People often ask me about the tools I use in my personal and professional life. I thought it would be a good idea to write up an article and share what tools I have in my toolbox and a brief description of each of them. This list will change over time as my needs change and as I learn about new tools so stop by from time to time.

Website

• Wordfence: This is a great plugin that I use to protect my site from all the bad stuff out there! Wordfence is the only WordPress security plugin that provides this kind of real-time distributed protection as it learns from other sites that are attacked.
• Jetpack: You will find narratives on the pros and cons of Jetpack, but I use for analytics and a handful of other useful features.
• Feedblitz: Some folks still prefer to subscribe to your blog via RSS. I used to use Feedburner for this but then migrated to Feedblitz because it handles both my RSS and email list needs.
• Genesis: According to CopyBlogger, Genesis is much more than a mere WordPress theme. It’s an underlying framework of immaculate code that’s been built to achieve three important objectives. 1) Easily spoon-feed Google your content, 2) Erase the headache of security concerns and updates and 3) A huge selection of turn-key design options.
• Google Analytics: This is the standard when it comes to analytics. I use Google Analytics to track unique visitors, page views, bounce rate, and a host of other metrics.
• Backup Buddy: If you don’t have a backup strategy for your website, your crazy! Backing up your site on a regular basis is key to mitigate when disasters happen, and you don’t want to all your content simply because you didn’t have it backed up. Backup Buddy was developed by iThemes and its the most easy-to-use, comprehensive and best of breed backup plugin available for WordPress.
• WordPress: I started on TypePad, then switched to WordPress.com and finally landed on a self-hosted WordPress environment and haven’t looked back. In my opinion it’s the best most powerful blogging platform out there. There are countless themes, plugins, tools and a great support community behind WordPress. For more details on Heartstone Journey check out my site colophon

Social Media

• Buffer: Not sure what your platform is, but to get your message (or your story) out to the online community you have to be in different social spaces. I focus on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest for now. The challenge is how to send out relevant content to your community without having to go in and out of each social network to post. What if you could do it all from one place?
• Feedly: I rely heavily on Feedly to search out the blogosphere for useful content to share across my social networks and with my community.
• Bit.ly: I use bit.ly as my link shortening service to share and track stats. Comes in handy on services like Twitter which only allows for 140 characters.

Speaking

• Android Prompter: This is a Google Play app that’s free that I use for a quick and easy teleprompter on my tablet (more on that below). It’s not the most elegant solution, but its free and it gets the job done.

Audio

• BluBrry PowerPress: This is the plugin I use to embed podcasts on my website. It uses a simple, elegant interface and provides a very nice audio player, so your listeners can simply click “Play” to listen.
• MXL 990 Condenser Microphone with Shockmount: This is the microphone I use. I bought it because a trusted colleague recommended it. I haven’t found another mic that produces the depth and resonance of the MXL 990. Check out some of the podcasts I’ve posted and if you like the sound then this might be the the mic for you.
• Audacity: Audacity is free, open source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds. Is it the best out there? No, but its free and gets the job done.
• Alesis MultiMix 4 USB Four-Channel USB Mixer: This is the audio mixer that I use. I wasn’t looking for something overly complicated. Just something for me to mix together my voice, music bed, audio clips, and external callers, into a single audio stream.

Video

• YouTube: We all know and use YouTube don’t we. Heartstone Journey has a YouTube channel, check it out.
• Cyberlink PowerDirector: PowerDirector makes me look like a professional when it comes to video editing and producing. It provides easy-to-use comprehensive tools for high quality video productions.

Images

• Canva: Simply put, Canva makes anyone look like a designer! If you have to YouTube everything to do something in Photoshop, this is for you. It’s one of the easiest design platforms I’ve ever used. I create the majority of the images on Heartstone Jourey on Canva, check some of them out.
• Paint.net: Canva is my go to app for images, but there are some things I need to fine tune from time to time and Paint.net is still a heck of allot easier to use than Photoshop.

Productivity

• Chrome: Google Chrome is my browser of choice for every day use. For the record, I do use FireFox for development work because I love the FireBug add-on!
• OneDrive: I use it to share files across devices and it syncs automatically with my local computer in the background. I like OneDrive better than Google Drive or DropBox.
• OneNote: Yeah I used to use Evernote, but with the new premium rates now inline with Office 365 Personal, the decision to switch was a no-brainer. OneNote is my new #1 power app! Balancing life, personal and professional in the jet stream of life is no easy task. I don’t know about you but I definitely need a tool to help me get more organized!
• Microsoft Office (Office365): Office is my go to suite of apps for email, writing, presentations and number crunching.
• Microsoft Surface Book:Yeah I used to use the Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700T, but picked up a Surface Book and it’s awesome! It’s Ultra-thin, meticulously crafted and has incredible screen resolution. Oh yeah and it eclipses anything Apple has out. This is the ultimate laptop and has become my mobile virtual office!

Publishing/Writing

• Scrivener: I am new to Scrivener, but it’s a powerful word processor developed specifically for writers.
• Amazon KDP: This is Amazon’s self-publishing platform and I love it! Through their services, you can sell books while maintaining more control over your materials. There’s lots of chatter out there about traditional vs. self-publishing and I chose the self-publishing route because the traditional publishing companies that were willing to talk to me wanted to change my story too much.
• Smashwords: Smashwords is a global ebook distributor serving authors, publishers, readers and major ebook retailers. Another great self-publishing platform that offers a more control and a wide variety of distributions channels.

As I discover new tools I will update this page, so check back every once in awhile. If you have any thoughts, comments or questions about the tools in my toolbox (or recommend a tool not mentioned here), feel free to reach out to me on Facebook or Twitter!