I find Fidelity or Vanguard to be "perfectly reasonable" discount brokers to manage, say, retirement funds. For those outside of where they operate, such as Canada, there are smaller discount brokers such as TD Waterhouse here in Canada. I would think "long term" = "buy and hold", so things like advice isn't welcome or appropriate. Minimize the commission and particularly minimize the other expenses involved in mutual funds or ETFs. And as others have said, be willing to lose your investment if you gamble on individual stocks.

As a bit of advice, don't purchase stock without a discount like ESOP for your own company. You're already investing your job, possibly your career there so why increase the risk for less gain. Similarly, you might want to avoid investing heavily in your own currency if it's not Dollars or Euros. Again, spread rather than concentrate your risks.