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Resources

Here’s a list of apps and online resources recommended for video production, photography, desktop publishing, productivity, and business.

Have a resource that you would like to share? Please share a link in the comment section.


Business Services

domainagents.com – The best place to buy or sell a domain.

itsaexpert.com – Offers a full array of business services including managed services, network security, business email, cloud computing, point of sale setup, web hosting deals, payroll software and much more!

llamaleads.com – Looking for leads? This team of llamas spit them out! More leads = more sales.

schedulista.com Online Scheduling Software starting at $19/monthly.


Cloud Services

getsync.com – Offers a free plan for syncing unlimited number of folders across all mobile platforms with no file size limit.

wetransfer.com – Send 2 GB files for free between two or more people as easily as you would an email. Upgradable to a 20 GB file size limit.

storagemadeeasy.com – Transfer files directly between cloud services.

odrive.com – “odrive is the new way to manage all your files. Instead of fussing with multiple cloud storage applications, link all your storage with odrive and access it all in one place.” I use it to convert Amazon Cloud Drive into a Dropbox-like cloud with the ability to choose which folders to sync to my computer.


Customer Service

statuspage.io – The best way to create a status page for your app or website.


Design

color.adobe.com – Use a color wheel to create analogous, monochromatic, triad, complementary, compound, and shade color schemes. Save to Adobe Creative Cloud for use in Photoshop, Illustrator and more.

colorhexa.com – “is a free color tool providing information about any color and generating matching color palettes for your designs (such as complementary, analogous, triadic, or monochromatic colors schemes).”

colorzilla.com – “A powerful Photoshop-like CSS gradient editor from ColorZilla.”

noisetexturegenerator.com – Generate textures with noise to add a textured feel to your website.

pixeden.com – “Pixeden is hard at work providing quality web resources. Download all our free web and graphic design templates, and get access to all our Premium files from only $6 a month.”

psdgraphics.com – “is one man show, launched as a hobby site. Here you can find a lot of free stuff for webmasters and designers. Enjoy fully editable Photoshop PSD files and high-resolution stuff like are: abstract backgrounds, textures and patterns, PSD icons and graphics, web design elements, Photoshop text and video tutorials, Photoshop recreations, etc.”

subtlepatterns.com – is created and curated by Atle Mo. His goal is to be a high-quality resource for anyone in need of tile-able textured patterns, free to use.

themeforest.net – HTML, CSS, PHP and WordPress themes that make building a beautiful, responsive website easy.

thenounproject.com – “Icons for everything. Over 150,000 icons designed by creators from all around the world.”


Email

hushmail.com – Hushmail is like your current email service – you can read and compose your email on the web, smartphone, and everywhere you work – but we’ve added important security features to help keep your data safe.

zoho.com – Free business-class email for up to 10 employees. Great for small HOAs or startups.

unroll.me – When you get too much email and want it gone, use this free service to shift it all elsewhere.


Internet & Networks

speedtest.net – Test your internet speed to see what you’re really getting!


Metadata & Reverse Lookup

regex.info – Reverse photo lookup EXIF metadata reader.


Social Media

developers.facebook.com – Developer’s page for Facebook

dev.twitter.com – Developer’s page for Twitter


Stock Music

incompetech.com — Great place to get free stock music from a talented artist.

audioblocks.com — Subscription site that gives you access to thousands of stock audio tracks.


Stock Photos

General Free-Image Websites

google.com – “Google can also be used, if you query Google Image and select Search tools > Usage rights > Marked to be used with changes.”

wikimedia.org – “With more than 17 million media files available and guaranteed Creative Commons, this is a great place to find quality images.”

flickr.com – “With a wealth of images and a simple advanced search for CC images, Flickr is a go-to for tapping into millions of images.”

morguefile.com – “Some great images, but you must click on each image individually to determine if it’s available under Creative Commons. I found about one in seven images was CC, but many of those were still not available for commercial use.”

unrestrictedstock.com – “A mix of stock photos and vectors, this site is entirely free and everything may be used for commercial purposes, according to its license agreement.”

office.com – “images are offered to anyone with Office.com or MS Office Web Apps: “You may copy and use the media elements in projects and documents.” But there are a few rules, so check them out.”

pixabay.com – “Tons of great images, all free and in line with Creative Commons for commercial use. I found the site’s search function superior to other internal image search engines.”

freedigitalphotos.net – “Only the small sizes of images are free. And keep in mind that the site requires attribution on all free images used (HTML code is offered, too), and your email address must be provided.”

