Useful Links

This page holds links to useful internet tools & other things I enjoy around the internet. If you have a job similar to mine, you might find some of these linkks helpful and/or interesting. Everything on this page is or has been used during my business or enjoyment (often both) operations in one way or another.

I will keep it updated as I continue to find more useful tools. There are no affiliate links on this page, and there never will be. Listed in ABC order by tool category.

Updated 3/27/24

AI Tools

Some of these AI tools fit under multiple categories, but these are all the ones that I actively use.

Blogging

  • JPEGmini
    • I bought the Lite version of this little app years ago and it works wonders for minimizing JPEG file sizes prior to uploading to your server.
  • Title Capitalization Tool
    • Copy and paste a title to capitalize it. For those times when you think you know, but you just don’t really know.
  • Word Counter
    • Easy to use. Counts words.
  • Youtube Thumbnails
    • To download thumbnails from YouTube:
      1. Copy the bolded part of any YouTube url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqZB63Ti2dE
      2. Paste it in place of the bolded part of this url: https://img.youtube.com/vi/bqZB63Ti2dE/maxresdefault.jpg

Graphic Design

  • Canva
    • Making simple graphics for promotional use on social media, and even some for printing. Awesome and powerful little tool that is easy for anybody to use.
  • Gimp
    • Free, open source photoshop alternative. Sort of hard to use, but it’s free and it can do a lot of things that Canva can not.
  • Texture Labs
    • Free textures and tools for use in graphic design.

Marketing

Music

  • headyversion.com
    • Awesome place for people interested in listening to the music of the Grateful Dead. It provides a Reddit-style upvote system for Grateful Dead live recordings, broken down by song.
  • Relisten.net
    • An aggregator of live performance recordings from archive.org, including both soundboards and audience tapes. A treasure trove of concert recordings from a ton of different artists and time periods.

SEO

  • Ahrefs
    • This is the most expensive tool I have used, but also the most helpful. It has incredible value as an internet marketer but the price tag can be tough. For the two years I used it, I would say it was worth the money.
  • Google Trends
    • Interesting place to find out what the world is searching for, and to see Google search trends over time.
  • Keyword Surfer
    • A free Chrome extension that displays search volume and other useful SEO data alongside Google search results.
  • Lowfruits.io
    • Tool for finding “low hanging fruit” keywords for SEO content optimization. Offers a credits model rather than a monthly subscription. Nice budget-friendly tool.

Social Media

  • Instagram Downloader
    • Copy a link from Instagram, paste it here to download. Super useful, because screenshots should only be used as a last resort.
  • Later
    • Used or scheduling social media posts across multiple channels at the same time. My least favorite of all my useful web tools, but it gets the job done.

WordPress Development

  • Codepen.io
    • Useful for testing and making small tweaks to code in a live, risk-free environment. Also has a social aspect to find ideas from others.
  • HTML Color Codes
    • Hex color codes for reference. Useful when doing web design and especially when fine-tuning CSS.
  • PHP Code Checker
    • Checks PHP code for errors and points them out. Great when developing plugins or custom functionality on WordPress.
  • svgsprit.es
    • Create SVG sprites for fast loading icons.
  • W3Schools
    • A treasure trove of knowledge for learning how to code, in any language.