Mark Poppen

As a web designer there are apps you simply need. To give you an idea of which ones I use I created a little list. You might find it useful..

1 ) Adobe Photoshop

There are quite a few image editing programs out there, but I’m sticking to Adobe’s Photoshop. Simply because “I grew up with it”. Yes, it’s costly, yes it has quite a learning curve, but I’m used to it and I know my way around. Although I’d love to get CS4, I’m still using CS3. I will have to upgrade soon..

Author: Adobe
Platform: Mac OS X / Windows
App URL: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/photoshop/?promoid=DTELR

2 ) Adobe Kuler

I love colors, but I’m not a color scientist. Adobe has a little app called “Kuler”, which is actually a website, and the app is just a step between the site and Photoshop/Illustrator. In Adobe Kuler you can create color palettes, based on an uploaded image, or from a base color. I use it all the time when I create new designs.

Author: Adobe
Platform: Cross platform (Adobe Air)
App URL: http://kuler.adobe.com/

3 ) Coda

I keep yelling “I’m a designer” when I don’t understand a piece of code, using it as an excuse to let someone else do the coding for me. When I have to/want to do some coding myself, which is limited to html/css for me, I use Coda by Panic. A great app with code highlighting, it closes tags automatically (sometimes this can be annoying though), and the best thing, I think Coda has is the “clips”, which let you define and save custom pieces of code you use often. For instance, I have a client that wants his brand name in red all over the site. I made a clip for ” <span style=”color: red;”>*</span> “. Love it!

Author: Panic
Platform: Mac OS X
App URL: http://www.panic.com/coda/

4 ) Firefox with Firebug

Of course, as a designer you need a browser, which for me is Firefox. In addition to Firefox and Coda, I use Firebug. Whenever a website I created looks kind of wonky, I “fire” up Firebug (no pun intended). It’s the best Firefox add-on I’ve used since the Web developer toolbar, which is also awesome. The cool thing about Firebug is that you can edit the css, and it updates the site as you’re making the changes. No, don’t worry, it’s not a WYSIWYG editor. You can’t save the changes you’ve made, that’s a bit of a disappointment to me, but other than that, I think you should try it.

Author: Parakey
Platform: Cross platform. Works in Firefox. There’s also a “lite” version for Opera, IE and Safari
App URL: http://getfirebug.com/

5 ) Tweetdeck

Social networking is a big part of my business. No, I’m not a social marketing guru, social marketing expert or whatever lame name you can give it. I use Twitter to connect to other designers, and get a lot of inspiration from them. Tweetdeck helps me sort the most interesting people, the search terms I want to monitor and keep track of replies and DM’s in a quick and simple interface. They should do something about their hideous logo/dock icon. The latest version has a friggin’ yellow icon, so I exchanged that with another one. (Follow me: @deluzione). It also updates my Facebook friend-status.

Author: Iain Dodsworth
Platform: Cross platform (Adobe Air)
App URL: http://www.tweetdeck.com/

6 ) Adium

To interact and collaborate with other designers I use Adium. An open source Mac OS X app that combines all the instant messengers into one. Live messenger, Google Talk, Facebook Chat, Jabber, Yahoo, AIM, Myspace chat etc. The list goes on and on. You can connect all of these in 1 contact list. It has a clear interface and yo can group your contacts. The only thing it lacks is a webcam feature (which I’m sure you can add on through the Adium community), and file transfers tend to fail every once in a while, but since I only use it to chat, I don’t really give a rat’s ass..

Author: (Community driven)
Platform: Mac OS X
App URL: http://www.adiumx.com/

7 ) Things

I recently started using Things. It’s a Mac OS X app that’s more than a todo list. Ok, It’s mainly a todo list, but it does it in a very slick manner. You can categorize your todo’s into projects. You can add notes to those projects, which I use to write down what I agreed an with a client, let’s say after a phone call. You can schedule todo’s, tag them, and when you’re done with them, they get logged in the log book. I’m the forgetting kinda guy, so I guess this saved my business right there by doing what it does best: remind me of stuff.

Author: Cultured Code
Platform: Mac OS X
App URL: http://culturedcode.com/things/

8 ) Quicksilver

I almost forgot about inclusing Quicksilver, because it’s so much in the background, but it’s an app that I would miss if I turned it off. It’s a quick launcher, which launches programs in a touch of a hotkey. I have Option-ESC to open up the quick launch screen. I enter the first few letters of the app I want to open, and Quicksilver finds the app instantly. I also set “Option+F” to open a Finder window. It makes switching to unopened apps a lot quicker.

Author: Blacktree
Platform: Mac OS X
App URL: http://www.blacktree.com/

9 ) Dropbox

Backup, backup, BACKUP! I have an external hard drive for backups, but just in case my house burns down, or gets hit by lightning, frying all my electronics, I use Dropbox to backup all my work online. I’ve been using it for a while, and I really like the fact that it’s pretty much invisible, until you need it, and that it instantly uploads as soon as you made changes to a file. It also uses revisions, so when you need to go back a few versions of a file, it’s right there, in your dropbox. I can still manage with the free 2gb, but as soon as I hit my limit, I will for sure upgrade to the 50gb.

Author: Dropbox
Platform: Mac OS X / Windows / Linux
App URL: http://www.getdropbox.com/

10) Rescuetime

You know you have those days, when you ask yourself at the end of the day: what did I actually do today? You shrug and think: “Not much.. I think”. Don’t lie, yes you do! I found Rescuetime to solve that problem. I was asking myself quite often that question, and was wondering why I didn’t get the work done I wanted to do, asking myself: “Where did time go?”. Rescuetime is an app that logs every 2 seconds which screen you have opened and puts it into a secure dashboard where you can figure out what you’re doing wrong. It gave me a clear view of things I was doing during the day, and where I could be more productive. It categorizes programs and sites, and you can rate those categories as productive or not.

Author: RescueTime
Platform: Mac OS X / Windows / Linux
App URL: http://www.rescuetime.com

11) Cashboard

Last, but certainly not least. It’s probably the most important app I use: Cashboard. Cashboard is an online invoicing app that does everything from adding clients, create estimates, track time (through a widget on your dashboard), create invoice, send automatic reminders, you can set late-fees, or early payment discounts, send PDF-invoices, it makes graphs and.. it makes me happy every time I open the app

Bonus: Enter code “CASH_ALPHA” when signing up, and you’ll receive a 60-day trial (instead of the standard 30 days).

Author: Subimage LLC.
Platform: Web app. The widgets are available for Max OS X and Windows Yahoo Widgets.
App URL: http://www.getcashboard.com

And, what about you? What apps do you use to keep your business going?