grin.hq.nasa.gov – “The U.S. government has provided a list of sites with images on offer from such sources as the National Archives and NASA. USA.gov warns that not all images on the sites are in the public domain, so double check. However, I’ve sniffed around about four sites and they are practically begging me to take the images.”

stockphotosforfree.com – “The site says the images are “royalty-free” and guarantees they can be used for commercial purposes. Unfortunately, I’d argue that the quality of these stock images is the same as what I’d take on a holiday.”

foter.com – “Great range of images. You can search for CC images specifically permitted for commercial use with the tick of a box.”

freemediagoo.com – “was created so everyone could have access to quality free stock photo backgrounds and images – for free. We provide a way for developers to gather royalty-free photography that can be used in print, film, TV, Internet or any other type of media both for commercial and personal use. The content we provide is obligation free – don’t be concerned about trademarks or copyright issues either. No need for annoying links and no limits to the amount of free photos you can use. We want to make it as easy as possible to use our stock photos to reach your audience and meet your goals.”

creative-commons.deviantart.com – “This site is full of stunning images; the community creating and curating the site enjoys fantasy, role play, Lord of the Rings, etc. The section of the site dedicated to CC images is a bit difficult to navigate; the site actually encourages you to use Google to search it, with the query string: ‘This work is licensed under Creative Commons.'”

freerangestock.com – “Freerange Stock was formed with the goal to provide quality stock photos for commercial and non-commercial use. For free. We feel that free stock photos can be good photos. Freerange is an advertising revenue supported photographic community – photographers get paid when users click on the ads that appear next to their submissions.”

pdphoto.org – “If you want to use these images: Go ahead. I’ve placed most of them in the public domain. However >>> While most of them are public domain, a few aren’t. Be sure to read the license under each of the enlarged pictures. If you have any questions, please ask.”

Niche Photography

photoeverywhere.co.uk – “Globe-trot our collection of high-resolution Travel Stock Images More than 3600 photos that are Free to use and ready for instant download.”

bigfoto.com – “Images based on locations around the world. The site asks for a link back in return, and that’s it. I’d suggest the images aren’t always as sharp as I’d hope, but there is great breadth in the countries and local people on offer.”

fromoldbooks.org – “Excellent resource for vintage images scanned from old storybooks. Produced before copyright laws became a hindrance, they’re free for all to use.”

animalphotos.info – “Images of animals, categorized like a directory, all licensed under Creative Commons.”

carpictures.cc – “Lots of pictures of cars available under Creative Commons licenses.”

openclipart.org – “clip art for unlimited commercial use, all royalty-free.”

clker.com – “Free clip art available for commercial use. Don’t get hung up on the retro web design; this site has a lot on offer.”

Flickr Search Engines

johnjohnston.info – “Notably simple, pulling from Flickr. The site ensures all images also feature the simple embed code, complete with attribution link.”

compfight.com – “A search engine that can filter for only CC images on Flickr, as well as separately show some paid for Shutterstock images.”

search.creativecommons.org – “A great place to search for Creative Commons images across Flickr, Pixabay, Google Images, and Open Clip Art Library. While you can only do a search through one CC supplier at a time, it’s a great starting point.”

photopin.com – “Created to help bloggers easily and correctly attribute photos, Photo Pin offers one of the more seamless user experiences on this list. Be sure to select the “commercial” tick box to search for CC images. (However, at the end of the day, this is just another site utilizing Flickr’s API to present photos in an alternative view.)”

Alternative-Image Websites

picsearch.com – “Many images and some filters for file size and layout, however, no clear division for royalty-free CC images.”

kozzi.com – “Royalty-free, on a credit-pricing plan.”

freeimages.com – “Recently bought by Getty, these images are royalty-free.”


Tutorials

codeacademy.com – “Codecademy is an education company. But not one in the way you might think. We’re committed to building the best learning experience inside and out, making Codecademy the best place for our team to learn, teach, and create the online learning experience of the future.”

greyscalegorilla.com – “Grayscalegorilla is an active community and resource for training and tools for creative types.”

lynda.com – “Learn technology, creative and business skills you can use today.”


Web Design

browsehappy.com – Find the latest versions of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera or Internet Explorer browsers.

css-tricks.com – “CSS-Tricks launched July 4th, 2007. It used to be, believe it or not, primarily about CSS! Over the years, despite the hokey name, CSS-Tricks has come to become a site about all things web design and development.”

getbootstrap.com – “Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web.

ipage.com – Web hosting, unlimited storage and bandwidth.

newkajabi.com – Sell your online content.

sublimetext.com – “Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, markup and prose. You’ll love the slick user interface, extraordinary features and amazing performance.”

squarespace.com – “The simplest way to build a website.”


