Datawrapper

Get ready everybody because I’m about to reveal one of the internet’s best kept secrets…Datawrapper. Run by a small team of experienced data visualisation specialists, Datawrapper is a flexible, user-friendly SaaS mapping and charting tool that lets you create the most incredible charts, diagrams and maps. I’m talking New York Times quality. And this will set you back a whopping…nothing! This is a freemium product with a capital FREE because all the features most content creators would ever need are included in the free plan. And here is what the company say about that: ‘We understand that relying on a service you don’t pay for can feel odd: There must be a downside to it, no? We promise: There is not’.

GeneratePress

This is my WordPress template provider of choice. The free version is a little restrictive for my needs so I do pay for the Premium upgrade. Check out my entry on WordPress for why I am a big fan of the platform.

Google

I am a big fan of Google products so bear with me – this is going to be a long section. On the whole, Google products are free to use, cloud based and intuitive (OK, so Google Analytics can be a bit hard to get your head around but it’s getting better!)

My favourite G products are:

• Google Docs. An ever present on my browser shortcuts bar, Docs allows me to write articles which are auto-saved in my browser. When I’m finished, I can download it as a Word doc ready for sending. If I’m desperate, I can even use Docs on my phone.
• Gooogle Sheets. Excel may be the top dog in spreadsheets but everything I’ve ever needed to do on a spreadsheet is handled easily by Sheets.
• Google Keep. A note taking app which is great for dumping my brain into when out and about. You can create as many cards as you like and colour code them if neeeded.
• Google One. Google’s paid cloud service. Works well with Back Up & Sync to store all your important files in one place. I even use it for my Windows PC at it oesn’t mess up the folder structure like OneDrive (which has been duly deleted).
• Google Pixel. I would take Pixel over iPhone any day. Stunning camera, nice loud microphone, super fast, long-lasting battery and – best of all – this is in the mid-price phone (the 3a to be precise).
• Google Slides. I once used Slides to design a presentation for a client addressing staff of Chelsea F.C. at Stamford Bridge. I was due to convert the slides to PowerPoint but he was unable to access his program on the day so had to use the Slides version. Not only did he cope with the change – he found Slides easier to use.
• Then we have Google Analytics, Google Chrome, Google Search Console, Google Maps, Google My Business…the list goes on.

Layout Index

After being blown away by Color Index, I just had to check out this companion Jim Krause book. I wasn’t disappointed. I was particularly impressed with the many ways in which creative layouts could be created using simple techniques and clever tricks.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp contains all the tools you need to build a mailing list and create and send engaging email newsletters and messages.

It is an example of a freemium product done properly because the features included in the free tier should be enough to satisfy most startups (or businesses just getting going with digital marketing). Once your list hits 2,000 you will have to pay to upgrade so focus on building a clean list of engaged leads. I recommend using an online form on your website with an incentive (aka lead magnet) for interested parties to sign up.

Octopus

Nothing to do with writing (although every writer needs to keep the kettle boiling, right?) I just love Octopus Energy for their commitment to the environment and the way they are so easy to deal with. So it’s eight thumbs up for the Octopus from me.

Really Simple SSL

If you haven’t sorted out a security certificate for your website yet, you really should act. Not only will you reassure visitors with your https:// header and padlock icon, you will also avoid alarming them with browser warnings. If you have a WordPress website, you will be surprised at just how quickly you can tick this item off your agenda with the free Really Simple SSL plugin. The title says it all really. A couple of clicks and you will be done. The one time I had a problem, I found the support very responsive and helpful too.

StreamYard

Have you ever fancied live streaming and don’t know where to start? StreamYard could be the ideal solution. Unlike more flexible tools like OBS, there is no learning curve with StreamYard. The free package is fine for simple streaming needs and will give you enough features to run a decent stream. I recommend cutting your teeth on that before considering upgrading to the $20 per month package to unlock more goodies. My one criticism – which I hope they sort out before I start my streaming – is the character limit on the tickers. Double size that and I’ll be a fan for life 🙂

Twitter/X

Despite its flaws, X is hands down the best social media platform for keeping in touch with the very latest of what’s going on on this planet of ours. Yes, you will have to be careful what you accept as factual. Yes, you will probably get sucked into the odd pointless, toxic debate. But if you use the tools at your disposal (especially TweetDeck), you can stay right on the pulse of the world’s activity. I once decided to time the lapse between breaking news on Twitter and breaking news in the MSM and it’s about 20 minutes.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a browser-based platform that enables you to organise your Twitter activity. It is a simple but powerful tool which allows you to create multiple sub-feeds arranged in columns across the screen.

