General Web Design Inspiration and Useful Design Examples

CSS Beauty is not only an active database for well-designed CSS sites but it is also a way to connect designers with potential clients and a source for web design and general aesthetic inspiration.

Web Design Inspiration is a collection of screenshots showing excellent web designs. It is well worth browsing simply for graphic and web design inspiration.

Web Creme is a very simple site and easy to follow on RSS: screenshots are posted, often more than once per day, of truly impressive web designs.

Unmatched Style is a source for businesses and designers who seek inspiration from particularly attractive, interesting and progressive web designs.

Design Firms is one of many sites on which you can find designers directly but your best bet might be a simple Google search or simply contacting the author of a design found through one of the above-listed design inspiration sites.

25 Beautiful Minimalist Web Designs shows the awesome power of simplicity when it comes to web design – more isn’t necessarily better.

24 Great Niche Galleries has screenshots with descriptions and links to various galleries that you might want to see for more web design inspiration.

10 Great Web [Re]Designs of 2007 features mostly popular and mainstream sites you may already be familiar with but also provides some useful analysis.

Best of CSS 2007 is another great screenshot-packed eye-candy collection of cool web designs from last year – worth bookmarking for future inspiration.

CSS Web Design Examples, Tutorials and Other Resources

CSS Zen Garden allows you to see the full visual potential of CSS designs. You can pick a style sheet and load it onto the page to view the remarkable differences. The goal of the site is to engender new ideas about and discussions around the possibilities inherent in CSS-based design. While underlying code remains the same throughout the visual differences are readily apparent when you switch between views.

CSS2 Specifications is the place to start with CSS (or go back to when you are stuck). Yes, it isn’t trivial, but it is helpful and (despite the ironic lack of good design on the site itself) is something that everyone should have bookmarked if they are still learning CSS.

The CSS Panic Guide is a resource list which, as you might have guessed, is designed for those moments of utter despair and deparation where you are simply stuck. It is fairly well organized and contains links you’ll likely know as well as ones you won’t. This web design link list features everything from validation and text size to accessibility and media types.

The CSS Shark answers some frequently asked questions, explains some of the basics of CSS offers you a tutorial about Positioning with CSS (CSS-P, web design without tables). There is also a page with interesting links to other on- and off-site resources.

CSS Vault is a highly respected (PageRank resource for sharing beautiful CSS designs and layouts that involves (moderated) community communication regarding designs. If you want to get into active CSS discussions this is one place to do that. The content is frequently updated and the user feedback is generally positive. Overall, this is a great place to browse for interesting and well-done CSS web designs and even find designers.

101 more CSS Tips, Tutorials and Examples is what it sounds like: another great resource list if the aforementioned ones don’t fully handle your needs. Unfortunately, the resources aren’t fully described though some descriptive terms are used as part of the link text.

Web Design Guides and Readings on Contemporary Design and Style

Web Design from Scratch is a great resource for a web designer or aspiring designer of websites either just getting started or already experienced. It is designed to show explicit criteria for success and failure as well as step-by-step guides and instructions for improving your designs. Whether you are completely new to web design, working on new design project or simply revisiting and revising an old web design this is well worth checking out and bookmarking for future reference.

Current Style in Web Design Guide takes you through a series of successful and contemporary designs and then parses the various elements that go contribute to the success of these creative designs. From the particular designs, the author of this useful web design guide extracts general principles which can be applied to other designs. For those of us who have difficulty making the jump from principles and examples to actual design practices this is a must-read guide.

Web 2.0 How-To Design Style Guide: This design guide discusses the generally known but rarely articulated styles associated with designing for what is known as “Web 2.0″ by some and cursed as a passing fad by others. Whether or not you buy into the concept of Web 2.0 or consider it overused and outdated this will take you through the parts and pieces of such designs in a way worth at least browsing through if not bookmarking. On a related note, here are 99 Resources for Good Web 2.0 Design.

Color Tools, Ideas, History and Palette Creation Resources

COLOURlovers is probably the web’s top resource for all things color from color inspiration to palette examples, color history and inspiring uses of color. The tricks learned here can be applied to web design as well as other kinds of design work and are designed for both the color-savvy as well as the virtually color-blind designer.

ColorBlender lets you select a preferred color and then creates a palette based on that input. Blends can be saved for future use and tweaked as needed.

4096 Color Wheel is a pretty straightforward and user-friendly tool for creating color palettes and shifting color schemes.

