So... First links... and a comment...

For example... did you know that almost all of Autodesk's products are free if you're in high school or college or attend classes? Yup... check it out.

Autodesk
http://www.autodesk.com/education/free-software

Adobe (Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash - All of it) CC
$199/ yr or $19.99 / mo
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/students.edu.html

Or you may just want a free alternative to Photoshop?
http://gizmodo.com/5974500/10-photoshop-alternatives-that-are-totally-free

UI Design tools
Tools on the Chrome App Store:
Gliffy (free)
http://www.gliffy.com/products/online/

MockUp

Balsamiq

Microsoft Stuff...
Skydrive... or OneDrive... is free, as is Microsoft Office via a web version that has Word, Excel, PowerPoint
http://www.skydrive.com

So if you need a place to set up documents, spreadsheets for running your business - etc. thats a good starter resource. You can also check out Office365 which is a pretty good deal as well.

Google Docs / Dropbox are good for sharing as well, in some ways better and more accepted even - but Skydrive has free MS Office so I include that.

A note on ... GoogleDocs, I know some people have a love for them - it works well with GMail, etc., my experience in using Google Docs is they're not compatible with regular office products when it comes to formatting, etc., so as with anything use what you feel comfortable with - they're all free. I have Skydrive, GoogleDrive, Dropbox, and use them all. Most businesses use MS Office products - so you may want to get a free SkyDrive (OneDrive whatever they're calling it now) -- just for the free MS Office stuff, and then use them with whatever storage system you like.

Behance / Prosite...

One freebie with an Adobe CC membership is a free Behance.net account and Prosite gallery. On the upside, Behance is free - and a lot more respectable than DeviantArt and every time you save something in Photoshop you can just click the "Share to Behance" button and it saves a copy of your work in progress to Behance, and notifies all your social media followers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. You also get a Prosite that's a essentially a 'professional' website / gallery to send people to with your ID.

I still post to DeviantArt - but I will say that I've had 3 or 4 contacts about work from Behance, even though I just have it for fun. These are actual paying jobs. So, once again your actual mileage may vary and all that... no garrantees but most people I've spoken with agree it's not a bad idea.

DeviantArt...
If you don't have a DeviantArt Id, get one. If for no other reason than it's got tons of resources, people who love art, tutorials ... its the bomb digity. :D It also, is not some place you want up at work. DA's become more than a bit of an excuse for one set of people to really push boundaries of what's art and what's... totally unacceptable by anyone. There's a reason why most businesses with network admins BAN it. It's totally unsafe for work. So ... you have been warned!

Development Tools...

Oh but you say, "That's coding... why do I need any tools for that? I'm a designer!".

Simple. In today's world, a "Designer" who builds or designs for Web Pages that can't do HTML ... is really handicapped. You pass up a lot of work by limiting yourself, and the last thing design is about - is limitations. A lot of really great dev tools make use of design and have the ability to design things.

You'll also find on the dev sites for places like Microsoft great tools for UI and UX. IBM, Apple, Adobe, Everyone has UX Guidelines. They often change the links - but here's one that's a good starting point:
http://usabilitygeek.com/official-usability-user-experience-user-interface-guidelines-from-companies/

Google UX Guidelines... you'll get tons of them.

UX, or User Experience covers everything from Typography to images - what formats, how they should be used, why they need to be used in some places...not so much in others, content, everything a User Experiences.

At the core of that isn't just code and guides. It's design.

So - never assume that just because it's 'code' it's hard. Because it's not. And never assume that just because it's a developer tool... there's not design stuff in there too.
Apple, any company you've ever heard of has design in their development.

You can't do it in fact without it. many companies have free versions or limited versions of their software - almost all of Microsoft's software for development has a free version, called "Express" and this works for about 90% of any kind of software development you might be doing. But they also ... if you do a bit of searching... have tools like Microsoft Expression Design (now discontinued) - it was a free tool meant for developers to get into vector based drawing and design and it was one of the best for it's time... it's also now free.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36180

So never assume anything about development tools. They often are really good for designing stuff.

Visual Studio
http://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs

Currently all students ... can get the Visual Studio Professional version... free.

More to be added... this is just a start to kick things off...

If you're wondering why Design, Comics and Software all come together here are two awesome links that will make you rethink comics and software design...
http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/comics-and-ux-part-1-cross-disciplinary-techniques/
http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/comics-and-ux-part-2-flow-and-content/

Design isn't just making it pretty. It's reaching out and communicating with someone. At it's highest - all art and design is capable of communicating better than any phone, computer, or written word as it can combine visual and often not understood aesthetic communications to people.

Not just emotion but context that you never get from spoken or written words alone. If you can learn the tricks from one you can make your art really do things you never thought of before. Not just with a panel - but even a single image. Directing the viewers eyes where you feel they need to be to make them see things they didn't know were there.

And if you wonder how this translates to Art and Comics - look at the master, Jim Steranko who didn't illustrate his comics - he literally designed them. Each and every panel.
[img=240x320]http://robot6.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/steranko-1-625x933.jpg[/img]
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=47677

http://www.sciencecodex.com/navigating_comics_a_theoretical_approach_to_comic_page_layouts-110771

...and the scientific breakdown of that same breakdown (get a cup of coffee - this is really deep stuff!)
http://www.academia.edu/3385227/Navigating_comics_an_empirical_and_theoretical_approach_to_strategies_of_reading_comic_page_layouts

Every part of design has some depth. If you wonder about people like Steranko and how deep their planning in design went. Take another look at that panel. The lines in the backgrounds of the panels literally direct the reader exactly where they need to go for the next word balloon or action.
[img]https://tcrona.dm2302.livefilestore.com/y2p7YObEoHervjkz_ji-wdqhZRkBBxGLKcFg4s81TEm-gS9LwF3lCF_z_SSyGFfAP01PAlQX1l7MStynWDGsiR-sFAZrROD3vg85esfzSG9CAs/SterankoFlow.png[/img]
On the left we have Nick Fury covered in all kinds of cool Shieldy-gear --- but take a closer look at it. De-Focus your eyes on Nick and follow the race track of lines all around his body. It literally cycles you down to the bottom of the page in a kind of zig zag fashion. Now take a look at (1) -- See how the lines from the Radar Screen behind Dum-Dum force your eyes down right to the next word balloons? And again in (2) -- even the angle of the computer console and the lines from the tiles on the floor direct your eyes to the next important bit of information.

And in the bottom panel - notice how the Countess' hair matches Fury's suit - it's a bit of a gimmee because we all know they have a limited color panel. But see how the curve of her face and hair literally move and almost blend into Nick's knee and draw your eye back up to that race track (colored similarly to the lower panel of Techno) so we get the primary conversation between Nick and Dum Dum... and the way the conversation is facilitated, is using the Countess' questions - almost like she's a background character in the main discussion? Defocus your eyes a bit when you look at it and you'll still make out Nick and Techno as he's ready to fire his missile or whatever - well enough - but guess who drifts into the background when it's de-focused?

So just without reading a word - our brain's picking all this up... Nick's the main character, need to read here to see what's going on (blah-blah-blah dialog) - Techno is firing missile. You really didn't need dialog for that page to know what's happening - the order it happens - and what the important key items are. It takes you by the hand visually and walks you though it.

He did this all the time on almost every page. This is why they actually study and teach comics in UX Design. It's a skill you can learn - and in your career, really make use of whether it's designing a logo or a web page icon or even just for your own art work. Learning to take the viewer with angles and color where you want them to go.