Animate?

Help! Trying out animating stuff. To mockup effects and transitions e t c. But not sure on what software to use.

Seeing that there are people here who are awesome at creating animated gifs my question to you is:

- What software do you use?
- What's your process like?
- Any great tutorials out there?

Anywho. This shot is created in my first visit to After Effects. Took me about 30 min (of those 20 min to figure out exporting).