ColorSchemer Studio suggests palette ideas based on initial and changeable inputs and is both fun to play with as well as useful for professionals.

Photo Color Matcher lets you create a color palette from an existing image of your choice. This can be helpful to people who don’t have a natural eye for color and for clients who may wish to have a designer create a color scheme from a photograph or other image.

Web 2.0 Color Palette is organized to help you develop color schemes based on certain criteria that will fit into a so-called Web 2.0-type scheme.

The Meaning of Colors explains the origins of associations we have with colors including cross-cultural analysis of the meanings of colors across ethnic and geographic groups.

Elegant, Obscure, Abstract and Other Free Fonts

Creamundo is a great place to start searching for free fonts organized in useful ways and easy to view custom samples of prior to downloading. These fonts range from simple and refined to complex and unusual with everything in between.

ShowFont has a likewise extensive collection of free fonts of different kinds

Urban Fonts aren’t all necessarily urban in any traditional sense but many of them are quite interesting and out-of-the-ordinary. Some are based on classic fonts while others are quite creative and original, much like those found at Abstract Fonts or at Better Fonts.

SimplyTheBest has a helpful series of categories that are easy to navigate and understand which, despite their somewhat limited selection, makes them worth seeing.

For those just starting out in the big wide world of RSS, note that we’re talking about Really Simple Syndication, a way to publish and subscribe to frequently updated content like blog entries and news items.

RSS readers – Windows

Omea – one of the most fully featured RSS readers out there; can get a little slow as its database grows; free in its basic version, also has a commercial, advanced version with more features
Mozilla Thunderbird – Mozilla’s e-mail and RSS reader, supports skins and add-ons
Awasu – RSS reader with a customizable user interface, the ability to synchronize with other readers, bookmarking and annotation, and republishing of your feeds
GreatNews – integrates with Bloglines, and offers a very fast way to browse through your feeds
RSS Bandit – RSS reader that offers organization of your feeds through folders, as well as synchronization across several installations
IntraVNews – an RSS reader that integrates with Microsoft’s Outlook.
SharpReader – requires .NET framework, lets you organize feeds into folders, integrates with Feedster, can display new items via system tray popups
eCruiser – an RSS reader in Japanese
Juice – a pretty basic RSS reader
Opera – Opera web browser comes with a fully featured RSS reader
FeedDemon – Newsgator’s feed reader offering a high degree of customization, newspaper-style feed reading, synchronization with other Newsgator products, and feed search
Snarfer – a free RSS reader, with key features being river of news style view, embedded video display, synchronization with Bloglines, powerful search and filtering
Active RSS Reader – simple RSS reader with a very small hard disk and memory footprint
Feed Amasser – a very lightweight, freeware RSS reader
FeedExpress – a freeware, open source RSS reader; quite basic, but with some nice features, for example CSS customization
Crackfeed – a tiny systray based application that notifies you with RSS news as they come
HappyFish – RSS reader and podcast client, requires .NET 2.0
Attensa for Outlook – RSS reader that fully integrates with Outlook, support OPML import/export, scheduling, republishing, and advanced feed organization
Briz RSS Reader – a very simple RSS reader
Particls – desktop RSS notifier and ticker with lots of options, also has a Firefox plugin
Anothr – RSS reader/bot for Skype/Gtalk/MSN

RSS readers – OS X

Newsfire – RSS reader for OS X
NetNewsWire – Newsgator’s RSS reader for the Mac comes in two flavors: commercial and free
PixelNews – a commercial Mac OS X RSS reader that comes with a huge database of feeds
Shrook – a Mac RSS reader which also has a web based version; supports synchronization, instant notifications via Growl, real time search, smart grouping and more
Vienna – a freeware, open source RSS/Atom newsreader, with a built-in tabbed browser and the ability to customize feed display
NewsLife – RSS reader for the Mac, pleasing to the eye, simple and easy to use
Squeet – another Mac RSS reader, currently on hiatus

RSS readers – Linux

Liferea – RSS reader for Gnome users
Akregator – RSS reader for KDE
Straw – RSS reader for Gnome, supports RSS and ATOM, as well as exporting/importing OPML feeds
Snownews – text based RSS reader for all you 1337 people
AgileRSS – desktop aggregator that is able to display any RSS, ATOM, and XML news feed; also offers an RSS news ticker

