With collaboration services being one of the most in demand in today’s web-specific market, there have emerged a considerable number of online tools that help to ease the process of creative work.

The project collaboration app segment isn’t an exception here in any way. Freelance designers need convenient tools for communicating with their clients and getting sign-off on creative projects. Also, teams require reliable instruments that enable their online collaborative design work.

Even in this quite narrow field, demands for what is really essential can vary, but still we can identify a series of features almost every designer would find useful in a design collaboration service, such as: support for various file formats, commenting options, project management features, client approval tools, and more.

To help freelance designers make up their mind on what is the best online collaboration tool for project sign-offs that fits their creative business scope, we have reviewed a number of web collaboration services. To decide on the right service for you, consider such features as:

• Intuitive Interface – to save time, it’s of vital importance to grasp how everything works from the first minute you open the app, and without needing to read through a heap of guides.
• Reviewing Tools – any kind of built in tools that help you emphasize your creative work or make a visual comment, for instance: pointers, highlighters, shapes, etc.
• Discussion and Commenting – ways to organize a debate for your team or receive feedback from your clients. Ideally they should allow for convenient discussion and prompt collaboration.
• Versioning – options to easily switch to previous editions of a creative file, enabling designers and their clients to track work as it progresses.
• Support for Multiple Formats – the more formats an app is able to process, the wider the field of creative work it can support. Support varies for graphics, web design, mockups, and video files.
• Sharing and Access Rights – apps should provide options for a designer to give access to authorized team members, as well as customers, and correspondingly to restrict files from undesirable intrusion.
• Accessibility – cutting edge technologies have given way to cloud apps easily reached from any location in the world with only an internet connection needed.
• Affordability – cost effectiveness is everything. Some apps stick to the freemium model, giving away a part of functionality for free, meanwhile the majority will allow you only a free trial, with the flexible pricing options offered according to the number of users and amount of storage space used. However, we’ve also managed to trace several applications providing completely free accounts as well.

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Almost everyone uses social networks for personal or business purposes. Communication via social media is taken for granted. Even employers check freelancer’s reputation with the help of social means.

Today we’ll explore top apps for better social media management. However, we will go beyond solutions like Hootsuite as it is a well-known brand on the social media apps market. The tools in this roundup are easy, useful, and affordable for freelance social media experts and are rising stars you should get your hands on.

Bizo Switchboard

Bizo Switchboard

Bizo Switchboard is more than a just a free Twitter link shortener. It helps you get the most out of your tweets and promote your website, blog or your freelance services. As you publish a URL, Bizo Switchboard shortens it and makes a unique bar, which pops up to anyone who clicks on your link in the tweet.

The bar contains your Twitter account name, your message and “Follow” button. Switchboard bar can be customized to meet your website color scheme. Besides, Bizo Switchboard shows statistics such as link impressions and click through rates. Continue Reading

A typical freelancer is an idea generating engine. New ideas spring up all the time. Suddenly, you may realize you have a perfect solution to a problem or get inspiration on the go.

To record your precious ideas there are handy note taking apps. These tools usually contain features like notes and web clippings. They instantly save content with small text overview. Thus, note making software helps to organize thoughts and boost freelancing productivity.

Let’s look at the top 10 notebook apps that can help bring order to your creative world. Many of these are open source, multi-platform, or cloud based apps.

1. A.nnotate

A.nnotate

A.nnotate is a web service that allows making text notes, adding sticky notes to documents like PDFs or images. It enables you to create snapshots of favorite websites. Besides, you can share your notes with your fellow workers. Thanks to A.nnotate web nature, you have freedom to make notes from PC or your mobile device. Initially, you set a free account; later on you may switch to a paid version.

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View awesome conference lectures, engaging how to discussions, and high quality freelance advice via video here on FreelanceSwitch.

This week we look at Web Development from Scratch Video: Helpful Dev Web Apps by Jeffrey Way of Nettuts+. In this video (aimed at beginner web designers) Jeffrey takes a step back from coding just long enough to bookmark ten very helpful web apps that you should be familiar with. This is part of a video series on Web Development from Scratch.

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Expressive Web Typography: Useful Examples and Techniques

Wherever we turn online, typography jumps out at us — sometimes literally, with the assistance of some clever coding. And now more than ever, we are seeing greater focus on this design element and its varied implementations around the Web. With the growing popularity of font embedding services and @font-face, typography is the talk of the town, but even though it is a regular topic among communities, not all of our typographic efforts are successful. Sometimes we swing for the fences, only to miss or fall short.

Look Backward, Look Inward, Look Forward for Success

Be it Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandela or any of the other 6 billion or so people in the world, we all have one thing in common.

Everybody loses.

Beneath all the victory, power and flamboyance lie the painful scars of failures. Failures are the checks and balances put in place by God, nature, Darth Vader or whoever else you consider the omnipotent. Continue Reading

Web based applications are overflowing the internet these days, but to short down the humongous list of several thousands – I thought it would be best to showcase 10 of the Best Web Based applications a freelancer needs. These are all great apps, some might work for you, some might not. It all depends on who you ask; I have found these to be the best for what I need. I suggest you try these out before making up your mind on which ones are great and which ones are bad. It´s all in the “Eye of the Beholder” after all. Continue Reading