You can choose to monitor specific accounts, specific hashtags, trending topics, direct messages, @mentions and more. Best of all, this social media monitoring tool is both free and native to Twitter itself.

Udemy

If you want to brush up on any IT skills, check out Udemy first. With its handy search feature, reasonable prices and simple to use platform, you will probably find what you need. Udemy also runs classes on non-IT topics.

Now, if you want to learn how to be a copywriter, choose nhAcademy instead. I’m sure Udemy do some great copywriting courses but that won’t make me any money (plus, they won’t give you exclusive access to a Fiverr-style copywriting platform designed to help you build your career!)

WeTransfer

Along with Datawrapper, WeTransfer is one of those freemium online services that is so useful that I actually feel guilty using it. From large photos to audio files to videos, if you have anything up to 2GB to send and your (or their) email service can’t handle it, use WeTransfer.

You don’t have to pay and you don’t even have to sign up. Simply upload your files, enter the recipient’s email address, your email address and a message and click ‘Send’. Enter the verification code WeTransfer emails to you and you’re away. The recipient will receive a download link once the files have finished uloading (the time this takes will depend on the size of the file and your internet upload speed).

If you do want to send files between 2GB and 200GB then sign up for the paid version – if only to make me feel like I’ve given something back!

Yoast

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is vital of you want Google (and other search engines) to rank your website. Thankfully, Yoast have made optimising your WordPress website much more intuitive thanks to their powerful, feature-rich plug-in.

Using a neat traffic light system, you can see at a glance how your web page is performing SEO-wise with bullets highlighting what you’re doing well and what needs improving. The info is usefully collated at the end of the post you’re writing and includes a box for writing your meta titles and descriptions.

I also like the way that you get to choose a ‘focus keyword’ for the page. This helps me to ensure my pages are distinct and not cannibalising each other.

The readability tab has its uses too although I’m not a huge fan of the Flesch reading score. I do like the way it picks up on passive sentence structure though.

Zoom

What’s to say about Zoom that’s not already been said? I think the key to Zoom’s rise to prominence is the way it integrates with everything and just works! I have Zoom on my phone and Mac and it rarely causes me any issues.

Setting up meetings is easy as it connects with your email contacts list and calendar (with permission). You can set meetings to auto-record (don’t worry, everyone gets an audio alert) and you can send messages and attachments via chat.

https://learning.zoom.us/share/v1/gamification/assigned_badge/a1dddf21-cbf3-441c-8a7a-b7affb8185b8/shared?lang=en&t=1688514052171

Adobe

Adobe products are my one guilty pleasure. At just under £50/month for Creative Cloud, it’s not cheap but you do get the latest versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere Pro, After Effects and of course Acrobat Pro.

Color Index

Graphic design isn’t my strong suit so any help I can get is very welcome. Despite my limited skill in this area (which I am always honest about), I do occasionally get asked to do a bit of design work. This little gem of a book by Jim Krause is my go to source if I need to put colours together to achieve an effect for my client. There are over a thousand colour combos and all hex values (as well as RGB and CMYK values) are displayed.

FeedARead

Before Amazon got its act together and launched KDP, on demand printing (ODP) was the only way self-published authors could get their books to market without selling a kidney to raise funds. Now, I’m not going to lie and say that FAR have the nicest user interface and the slickest workflows but they are damn good at what they do. If you want a bookshop quality paperback that will cost you nothing up front then I recommend giving them a shot. Their paid distribution service is also really good and will get your book in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. Of course, if you want your book on Amazon only, you can now use Amazon KDP (I do for some projects) and there’s no doubt that the platform is far better. But the FAR team (Steve in particular) actually care about you as a customer and that goes a long way in my book. Amazon’s customer service is woeful – shockingly bad – in comparison.

Hex to RGB Generator (by WebFX)

I love tools that are free, browser-based and simple to use. WebFX have created a great little tool here for graphic designers and others (like me) who need to quickly convert between Hex and RGB colour profiles. Simply add the values you do have on one line and the equivalent values will automatically appear on the other line. What really makes me smile is that the entire screen changes to the relevant colour.

Hostgator

I am a long-term client of Hostgator who host all of my websites. Their shared hosting is very reasonably priced and you get a lot of features for that including unlimited addon domains, unlimited email accounts and full cPanel access. The support is very responsive and helpful with a live chat option (although it can take a few attempts to get complex issues escalated). When I joined Hostgator, they made a big deal abut being 100% powered by solar energy so it concerns me that I can no longer find anything about that on their website. I may need to look into that!

iTunes Connect

You will need an iTunes Connect account if you want to self-publish on Apple’s Books platform. Fortunately, you can easily do this through a standard AppleID. If you use Pages, you can even create eBooks and upload them directly to iTunes Connect. I have to say that Pages is a necessary evil though as it fits the usual Apple pattern – beautiful to use on its own but won’t play nicely with Word or Docs.