RSS Readers – cross-platform

RSSOwl – works on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. Offers, among other features, a multi-pane, highly customizable interface, OPML and blogroll import, internal browser, and a search engine.
BottomFeeder Rich-featured multiplatform RSS reader (works on Linux as well as Windows and OS X), supports CSS customization, OPML import/export, and plugins.
BlogBridge – open source RSS aggregator that allows you to create dynamic feed reading lists

RSS readers – web based

Google Reader – In addition to tracking your feeds, Google’s popular RSS reader allows you to star items (like in Gmail), view trends in your feeds and reading habits, and recently added an option to read feeds offline.
iGoogle – Formerly known as Google Personalized Home, iGoogle allows you to include RSS feeds as part of your custom start page.
Netvibes – This personal homepage provider includes hundreds of “modules” you can add to your page from Hotmail to your Flickr photos, but also lets you create your own modules by simply entering an RSS feed URL.
Pageflakes – Another personalized homepage provider, Pageflakes functions similar to Netvibes, letting you select from pre-made modules or create your own by adding an RSS feed.
My Yahoo! – Still the most widely used custom homepage on the Web, My Yahoo now allows you to add RSS feeds alongside your weather, stock quotes, and news. Similar to Netvibes and Pageflakes, My Yahoo allows you to re-arrange your feeds with drag and drop features.
My Netscape – Netscape’s personal homepage service also includes the ability to add RSS feeds as content modules. An account also lets you participate in their Digg-like homepage voting.
Daily Rotation – A no-frills personalized homepage aimed targeted at techies, Daily Rotation includes recommended feeds from hundreds of tech sites, and also lets you add in additional feeds of your own choosing.
Rojo – A part of Six Apart, Rojo is a web-based reader that combines RSS aggregation with a community of sorts, showing what people are reading on their homepage.
Bloglines – One of the early online RSS readers, Bloglines “split screen” interface makes it easy to view the full content of any of your feeds. The service is part of the IAC family of sites.
Newsgator – NewsGator’s RSS reader allows you to organize your feeds in Windows-style folders that can be expanded and collapsed.
MySindicaat – an advanced online RSS reader with a tree-like feed layout, available in several different flavors, including a mini ticker and a mobile RSS viewer. It also has RSS mixing capabilities.
Fwicki – web based RSS reader that lets you create custom river-of-news style feeds.
NewsAlloy – a fast and full-featured web based RSS reader. Also has a mobile version.
Feeds 2.0 – a personalized RSS aggregator, that learns from your reading habits and displays relevant feeds

Mobile RSS Readers

NewsGator Go! – NewsGator’s mobile version syncs with user’s online accounts, allowing you to read their feeds on the go for $29.95.
LiteFeeds – Once downloaded to your phone, LiteFeeds allows you to browse your feeds, email articles to friends, or bookmark them to your del.icio.us account.
Egress – This program for Windows Mobile sports a clean UI and also supports podcasts. Egress is available for $12.95.
Mobispine – Mobispine is a free Java application for reading your feeds on your mobile. The service also includes a web component where users can add feeds to the Mobispine database, see related feeds, and leave comments.
Quick News – Designed for Palm OS, Quick News lets you download feeds either via a HotSync or a direct internet connection for later use, which enables offline (or out of coverage) reading.
Bloglines Mobile – The popular web-based reader also offers a browser-based mobile version to access your feeds without downloading anything.
FeederReader – This application is designed for phones running Windows Mobile, and bills itself as being especially well suited for developers, allowing you to view the RAW XML files for and its XML elements and attributes.
FreeRange – This Java application will work on Palm OS, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry. The site has optional Google Reader integration.
Google Reader Mobile – If you use Google Reader, you can access a version designed for mobile phones.
ZapTXT for mobile – mobile version of the ZapTXT widget.

RSS to email converters

Feedblitz – one of the most popular RSS to e-mail converters. Supported by FeedBurner. Also has a Firefox plugin.
ZapTXT – monitors feeds for certain terms and sends you notifications via e-mail. Also has a mobile version.
R|Mail – offers simple subscription to any RSS feed, as well as an R|mail subscription widget which you can use on your site

RSS Feed Validators

Feed Validator – By entering your feed URL at Feed Validator, the service will literally translate your RSS to code and identify any potential problems. It works with versions of RSS up to 2.0.
RSS 1.0 Validator – This validator for RSS 1.0 generates an HTML page identifying any errors.
Redland RSS 1.0 Validator & Viewer – This validator offers a variety of display options for checking your feeds.

