What Useful Free/Cheap Tools/Software for freelancers/solopreneurs do you use?

[SiNNuT]

Prepros (available for Win and OSX)

Prepros is a GUI compiler for preprocessing languages such as LESS,
Sass, Compass, Stylus, Jade, Slim, Markdown, Haml and CoffeeScript.
Prepros can also live refresh your browser whenever you change your code
on your favourite editor.

• Compile less, sass, scss, compass, coffeescript, stylus, jade, slim, markdown, haml and livescript files
• No dependencies (sass compass etc..)
• Image optimization
• Live browser refresh
• Javascript minification and concatenation
• @imports detection and watching
• Options for customization
• Error & success notifications
• Built-in http server

[einsteinsboi]

Snippets: simple tool for collecting and managing code snippets. Available for Mac and Win.

Another cool find thank you

[diogo]

I also want to join the party

Some of these I use a lot, some I just find interesting and bookmarked:

• http://copypastecharacter.com/ <- absolutely love it!!
• http://webanywhere.cs.washington.edu/ <- screen reader anywhere
• http://www.monstaftp.com/ <- this one is very recent, so I hope it will get better
• http://photobatch.stani.be/ <- for photo batch editing. website is not working right now, see here https://launchpad.net/phatch
• http://redpen.io/ <- very simple tool for getting feedback on designs
• https://draftin.com/ <- for collaborative writting. I love where they are going with this
• https://delicious.com/ with this chrome extension <- still use it a lot for public and private bookmarking
• http://codepen.io/ <-everyone knows this, right?
• http://color.hailpixel.com/ <- nice color picker
• http://tinypng.org/ <- make pngs smaller
• https://avocado.io/ <- for couples. use it everyday
• https://aerofs.com/ <- very fast file sharing
• http://www.justbeamit.com/ <- also for sharing files without an intermediary server
• https://www.hightail.com/ <- speaking of file sharing. Did you know that yousendit changed?
• http://www.adminer.org/ <- my favorite for managing mySQL
• https://code.google.com/p/sigil/ <- for making ebooks
• http://elementaryos.org/ <- not an app, i know... but this is my current OS
• http://codev.it <- for quick file editing through ftp
• http://flackr.github.io/circ/ IRC client for chrome
• https://talky.io/ very easy video conference

edit: added codev to the list

edit2: added CIRC

edit3: added talky

[onjegolders]

Elementary looks pretty interesting, obviously inspired by OSX. Would have to replace a lot of apps though

Lover the color picker too. At first I was thinking what do I do??? Then the simplicity hits you

[MatthewSchenker]

Greetings,

I have been working a lot with SVG graphics lately, which is especially interesting when combined with the dynamic nature of ProcessWire.

I generally use Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape to create the SVGs. But I really like this:

http://code.google.com/p/svg-edit/

It works very nicely as a standalone app, but the exciting part is integrating this with a ProcessWire site. More on that in another post!

Thanks.

Matthew

[pwired]

This thread is going great, some real good site tools in here !!

[OrganizedFellow]

I don't own many commercial licenses, just these:

My wife bought me Adobe CS5 as a wedding present years ago. I wish she had consulted me, haha, I only use Fireworks for graphic design. I've never even once launched DreamWeaver  

ColorSchemer Studio 2 http://www.colorschemer.com/studio_info.php

A few other freebies include:

Clipboard Help+Spell is a clipboard history utility http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/clipboardhelpandspell/index.html

Screenshot Captor is a screenshot utility http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/screenshotcaptor/index.html

WinSplit Revolution is a small utility which allows you to easily organize your open windows by tiling, resizing and positioning them to make the best use of your desktop real estate http://winsplit-revolution.com/

Desktop to Android to Desktop clipboard manager https://www.clippersync.com/

[MatthewSchenker]

I don't own many commercial licenses, just these:

My wife bought me Adobe CS5 as a wedding present years ago. I wish she had consulted me, haha, I only use Fireworks for graphic design. I've never even once launched DreamWeaver

That's funny... Like you, I got a subscription to Adobe Cloud, but Fireworks was what I used most of the time.  But more recently, I must say, I started using Illustrator and like it a lot for SVGs.  I have also started using InDesign lately for eBook creation.  I have never used Dreamweaver, and don't plan to start!

