There are a thousand lists of the "best mac apps for freelancers."  Some of them are free and some are just the must-haves while other are the coolest and greatest.  This is taking things back to reality. What apps do  I use as a freelancer? And what do I use them for? As a Freelance designer its all about finding what works best for you, and for today, these apps are what help me pay the bills. I would love to hear what you use.  Post a comment about your favorite everyday apps, or tweet it to @conceptsguy.  

1. Adium



Simple, free app for managing multiple IM accounts.  I really don't know anyone that doesn't use this that is really active on IM.  Let's see, I have my Gtalk, AIM, Facebook, MSN, .mac (which I haven't paid for, but the chat still works) and ICQ accounts set up through here.  When outsourcing some work to overseas, its a must have for clearly understanding your contractors.

2. TweetDeck

   

   Check out my previous post on this.  Tweet Deck is all things good about managing my twitter feed, DM's, @replies, trends, search topics, and on and on.  And I'm becoming more and more of a fan of the Adobe Air Apps. 

3. Safari

   

   I should probably specify Safari 4 Public Beta. For years I've been a die-hard supporter of Firefox (hence why it's next on the list) but since I can't have Google Chrome (seriously!?) yet, I'll get the closest thing to it, and that's the new Safari 4. Blazing fast browser! I wasn't sure that I would use the cover flow history and bookmarking but I do, and its awesome! I've finally come home to setting my default browser to Safari, but don't think that I've left Firefox behind.

4. Firefox

   

   Firefox, oh Firefox. There is is two things I love about Firefox, and unfortunately a lot that I don't. First off, standards. Firefox is right on the forefront of how things are done in web. Love that! Second, Extensions! I mean, how did I survive before Firebug and colorzilla? Let me know if you have any other recommendations for great extensions around the UI design side of life.  Firefox has been my go-to in digging in to cool web UI's.  But Firefox really needs to step up on speed, and whatever memory issues it has with just bringing my MacPro to a screeching halt!

5. Itunes

   

   I'm curious to see what other's do here. I've found myself using itunes less and less for music, and more and more for podcasts only. I have to admit, I love talk-radio, and itunes podcasts has become that background sound of people talking about tech, business, theology, art, and many other random topics. Most of my subscriptions now are video podcasts(what do we call those now? Vlogs? I'll stick with Video Podcasts) I leave the music to whatever the geniuses at Pandora will feed up to me.

6. Pandora

   

   I love Pandora. Period. If I had to work a day without Pandora, I would be less productive, less happy, and less trendy (if that's possible). I won't talk about what Pandora is, but just leave you with your need to add the following stations to your Pandora. Air, ColdPlay, Danu, Ingrid Michaelson, and Sigur Ros.

7. Fireworks CS3

   

   Fireworks was introduced to me only a few years back, but I've fallen head of heals for this little gem. The best way that I can describe Fireworks is that its the parts of Photoshop and the parts of Illustrator that you actually USE, put in to a great form to easily work with bitmap and vector design in one place. Oh, and when exporting for the web, there is nothing that comes close to Fireworks slices.

8. Photosthop CS3

   

   I am a designer, so I would be lying if I said that never opened Photoshop, but it is a lot less frequent than it used to now that I'm doing mostly web design.  Photoshop for me is the best place to go to get those great smooth quality gradients, masking effects, color correcting and sweet filters.  When I want something with a ton of brilliant artsy detail, photoshop is there with its robust tool sets! But for day in and day out, Fireworks will get most of the job done. 

9. Illustrator CS3

   

   I'm in awe of what creative illustrator artists can do with this app.  Illustrator, I guess I could say vector art in general, is just beautiful.  I hope to spend more time improving my skills in this arena. That being said, when I need to turn out a great logo, the ol' AI does the trick. 

10. Quickbooks

    

    Quickbooks, Quickbooks, Quickbooks.  I honestly hate quickbooks. I spent the greater part of 2 months figuring out how to enter hundreds of transactions in to this little industry standard nightmare, butnow that it is up to date and reconciled to the penny, I'm hoping that it helps me keep better track of my business financial books.  As a freelancer this often gets forgotten. 

11. 1password

    

    I was able to get my hands on 1Password back in 2008 as a part of the MacHeist Bundle.  By the way, if you are a Mac user and do not check out MacHeist at least once a month, then you're really missing out. 1password is a great little app. I use it for business and personal uses to track of all my account passwords. Easily remember 1 password, and then use the plugins for your browsers (all of them) togive you that good quality encrypted password that actually keeps your data secure.  Simple to use, and part of everything I do day in and day out. 

Wrapping Up . . .

So that's my list.  Most of these apps help me own and operate a fully functional freelance design business from my home.  Now those that know me would say that this list should be about four and half times longer, because I absolutely adore trying out new apps.  But I'll stick with the apps that currently must be running every day when I sit down at my computer.   Alright. Now its your turn! Let me know what you use! Not what you think is cool, but what apps do you fire up when you sit down in the morning.  Post a comment, link back an article, or shoot me a tweet @conceptsguy.

There is one last app that will probably be added to this list in about a week. I'm trying out MailPlain.  I'm still in the trial period, but I'm 99% positive that I'll drop the $29 to purchase this great desktop app for multiple gmail accounts.  I'm just in awe with how they've really thought it all through. 

Update on Friday, April 10, 2009 at 12:30PM by Conceptsguy

I'm always on the prowl for additional resources for free icons. Though as I writing this, I was thinking that I really don't use icons all that much, but that's another post all together. One thing I would like to note though is that there seems to be a backlash or a trend with designers saying that you should pay for custom designed icons because you get what you pay for, and while I do think that there is a very important place for this, for many developers, designers, and bloggers the great online community has provided us with a fantastic resource to let our creative juices flow! And have you seem the quality of some of these icons!?  We're not talking about windows 3.1 here.  This is great stuff.

Here's a short list of more resources I've been coming back to.

• http://www.iconspedia.com/
• http://www.tutorial9.net/resources/free-icon-pack-web-injection/
• http://www.smashingapps.com/2008/08/22/25-most-stunning-and-free-icons-set.html
• http://mintywhite.com/tech/icons/111-free-icon-packs-for-your-dockwebsite/