RSS-related plugins – Firefox

Sage – RSS reader for Firefox, has a decent amount of options, allows CSS customization
Wizz – a very advanced RSS reader for Firefox with a huge set of options
RSS Ticker – an RSS ticker for Firefox with a large number of options
Beatnik – simple RSS reader for Firefox
BlogRovr – a Firefox plugin that brings you related news based on your feed choices and the website you’re currently visiting
NewsFox – fully featured RSS reader for Firefox, with three panes; similar to Thunderbird
InfoRSS – another RSS ticker for Firefox with a very comprehensive set of options
Feedbar – Feedbar displays new live bookmarks items directly in your Firefox sidebar

RSS-related plugins – Wordpress

Feedlist – a wordpress plugin that displays linked lists imported from an RSS or ATOM feed
Feedsmith – redirects all RSS feeds on a Wordpress blog to the Feedburner feed.
Fedafi RSS plugin – a plugin for Wordpress that creates a full text valid RSS 2.0 feed from your Wordpress blog and adds a style sheet, tracks subscribers and clicks on articles.
BDP RSS aggregator – converts RSS feeds to Wordpress blog entries. Handy for creating an automatic blog.
Sig2Feed – Wordpress plugin that lets you add a signature to your RSS feeds

RSS-related plugins – other

Good News Trillian RSS plugin – allows you to read RSS feeds in Trillian
RSSNews – RSS reader for IM client Miranda
RSS Feed Scanner – Azureus plugin that allows for automated downloads by means of advanced feed filter configurability
RSS Popper – RSS plugin for Outlook and Outlook Express
RSS Reader for Gaim – enables you to read RSS feeds in Pidgin (formerly Gaim)

RSS managers

Feedburner – the obvious one. Recently acquired by Google, FeedBurner has become the de facto standard for RSS feed management, offering a huge set of features, including detailed analytics, chicklets, feed optimization and ad insertion.
WebPasties – a set of RSS-related tools, including some feed management features
FeedPass – creates a nice landing page for your feeds

RSS mixers

Yahoo! Pipes - an advanced RSS mixer with a graphical user interface; supports simple operators, filters, and many advanced functions
Feedbite – a combination of an online RSS reader and an RSS mixer, with the possibility to vote for RSS “bundles”
Feedblendr – a very simple RSS mixer that doesn’t require registration
Blogsieve – full featured RSS mixer that lets you blend up to 5 feeds and do some advanced filtering on the results
Feedcombine – RSS mixer that lets you blend feeds from a list of predefined sources
Feedshake – RSS mixing and some basic filtering
xFruits – a set of very neat tools for RSS blending, filtering and conversion, including an RSS to PDF tool
BlastFeed – an RSS mixer that lets you combine and filter feeds and get them delivered via e-mail, IM or RSS
FeedRinse – an advanced RSS filter that enables you to get rid of the “spam” in your RSS feeds
FeedDigest – RSS mixer that lets you mix and sort feeds and then republish them on a website
Popfly – Microsoft’s very promising RSS mixer, currently in closed beta
Google Mashup Editor (GME) – Google’s set of developer tools for creating mashups
RSSMesh – a PHP script that lets you blend several feeds into one
Afeeda – RSS mixer which lets you blend all your favorite feeds into one

RSS Ping Tools

Pingoat – On Pingoat, you enter your blog URL and select the services you would like to ping. Doing so will make sure that the selected sites crawl and index your site. The site has nearly 50 different services you can ping.
Ping-o-matic – Enter your blog or feed URL and select from a variety of blog search engines and Ping-o-matic will send them a ping. The site has about 20 services to choose from.
Blog Flux – In addition to a variety of other tools for bloggers, Blog Flux offers Pinger, which includes more than 30 sites you can automatically ping, including several language specific indexes.
ping service – This site is mostly in Dutch and automatically pings a few of the larger services such as Technorati and Weblogs.com

Feed directories

Syndic8 – one of the biggest RSS feed directories; integrates with several services on this list
Technorati – indexes blogs based on tags and authority, as measured by incoming links.
Feedster – organizes feeds into content channels such as technology and celebrity gossip.
Blogstreet – places feeds into different directory categories and also has a Digg-like homepage powered by user rankings.
Weblogs.com – one of the original feed directories, Weblogs.com simply shows the most recent blog updates automatically as they happen.
Icerocket – a blog search engine that also keeps track of blog statistics with their Blog Tracker product.
blo.gs – a simple listing of recently updated blogs in the spirit of Weblogs.com.
blogdigger – blog search engine, also has a Local feature for finding bloggers in your area.
2rss.com – a categorized blog directory and search engine with about 10,000 feeds indexed.
WeBlogALot – a blog directory that also pulls in breaking news feeds from mainstream sources.