PayPal

Forget self-driving cars and rockets that visit space and then come back and land themselves, Elon Musk really did the world a service when he came up with PayPal. I love being able to receive payments without a card machine and it is always great to see the PayPal logo when shopping online. The idea of fast, secure, online payments may not be rocket science but it’s all in the execution and PayPal is the original and best in my opinion. Hang on though, rockets that LAND THEMSELVES! How can that be a thing?

Strava

This is another brand that has nothing to do with writing but I wanted to include it because of the positive effect it has had on my life.

I was introduced to fitness app Strava by my other half’s brother and it unlocked another dimension to my being. Or, more accurately, it got me back in touch with my competitive side. I had been running for fitness for quite a while but doing circuits of the school field was getting dull.

After being gifted a Garmin watch, I was introduced to Strava and the amazing idea of segments. For those who don’t know, segments are sections of road or track that the Strava community creates. Through the magic of GPS, Strave automatically adds you to segments as you run through them and slots you into the leaderboard (which can be filtered by age and weight).

It is so motivating to see that one more second faster on a segment will move you up the leaderboard. And even if you are a few seconds off the pace, you can always improve on your own time. That’s just scratching the surface of Strava’s many features. Writing can be a sedentary occupation which, as we all should know, is bad for our health. So, if you want to keep fit and healthy, go try Strava. It’s a freemium product but I recommend paying the annual fee to unlock all the juicy features.

Trello

Trello is a cloud-based Kanban board now under the Atlassian umbrella. It is a super way of visualising and organising workflow to stay on top of your workload.

I love the way that Trello starts from a basic foundation but offers loads of extra features, including automations for more advanced workload management.

And while we’re on the subject, if there is one golden rule of Kanban that I recommend everyone follows, it is to limit work in progress (i.e. your ‘To Do’ column’) In fact, as Kanbanize put it, ‘If there are no work-in-progress limits, you are not doing Kanban.’

Unfollower Stats

If you use Twitter to build your network and you want to keep your follower list tidy, Unfollower Stats is a handy free online tool. True, it doesn’t look that slick but there is no better way to make sure you’re following back those kind enough to follow you (and dropping those who have ditched you). This isn’t about tit for tat, it’s about keeping your socials active and relevant for the benefit of all concerned.

WhatsApp

I used to think WhatsApp was just a new way for teens to be nasty to each other but I have been converted. WhatsApp just keeps getting better and better and you can now send images and videos, set up private groups, make free video calls and record voice memos. When WhatsApp released the desktop app it also became a poor man’s file transfer service.

WordPress (.org)

If there is one company that epitomises all that’s good about the open source movement, it’s Automattic and their content managemeny system (CMS) WordPress. Now, there is still sometimes confusion between WordPress.com, a freemium hosting service and WordPress.org, a totally free CMS. It is the latter that has revolutionised the web.

If you have never run your own website before, the easiest route is to sign up for a hosting package with cPanel (I use Hostgator) and then download WordPress via your cPanel dashboard. You then have the foundation to create virtually any type of website you want – fr free. Although there are some decent free WordPress templates out there, I use GeneratePress Premium as a general purpose template. It’s currently $60 per year (or $250 for a lifetime licence) and is super flexible.

If you are building an e-commerce site, WordPress has its very own plug-in WooCommerce. I say plug-in but, in reality, WooCommerce is more of a CMS in its own right. In fact, in terms of market share, WordPress is so dominant that WooCommerce is its closest competitor.

I must give credit to Eric Holmlund for introducing me to WordPress and Hostgator which form the basis of all of my websites.

Automattic say that they are passionate about making the web a better place. Well, WordPress has not only made the web a better place, it has made it a fairer place too. Thanks guys!

ZipBooks

It took me a while to settle on an accounts package that was low cost, simple to use and with the features I needed.

The free options out there tended to be clunky and slow to process data while the standard SMB options (QuickBooks, Sage, etc.) were out of my budget. I trialled a few mid-range options but you either had to have a degree in Accounting to figure them out or there were key features missing.

My accounting needs are pretty basic. Invoices I can edit and send out, a way to track my earnings and expenses, details of who owes me what and some basic profit/loss reports. ZipBooks provides all this plus some pretty neat charts as an added bonus. It’s also lightning fast and pretty intuitive. All for a handful of dollars a month.