Tools

Textmate

This is such a great application. James Edward Gray II, the author of a book on Textmate, says it best:

TextMate might look like a full-featured text editor for Mac OS X but actually it’s a thin shell over a personalized team of robot ninjas ready to do your bidding.

CSSEdit

TextMate has some great bundles for CSS, but at times the cycle edit, save, and refresh is cumbersome. CSSEdit speeds up the process, especially with respect to dimensions and positioning. Combined with xScope, or a transparent overlay, it is a very quick way to get pixel perfect layouts.

xScope

I knew this was the cadillac of onscreen rulers and color grabbers, but I didn’t buy it right away because I thought the free tools I was using were good enough. Nope. xScope blows them out of the water with a keyboard-activated onscreen ruler, loupe, and line-guides in one app.

Tower

Life is so much better with version control. I am growing more and more fond of Git and Tower has played a large role!

Sequel Pro

A great MySQL database GUI. Faster than using PHPMyAdmin and much easier on the eyes. Update: I’ve actually switched to using Navicat now because of some really key features: automated backup, HTTP tunneling, fast syncing. Though I still prefer Sequel Pro for browsing tables or running queries.

Transmit

Solid FTP client. Good keyobard shortcuts, great Textmate integration, and handy synchronization tool. Cyberduck is almost as good (and free), but I miss the split pane view found in Transmit.

Google Chrome

I can’t think of any reason to use a different browser. Chrome is much faster than anything else out there.

PathFinder

I use this as a complete Finder replacement. Tabbed browsing of files alone would be enough reason for me, but there are so many useful features.

Yojimbo

Incredibly useful for storing snippets of code, notes, web-archives, credentials, license keys, images, and pdfs. Ridiculously fast filtering, encryption, and handy global hotkeys for adding items or searching my library.

OnmiFocus

There are a few great to-do apps for Mac, but I prefer OmniFocus. Great keyboard shortcuts and I really like being able to group tasks.

Alfred

Quick keyboard-based access to applications and various web searches. It’s the fastest out there. The calculator is also pretty handy.

1Password

Generates, encrypts, remembers, and syncs passwords across browsers and computers. There is a hotkey for “go and fill” for any saved login. Insanely useful.

Freshbooks

This time-tracking and billing application is a huge time-saver. I highly recommend it to any freelancer. It will pay for itself.

Basecamp

Well, I’ve spent way too much time researching and testing project management applications and I can tell you: Basecamp is the cadillac. It is fun to use and the intuitive user-interface is easy for clients to learn.

Gmail

I love Gmail. This is my email client of choice for many reasons. Look for a series of posts in Tips on this one.

Google Docs, Calendar, and Voice

Love these tools and the integration they offer.

SuperDuper

Simple, fast, automated backup of my Mac to an external disk.

Crashplan

I love this service. It is affordable, easy, and automatic. I like knowing that within minutes of adding new files to my computer they are automatically being backed up offsite.