Here are some electronics related links that I have found useful.
I live in Finland so I am looking at the world from that perspective. Good links are still universal.
Commerce
eBay UK
eBay is my primary source for components. I prefer eBay UK as I find it is better at sorting items based on the total cost, including delivery than the main US site. The small drawback is that prices are in pounds. When searching on eBay UK don’t forget to tick the “Item location” box on the left that says “Worldwide”. Parcels from sellers from Singapore, Thailand and Macao seem to arrive quite fast (8 days), whereas Chinese or HongKong deliveries take 4 to 10 weeks. An exception is those Chinese sellers who send via registered mail, parcels from them usually arrive within two weeks. Faster delivery but I will need to collect personally from the post office. Being able to order in small batches is important to me. Due to Finnish import laws, if I keep the total order value for orders from outside the EU, including delivery charges, below 22 euros then I do not need to pay VAT (24%) on the purchase. And then I do not normally need to visit the customs office, which would be a nuisance.
Here are some of my favorite Ebay sellers in Asia.
Thai shop etc – Mr Pornchai Semjang is always reliable and fast. I would appreciate if he had more smd components though.
Tayda2009 – Fast delivery
tme.eu
TME – Transfer Multisort Elektronik. A Polish electronics distributor with low prices and fast and reasonable delivery price to Finland – less than 10 euros per order. They are within the EU, so no issues with customs or taxes. They have good quality photosensitive PCB’s, for example.
Software
DesignSpark
I use the free Design Spark PCB as the schematic and PCB design tool. I started off using Circuit Wizard, so my earlier designs are in their format. I switched to Design Spark as I no longer have easy access to Circuit Wizard and I found the license a bit expensive for personal use. The component libraries in Design Spark are much wider than in Circuit Wizard.