For a very long time, InkScape was my favorite graphics application, but it has disappointed me in how it handles SVGs when you need fine-grained control of the code.

Thanks,

Matthew

[diogo]

 I have also started using InDesign lately for eBook creation

I didn't have a good experience at all with inDesign for this... ended up using Sigil (linked on my previous post), and correcting everything by hand on the code.

[jbroussia]

Since Dropbox only syncs ONE folder (with its many subfolders). Does anyone use any file-sync utility to sync those folders with any path OUTSIDE of Dropbox (on Windows)?

For example:

My dropbox is here:

C:/users/Dad/Dropbox/

But I want to sync the following with Dropbox:

C:/www/testing/website.dev/

SugarSync is an alternative to Dropbox that allows to sync any folder on your computers.

[pwired]

Does anyone use any file-sync utility to sync those folders with any path OUTSIDE of Dropbox (on Windows)?

Check this out first : http://ping13.net/hacks/dropbox-and-webdav/

Or DIY with any drive mapping utility based on Webdrive technology. (such as free novell netdrive 4.1)

Then on top use your own sync program.

Or even more easy use dropdav (good, but not for free)

Or this https://www.free-hidrive.com/product/overview.html

[Marty Walker]

It might seem like treachery to mention this one but it got me over the line when I needed to get some documentation done quickly: http://www.daux.io/

[Zahari M.]

Probably rather redundant for all you Mac power users here...

I was always thinking one day I will do this.....

I use quicklook a lot. Great for previewing text, audio & video files. But it can't preview .md files or .css files. Surely this can be fixed?

Today I did it.

Here are the solutions...

To Quicklook into all the various Markdowns : http://tidbits.com/article/13499

To Quicklook into .css : https://github.com/whomwah/qlstephen/downloads

[Zahari M.]

Snippets looks very interesting Manfred62 !!

Perfect for my ProcessWire Journey !!

Thanks!

[Macrura]

i think i might have tried snippets, but ended up with CodeBox which i'm finding really great... have tons of PW code samples and reference in it.

[netcarver]

• Good pencil and the back of plenty of used envelopes (or a good notebook if your budget can stretch to it.)

Vim (with vdebug)

Github

[MatthewSchenker]

Greetings,

netcarver: excellent first bullet point!

I have a three-ringed binder filled with blank white paper that I carry around with me all the time.  I use those paper dividers with the colored plastic tabs so each site gets it own little section, and I constantly add to pages and re-sketch little bits.  I show my sketches to clients, sometimes redrawing elements right in front of them.  I have tried so many mockup tools, but I have yet to find one that works as naturally as this.

Thanks,

Matthew

[pwired]

i think i might have tried snippets, but ended up with CodeBox which i'm finding really great... have tons of PW code samples and reference in it.

That's the way to do it.

[diogo]

Interesting solution for creating and managing Gists on Chrome https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gistbox-desktop/pdjgfbgklbmmigkmmdbbhfchdldngkml

[MikeHoll]

I manage my projects and bill my time with http://www.xperttimer.com I'm also using the mobile version on my Android and I use http://www.dropbox.com a lot...

[Radek]

GNU/Linux system with i3wm tiling window manager

dmenu - quicklaunch

Geany or Sublime Text - IDE

ZIM - notes, calendar, ...

Inkscape - vector graphic editor

Gimp - bitmap graphic editor

Gcolor2 - color picker

FEH - quick screenshots (binded on PrintScreen key)
VokoScreen - capture videos

FileZilla - ftp client

Meld - diff and merge tool

SQuirreL SQL or terminal - DB manager

BitTorrent Sync - sharing data

http://nerdi.net/ nice list of web tools

....

[Martijn Geerts]

Making a first post, and the only message is to recommend a product. The message and link benefits the organisation and has no additional value for ProcessWire.

I think this is inappropriate I consider this as spam.

Welcome to ProcessWire !

[diogo]

Deleted that post Martijn