This past year was amazing! Filled with great experience, travel and my favorite, cool new shit! I have always been able to find out about some really cool stuff by plugging myself into great resources. A family member recently asked me to message him every time I find something cool. Instead, I wanted to write a list of my favorite over the past year and turn it into a blog post to share with everyone! Without further or do, here is the best shit of 2013.

Design and Development:

1. Canva – When it comes to graphic design this site is truly amazing! Now, I am no designer but they utilize a drag and drop interface with tons of layouts and make everything easy. The image for this blog post was made with Canva in under 30 seconds. Currently this amazing site is by invitation only so there is a waiting period. I have 4 invites I can send out so if you want access now, Share this post and comment bellow.

2. TutsPlus – This is a monthly membership which grants you access to thousands of templates, how-to guides and courses on ANYTHING related to design or development. If you are a beginner or intermediate programmer/designer I could not see how you would even consider passing up on all this information for a very affordable monthly payment $19.

3. One Month Rails – If you have a tech related startup and either do not want to learn how to be a great programmer or have the capital to hire a programmer, One Month Rails is exactly what you need! Rails allows you to rapidly prototype your ideas and have them functional to show potential investors and prove to that tech co-founder you’ve been begging to partner with that you are serious and that is can work. Having a functional prototype can open so many doors for you and your ideas. For $99 you will be able to fully program in Ruby on Rails and get to building!

Business:

1. Celery – Similar to Gumroad.com, Celery allows you to quickly build a store-front, accept payments easily and validate your ideas without having to build out a full store. You add the content needed to make the sale happen and Celery will take care of the rest. You can even pre-sale your ideas to really see how serious your potential customers are about your project.

2. Unroll.me – Is your inbox turning into a monster you cannot control? Unroll.me allows works very simple. Sign in with your email, they scan to see every group list you are on, you then unsubscribe to the ones you don’t like or add them to your “Roll Up”. Instead of getting countless emails you get one email each day containing all your subscriptions wrapped up into one ball of joy! This saves you tons of time and free you up from your inbox.

3. Emailga.me – This is for Gmail users only, which I highly suggest you us no matter your excuses! The Email Game is an addon to your interface that when clicked brings you into a game like email interface and sees how fast you can knock out your unread emails. Once completed, The Email Game shows you how many minutes you saved by using there service and makes it a very fun experience!

4. Jumpcut – Ever copy something but then copy something else and forget what the first the you copied was? This Mac App records and creates a simple list of everything you copied to your clipboard so nothing is ever lost while your working!

For Fun:

1. RageChill – RageChill is a music service which finds music based on two options, your either Raging or Chilling! You slide the slider to the left or right and the site will find you youtube music videos to fit how your feeling at the time. You can also hit the “Good Stuff” button which then saves the videos like a playlist on their site so you can always go back and listen to what you liked.

2. Noisli – If you are a freelancer, work from home or simply work in to quite of a place, you may want to check out Noisli. It is a simple site which allows you to add background noises while you work. From the common rain fall to the sounds of a slightly busy coffee shop, never work in complete silence (Unless your into that sort of thing…).

3. Alfred – Ever want Alfred as a butler? Me too! Unfortunately it is in the far future for most of us so in the mean time for all of us Mac users we have the next best thing. Alfred is a quick use addon that allows you to, search Facebook, Google or Yahoo for anything without first going to the site which can save a bit of time. You can also quickly open other apps without having to click around and open them. Use the shortcut to bring up Alfred with two keys and type in the first two letters of the apps name and press enter!

4. Simple Notepad – You honestly cannot get more simple that this app. It is sleek and works better than any other. Automatically sync all of your notes to your Apple devices as soon as you close the application. This notepad is great for writing down quick ideas, reminders, compiling your own list of your favorite blogs (hint hint 😉 …..) So nothing gets forgotten or left behind.

5. Pocket – Similar to the Simple Notepad, Pocket allows you to quickly save that article or website you wanted to read for later by syncing everything quickly to all of your devices for that after morning coffee “break” where you have some free time to catch up on that crazy article you’ve been reading about. The app works very simple; Copy the link of the article or site and then Command+S to save it to your Pocket.

Sites You Need To Know:

1. New Startups – This is one of the coolest blogs on this planet. They post the most interesting startups and ideas that are launching and really unveils some amazing things. Make sure you visit this site EVERY Friday, no excuses here. Their Friday post titles “Friday Quick Links” contains an average of 8-10 amazing ideas, videos, articles, tools and resources. I am more excited to see my Friday Quick Links more so than go out and enjoy the weekend! Your mind will be blown on a weekly basis so prepare yourself.

2. Elite Daily – Elite Daily is a blog which focuses on Gen-Y. With articles on Money, Life and other News, this site is something you cannot skip out on if you are Gen-Y. If you haven’t yet been to the site, please go now and make sure you subscribe!

3. Tapiture – This is like Pinterest but for guys and contains a Beautiful Women category. This site contains some of the coolest images I have seen. If you are just bored and feel like wasting an hour or so, check out this site.

I know there are many more amazing things out there that I did not mention. Share you favorite tool, resource or service in the comments!