For my freelance work, I do all design and development on a MacBook Pro. Through trial and error, I’ve come up with a workflow that is pretty smooth, though always evolving. I thought I’d share my top 3 applications that help with that workflow and ultimately make my life simpler both for work and home:
Sparrow
(Free ad-supported version, $9.99 in the Mac App Store)
Don’t get me wrong, I like the pre-installed Mail client for Mac. But it doesn’t seem to like me. Every time I tried to use it hooked via IMAP to my Gmail, it would make a mess of all my labels/folders.
Sparrow was developed to work perfectly with Gmail — and it does. If you’re a Gmail addict like I am, this is the mail client for you when you don’t want to use the web interface. Plus, it hooks in with Growl for notifications and DropBox for file attachments. At $10, I think it’s a great low-cost upgrade from the default Mac Mail client.
1Password
(30-day free trial, $49.99 at AgileBits.com)
At first, I didn’t get it with this program. If my browser can store all my login info, why do I care about having a separate app for it? Well, once I started accumulating tons of login info for all my freelance clients, I realized I really needed a way to organize it all and keep it safe (e.g. not written in a notebook I could accidentally leave behind at Starbucks).
I downloaded the trial version of 1Password and I’ve become totally reliant on it. It tracks and organizes all your passwords, but it also does much more: it can track your bank account information, credit card numbers (you’ll never have to run for your purse while shopping online ever again!), and even all those serial numbers and product keys for software you purchase online! Even better, 1Password is available for Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad and Android devices! With a $50 price tag, it is a bit of an investment, but if you have a lot of login information to keep track of, this is the way to do it.
Wunderlist
(Free for OSX, Windows, iPad, iPhone, Android and through their web interface)
I’ve tried a lot of “to-do” apps because I’m obsessive list-maker. I’ve used several I liked, but Wunderlist has won me over in the end because: (1) the price is unbeatable, and (2) no matter where I am, Wunderlist is available and synced across all my devices.
Wunderlist is very simple to use — create task list(s), then add tasks (with optional due date, notes and priority flag) and you’re done. I keep separate lists for to-do’s around the house, client development work, and my personal projects and hobbies. I wouldn’t know if I was coming or going if I didn’t have access to these lists!
What apps are your favorites? What are the ones you can’t live without?
