I used to be notorious at pirating software in high school and university. I even became friends with a guy in university that reverse engineered application serial keys. He tried to teach me but that was too 1337 h4x0r for my brain, that being said when I graduated and started earning a paycheck I thought it was hypocritical of me to sell my services as a software developer and expect people to pay me but I refused to pay for other peoples software skills. I felt that if there was a time God would pick me out specifically for some punishment that would probably be it 😅. So I started buying/paying for software. The software we decide to pay for is a good indicator of value we feel they bring. Inspired by Pat Walls's post I decided to write down apps I pay for and use for work as a developer. I love reading these lists because I usually find one or two gems that I have never heard about that changes my workflow for the better. I hope I can do that for someone.

Spotify

Software development would be a different process for me if I do not have music playing.

Digital Ocean / Linode

Honestly, I have been meaning to migrate all my sites from Linode to Digital Ocean but I have not had the time or maybe I am just scared that I will break some of the ancient code and scripts that I am happily running on my Linode box. Regardless, both are great I just find Digital Ocean to be more modern in its offerings and I'm a sucker for good branding.

Sketch App

This is the first app I learned to design on, I never understood layers and the way Photoshop and other Adobe apps were laid out until I used this app. It has become a major part of my arsenal. I cannot remember an app I have worked on in recent years that did not start here

Affinity Publisher

A fantastic replacement for Adobe InDesign. Sometimes I design brochures, marketing assets and proposals for my company. I just bought this recently but I like what I see so far.

Affinity Photo

If Photoshop is too expensive this is the way to go. It handles both illustrator and photoshop files and is equally as powerful, at least for my uses. I cannot recommend this enough. One time payment as opposed to chokehold subscription of Adobe suite

Apple Developer account

I make apps that I want in the app store so I have to pay the beast its dues 😅.

Adobe illustrator

I am on the verge of dumping this for Affinity Designer. Great app though.

Pixelmator Pro

Good replacement for Photoshop on a mac when dealing with images. I prefer Affinity photo because it has a wider versatility with file formats and you can do more, but if you deal mainly with photos and no SVGs, PNGs, etc. This is cool.

Gsuite

For my blueportsoftware.com email address

Google One

Cloud storage with cheaper tiers than dropbox. I do not currently need more than 100GB of anything in the cloud, Google already owns half of my life... why not give them more of it 😅

Tunnel Bear

Ok VPN, to be honest, Nord VPN is probably better, but they caught me on branding and then they charge me yearly and they renew without notice and I keep promising myself next year will be the year I cancel my subscription on time.

Microsoft 360

Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and stuff

Postmark

Transactional email, I have used them for about 10 years now. I love the company philosophy, love the application. I am never leaving.

Twilio

Programmable SMS. if you are in Nigeria you can use Africa is talking as a good alternative also cheaper, if you have international clients, use Twilio.

Istat Pro

I don't work specifically with this app but I use it every day, gives me insights into all the hidden parts of my computer. How much work my CPU is doing, how much I am downloading or uploading at any time, what apps are draining my resources etc. I install it on every Mac I have ever owned since I can remember.