Useful Tools

The plaidnotion team uses (and advocates!):

programming / game development
Code::Blocks
Cygwin
SDL and extensions
Wagner Mersenne
openSSL
Inno Setup
Game Maker

graphics:
Adobe Photoshop
GIMP

music / sound:
ModPlug Tracker
Visual Orangator

communities, resources and friend sites:
The Independent Gaming Source
Robosquid Game Development Community
LazyFoo SDL Tutorial
C++ Resources Network

website stuff:
Dreamhost
Apache HTTP Server
PHP
Micronovae CSP
MySQL Community Server
Google Domains
ZoneEdit