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Here are a few of the apps that make my freelancing work day go that much smoother. While I am sure you have heard of most of them, I wanted to share some insight on how I make them work for me.

Dropbox

Free - $19.99/month
www.dropbox.com

You all know about Dropbox by now. It is one of those apps that I have no idea how I functioned without it before it came along.

Dropbox syncs all files you have placed within a specified folder amongst all of your computers and most of your mobile devices. This is an absolute necessity if you work between a desktop and a notebook, as you no longer have to use external storage devices to transfer data between machines. As an added bonus, it stores these files (with several revisions) in the “cloud”, so if you were ever to lose your local data, or overwrite a file by mistake it will bail you out.

How I use it: Other than the obvious synchronization, Dropbox offers the flexibility of sharing specified folders, so I use it all the time for collaborative work. I email a link to the person I want to share a folder with and it automatically adds it to their dropbox account. I have moved my iPhoto library folder to Dropbox, so I know that all my images and albums are exactly the same between my two Macs, and I have piece of mind that if there were hardware failure, I wouldn’t lose my images. It’s storage of multiple file revisions has also been invaluable, as Time Machine in OS X only stores multiple file revisions at specified times, rather than each time the file was saved.

Xero

$19-$39/month (Free trial available)
www.xero.com

After trying several different bookkeeping options, I just can’t find a more intuitive and robust option than Xero. It allows you to do all of your bookkeeping plus your invoicing, making for seamless transaction tracking and reporting. It learns your accounting activity over time and makes reconciliation painless. I can’t quite put my finger on what makes it that much better, but it just feels like it was created for freelance designers.

How I use it: I want to know what is going on with the finance side of my business at all times, so I find the reporting functions very refined and invaluable. It is also easy to acquire specific data by specifying simple parameters, making tasks like monthly sales tax reporting effortless, and it keeps me constantly aware of what is coming in and going out. The fact that it is web based and iOS friendly is a big plus as it allows me to interact with my books virtually anywhere, making financial decisions easier.

Ballpark

Free - $99.99/month
www.getballpark.com

Although I submit official estimates less and less, as email quotes generally suffice, there are some clients that still request an official estimate. Ballpark generates estimates quickly and easily, and has some of the best UI in a web app I have seen to date. It allows you to email a professional looking estimate, tracks viewing activity, lets the client correspond through an attractive UI, and reports the jobs you have won and lost.

How I use it: For those times that a proper estimate is required, it is generally for a job that several quotes are being sourced, and I don’t want to waste studio time on typing one up, as Ballpark offers several shortcuts on getting an official looking estimate sent quickly. It also keeps all correspondence for the prospective job organized and informs me when a client has opened the estimate, so I can follow up with them.

Pulsar

$20 + monthly SiriusXM Subscription
www.rogueamoeba.com/pulsar

Working by myself all day can get a little lonely, so I rely on satellite radio to keep me company. Sure, there are web apps like Rdio that are great for music, but I prefer talk radio and the comedy channels. Satellite radio has some great programming, but their flash-based web app never works quite right.

Pulsar is a client-side app that connects your XMSirius account to their web feed and makes for a much more seamless experience. It allows you to assign favourites, pause the live audio for up to 3 hours and keeps channel data up to date on the dashboard.

How I use it: When my favourite radio programs start, I open the app and pause it, creating a delay, so after a brief period, I can listen to commercial-free radio by scrubbing through the ads. It also has output options, so I can capture the audio, throw it on my iPod and have in-car entertainment for long car trips.

CSSEdit

$39.95 (Free Trial Available)
www.macrabbit.com/cssedit

CSSEdit is a rare example of an app that works for beginner and pro developers alike. Anyone that asks me how to get started in writing markup, gets the same advice: grab a copy of CSSEdit and start ripping your favourite sites apart with it’s X-Ray feature.

Not only does it assist you in writing basic CSS by offering auto-completion and a simple UI for building each element, but it allows you to edit document elements by merely clicking on them, and guiding you to the corresponding selector on the correct stylesheet.

How I use it: Because I generally use a text editor to write CSS at this point, I utilize CSSEdit’s X-Ray element and its integrated browser to quickly pull up existing documents to quickly edit, change or add to the stylesheet without having to pour through several lines of markup to find the one selector I am looking for. It is also a quick way to look under the hood at what other developers are creating and how it works. Sure, there are browser plug-ins that do this, but I find CSSEdit’s workflow to be that much more streamlined.

