Sometimes the best applications around are free. Web design is one of the easiest jobs to get into, because there are literally no investments you have to make to get into it. If you look around enough, you can find the free version for anything. For example, you don’t want to shell out a few hundred dollars on Photoshop? Get Gimp. Don’t want to spend six bucks a month on hosting? Use a free host. Don’t want to pay $16 to register a domain name? Get one free. With all of the free applications out there, some of the best ones get lost in the mix though. Here are the three essentials for any aspiring web designer or developer.
ImageOptim
ImageOptim optimizes your images for size, without any change in quality. With its simple GUI all that you have to do is drop your image onto the ImageOptim icon, and you’re done. It’s great for PNGs and JPEGs.
Cyberduck
Cyberduck is a fast and free ftp client that beats all of its competition. Don’t be fooled by a childlish icon, Cyberduck does it all.
Text Wrangler
Text Wrangler is a fast, and powerful text editor, perfect for HTML, PHP, CSS, or Javascript. Text Wrangler is the perfect companion to Cyberduck, and when used together, can update files online without ever having to manually download or upload a thing.
