to select personal use.

VirtualBox - Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and Solaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4, 2.6, 3.x and 4.x), Solaris and OpenSolaris, OS/2, and OpenBSD. Genymotion uses VirtualBox and this is great to have different OS's on your computer for testing and isolating things that won't infect your system. I personally run my development software in its own Virtual Windows 7 environment. For one it makes it easy to backup the entire system because it is just one file to copy over to a backup drive and another if my computer ever does get infected with a virus it won't get into the virtual windows and vice versa.

Hosting

HostGator There are many hosting companies out there but finding one with good service and support can be challenging. Through the years I've used many but one that I really like is HostGator. Just be careful of all the extras they try to market you. Of course you can easily install Wordpress which is everyone's #1 website creator. I recommend the Shared Business Plan because it comes with Private SSL and Private IP. I also recommend getting your domain name from NameSilo below.

Domain Names

NameSilo - I've given up on the games that GoDaddy plays. I've been moving all my domain names over to NameSilo. Their price is $8.99 and that includes Private Whois which is really important because without it you will receive phone calls, emails and all sort of spam. No thank you! GoDaddy no longer offers discounts for renewals so they will charge $14.99 each year. NameSilo is the same $8.99 per year. Very good deal and their service and website is very good. Coupon Code for $1 off the first time: promocode1

Conclusion

So there you go, these are the tools and services I personally use and recommend. If you have others that you use then please share in a comment.

Being a software developer for 37 years now I do realize that we get stuck using the same tools we are comfortable with. For example I actually still program in VB6. I created my AuctionTamer program back in 1999 which was created in VB6 and I'm still supporting it today. Really amazing if you think of the lifecycle of many programs. But I do really need to update it for a mobile device. That is my next project which I'm going to use B4X.

For my programming friends out there which programming tools do you use and recommend?