Writing & Composition

grammarcheck.net – Check spelling and grammar usage online.

grammar.ly – Deep grammar checker with in-depth explanations.

charactercountonline.com – Count characters, words, paragraphs and tally totals of word usage.

titlecase.com – Convert your text into proper cases.


Apps for Windows

Free Applications

icecreamapps.com – free apps for Windows, Mac and Linux.


Apps for Mac OS X

App Development

Android Studio – Android Studio includes everything a developer needs to create spectacular apps for Android OS.

Xcode – “Xcode includes everything developers need to create great applications for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Apple Watch. Xcode provides developers a unified workflow for user interface design, coding, testing, and debugging. The Xcode IDE combined with the Cocoa frameworks and Swift programing language make developing apps easier and more fun than ever before.”


Graphic Design

Art Text 2 – “Art Text is a layer-based design application for turning text into art and creating logos, application icons, web graphics, and buttons. With Art Text you will get professional results without the steep learning curve of Photoshop or Illustrator.”

PNG Compressor – “Drag and drop PNG images from finder into the app to reduce their file sizes. This tool is an excellent GUI wrapper around command line tools for PNG compression.”


Photography

JPEGmini – “is a powerful tool, trusted by thousands of photographers worldwide who have JPEGmini fully integrated into their workflow. It reduces your image file size by up to 80% without compromising quality.”

Pixelmator – “Full-featured and powerful image editing app for Mac. Pixelmator takes full advantage of the latest Mac technologies, giving you speedy, powerful tools that let you touch up and enhance images, draw or paint, apply dazzling effects, or create advanced compositions amazingly simple. Once your images are ready, access them anywhere with iCloud, send them to iPhoto or Aperture, email, print, share, or save them to popular image formats–all right from Pixelmator.”


Reference

Mactracker – “Mactracker provides detailed information on every Apple Macintosh computer ever made, including items such as processor speed, memory, optical drives, graphic cards, supported OS versions, and expansion options. Also included is information on early Apple systems, Apple mice, keyboards, displays, printers, scanners, cameras, iPod, Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Wi-Fi products, Newton, iOS, OS X, and watchOS versions.”


Security

1Password – Easy to use password manager that generates, stores, autofills, and syncs all of your passwords securely and conveniently. Highly recommended for everyone!


Video Production

Final Cut Pro X – “Completely redesigned from the ground up, Final Cut Pro adds extraordinary speed, quality, and flexibility to every part of the post-production workflow.”

Motion – “Designed for video editors, Motion 5 lets you customize Final Cut Pro titles, transitions, and effects. Or create your own dazzling animations in 2D or 3D space, with real-time results as you work.”

Compressor – “Compressor adds power and flexibility to Final Cut Pro X export. Customize output settings, work faster with distributed encoding, and tap into a comprehensive set of delivery features.”

ScreenFlow – “Record your screen. Edit your video. Share with the world. Telestream ScreenFlow® is an award-winning, powerful screencasting and video editing software for Mac that enables high-quality software or iPhone demos, professional video tutorials, in-depth video training, and dynamic presentations.”


Web Development & Administration

SiteSucker – “SiteSucker is a Macintosh application that automatically downloads websites from the internet. It does this by asynchronously copying the site’s webpages, images, PDFs, style sheets, and other files to your local hard drive, duplicating the site’s directory structure.”


Recommended By Visitors

https://www.smartscholar.com/computer-science-guide/ – “Whatever your level of expertise, you’ll find something of interest here – from great introductory resources, practical coding resources, study resources and lists of podcasts and blogs.”

https://www.canva.com/photos/ – “Browse millions of high-quality stock photos to create beautiful designs.”

7 Comments

    • Thanks for sharing this post! I found it to be a comprehensive piece.

  1. I see that you link to a number of design resources and was wondering if you could include ours http://www.canva.com/colors/ onto the list as well? Our Design Wiki on Colors teaches you everything you need to know about colors, their meanings and the color combinations that will hopefully give inspiration to your next design!
    Canva has grown to more than 10 million users worldwide across 179 countries – and we’re growing fast. We’ve recently put together this resource because our users have found it useful, so we thought your readers might enjoy it too.

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