I use a variety of different tools to help me in my various doings. In the digital age, it takes a combination of writing skill and marketing to achieve your goals. The products shown below help me to do both. Some of them are free and some of them contain affiliate links, which means I receive a commission at no extra cost to you if you decide to purchase. I believe in all of the products listed below and these are all personal recommendations of things I actually use.
Hosting
MyUnixHost: If you’re just getting started in anything — be it business or just putting up a personal website — there’s no better host out there than MyUnixHost. Now granted, I’m a bit biased. It’s my own host. But bear with me here. MyUnixHost uses a unique pay-as-you-go concept, meaning you only pay for the storage space and bandwidth that you actually use. Not only that, but rates are incredibly low — in fact, most people only pay a few cents a month to host their website here. The most expensive accounts still use only a couple of bucks a month. You simply can’t go wrong here!
FastMail: For email hosting, there’s simply nobody better than FastMail. These guys give you ad-free, professional grade email, complete with calendar, contact, and file storage, all starting at just $3/month. Email hosting is very tricky, and picking the right provider is even trickier. These guys are the bees’ knees.
Blogging & Email Marketing
WordPress: WordPress is the absolute best solution out there today for somebody who wants to get their site up and running quickly. You don’t have to be very tech savvy to get it going, either. Most webhosts have quick and easy installation methods available for getting you set up even faster.
MailChimp: There are a lot of email marketing providers out there (you are doing email marketing, right? RIGHT!?), but which one do you choose? Honestly I’ve used a few of them in my time, and I’ve always found MailChimp to be just plain fantastic. Not only is their interface incredibly easy to use, but they offer incredible value to their free accounts. That’s right, you don’t even need to pay them a dime to get started! How neat is that?
Design
GeneratePress: When you set up your brand new WordPress site, you’re going to need a theme, and GeneratePress is the one I use on all of my sites. It’s incredibly flexible and easy to configure. There is a free version, but the relatively cheap premium version gives you so much more in the way of customization. Seriously, get this theme. You won’t be disappointed.
Productivity
Spark: We can’t get by without email these days, it seems. If you’re a power user on iOS, then you’re going to need Spark Mail. I use it pretty extensively on my iPhone and iPad. And if I had a Mac, I’d use it there too. Spark helps you by allowing you to turn on “smart notification” which means you only get bugged for the things that are important. Your mailbox is sorted by personal email, notifications, and newsletters, allowing you to quickly clear your box and get to inbox zero.
eM Client: Now on Windows, where Outlook is the king, a third party client stands (in my opinion) head and shoulders above the rest, and that’s eM Client. This program is absolutely amazing, and unlike most other email applications, this gives you the full Outlook replacement capability, with built in calendar, task and contact support. The program itself is free for personal use, however you can get additional features and commercial use license for a small one-time fee. It’s totally worth it.
General
Morning Brew: I start every morning off with Morning Brew. And coffee. Morning Brew promises to make you smarter in just 5 minutes a day, and while the jury is still out on whether or not I’m any smarter, the newsletter certainly is fantastic. If you’re interested in the world of business at all, you’re going to want to sign up for this puppy.