Espresso

$79.95 (Free Trial Available)
www.macrabbit.com/espresso

Created by MacRabbit, the developers of CSSEdit, Espresso is yet another text editor in an already saturated market. While I can’t quite put my finger on why I prefer it, I find it’s interface most pleasing to the eye, and it’s auto-completion of code the quickest and most refined. I still fire up Coda sometimes, as it has a few features that Espresso lacks like Sites and client-side validation. For what it is worth, I still can’t think of a text-editor that has it exactly right. I just feel that Espresso is the closest.

How I use it: Because most of the sites I work with are running ExpressionEngine, most editing is done server-side, so Espresso’s ftp options for making markup edits is refined and invaluable. On long documents, it is easy to lose track of a document’s structure, so the ability to fold a div keeps my head from exploding sometimes. Also, Sugars are small plugins used for auto-completion of code, and are available for most languages, so it makes the markup process that much smoother.

ImgOptim

FREE
www.imageoptim.pornel.net

While using PNG images in web projects is a major advantage because of alpha channel support, the sheer size of some of these image files make developers hesitant from using PNGs more often. Enter ImgOptim, a free app that shrinks PNGs more than you even thought possible. With simple drag-and-drop functionality, you will be amazed at how small the PNG file sizes can get.

How I use it: I use PNGs as much as possible for everything from web buttons to browser screenshots, as these images are generally not perfect squares, so it is much easier to use a format that supports transparency, rather than trying to use a jpg and matching up the site background with the image background. When these images get larger, it sometimes rules out the use of PNGs. Because of ImgOptim, there have been quite a few examples of being able to use PNGs again solely because of the file size reduction that ImgOptim was able to provide.

LittleSnapper

$29.99 (Free Trial Available)
www.realmacsoftware.com/littlesnapper

I take countless screenshots in a day. OS X’s built-in function is pretty decent, but leaves a lot to be desired. LittleSnapper offers invaluable options, such as one-window organization, several formats, simple editing functions, and sharing and annotation options.

How I use it: The sharing options are big for me, as I can easily send a client a link to a screenshot of what I am working on rather than then sending an inbox-cluttering image file. The “Snap Window” function allows me to capture an isolated window, making for less photoshop edits. Because all of my screenshots are now routed through LittleSnapper, my desktop is a much more organized space.

Font Book

Included with OS X

While a lot of designers prefer more feature-laden font organizer apps, the OS X included Font Book works perfectly for me. It allows you to keep your fonts organized and categorized, allows you to preview type and view a typeface’s complete repertoire.

How I use it: I keep fonts that are “embeddable” and “not embeddable”, and “free” and “free plus embeddable” in separate groups, as I want to avoid setting type for a project that will later turn out to be impractical. Font Book also gives me a fast view of a font’s special characters, making adding little type embellishments that are hidden within a typeface’s repertoire quicker. It also displays what keystroke to use for special ornamental-type fonts, so I don’t have to type out the whole alphabet to find that one little gem I was looking for.

Alkaline

FREE (Paid Expansion Options Available)
www.litmus.com/alkaline

Litmus offers superior online web and email browser testing, but their pricing is unrealistic for most of us. While some developers need to test their creations in every version of IE since creation, and preview their html email blasts in all-but-dead clients such as Lotus Notes, most of us can get away with testing our project in a few versions of IE and Firefox, since Webkit browsers typically render a page quite similarly.

Well looks like they understood this, as they created Alkaline, a client-side OS X app that allows you to preview your project in IE7 for free and several other browsers for a rather large fee.

How I use it: The free version suffices for me, as I don’t support IE6, and IE8 is installed on my one windows box, so IE7 is my only real issue.  The Coda plugin that allows you to test your work in progress in IE7 is pretty solid as well. It saves me some time as it makes sure IE issues don’t get too out of hand too early in the development process.

Taska (iPad)

$4.99
www.bitalpha.com

To-Do apps can be quite robust and pricey, two things I like to avoid when I only require a solution that covers the fundamentals. Taska for the iPad is simple, customizable, looks great and will do the trick for most users.

How I use it: The idea behind using an iPad app rather than a desktop app was to keep my to do list completely separate from my workflow so it didn’t blend in with the 20 something apps I have open on any given day. I start my day by having a coffee, reading my feeds and then running through and adding tasks for the day. I can pick my iPad up at anytime, and walk away from my desk, so I can focus completely on updating my priorities. This approach has worked quite well for me, and I definitely recommend giving it a try.