RSS tips & hacks

Steve Rubel’s collection of RSS hacks
Another set of RSS-related hacks from Steve Rubel
Web Worker Daily’s tips on RSS reading
5 RSS tips by LifeDev
Steve Rubel’s 35 ways to use RSS feeds
RSS tools for Firefox – a detailed roundup of RSS-related add-ons for Firefox here on Mashable
Mister Tipster – a hardware USB mini display aimed specifically at displaying RSS feeds
Some RSS tips from Wired
Read RSS on your AppleTV

Miscellaneous RSS-related tools

SearchFeedr – RSS feed search, supports Yahoo!, Google, MSN Live and Altavista
FeedCycle – bundles feeds into “episodes” and delivers them on a scheduled/daily basis
FeedCrier – brings RSS feeds to your instant messenger
Clicky’s RSS feed – Clicky is a web analytics tool which can deliver analytics results via an RSS feed
RSS Panel X – a Greasemonkey script that displays RSS, Atom, hAtom and OPML directly from originating website
FeedForAll – create and edit RSS feeds and podcasts
Radio UserLand – a combination of a publishing platform and a news aggregator
Custom Reader – a white label RSS reader solution, ready to be branded to your liking
Chaos Wallpaper – RSS reader and wallpaper changer in one
FireAnt – RSS reader focused on podcasts, vidcasts, and media
NewsAloud – converts RSS feeds to voice
RSS2PDF – converts RSS feeds to PDF format
Dapper – creates an RSS feed from any website
Feedity – another RSS generator that can generate an RSS feed from any website
RSSMicro – an RSS search engine; searches over 65 million feeds

And while that perfect tool may be different for each person, depending on your needs, the following list should have something perfect for just about anyone.

Last week I shared some of the best organizing tips from you, the readers, and it was a hit. So this week, I’d like to share some of the best reader-submitted organizing tools. Note: This time, I rewrote the entries, so any references to the word “I” are referring to me, not to the reader who submitted them.

Let me please say that you should not try to adopt too many of these tools, and you certainly shouldn’t waste too much time trying them all out. Pick one or two that appeal to you, and go with them. If they don’t work, you can always choose another, but it’s important that you focus on the doing, not the tools.

1. Google Calendar. Along with Gmail and Google Reader, Gcal is my favorite Google application — allows you to keep your life organized easily, intuitively, with no hassle or slow interface.
2. Backpack. Great list-maker, perfect for to-do lists and other types of lists, simple and clean and nice interface. Can be accessed from anywhere: home, work, Mac, PC, mobile.
3. Filofax-like organizer. Keeps all your info in a central spot: calendar, to do list, project list, watch-list, later-list, notebook and inbox, important addresses and phone numbers, important information to have on hand, tickler, diary.
4. TiddlyWiki. A GTD-style wiki, with your contexts on the left side (e.g. @desk, @home, @writing, @inbox, project list) and each one of these opens a list of next actions for each location. In the list you can highlight items and link to other items, wiki style. The system is made of a single html file so it’s very portable, either on the Internet, through email, or on a flash drive.
5. A stack of 3×5 index cards. It can be a ubiquitous capture device; keep context-based to-do lists; you project list, notes. Very modifiable, portable, fast, easy to use. (See Hipster PDA.)
6. PocketMod. Ultra-portable planning and capturing, it’s a sheet of paper, which makes it cheap and easy. You can choose the mods you want, such as a calendar, notes, to-do lists, reference sheets, daily planner, and more.
7. Behance Action Pad. This nice-looking organizational tool uses the Behance Action Method for creative types.
8. do.Oh. It’s a nice to-do list web app, with a twist: it adds a zany poll. Perhaps the oddest combination of any organizer, this nevertheless makes the to-do list app fun to use, and that’s a huge selling point.
9. The garbage can. Reduce before organizing. Toss anything that’s not absolutely needed, and you won’t have a need to organize. It’s liberating, too!
10. Landing strip near your front door. It’s for unloading your stuff as you come in, so it stays organized, and so you don’t forget it as you leave the house. You can make your landing strip any way you like, but one reader’s setup consists of a set of hooks for backpacks, lunch kits, etc.; a box which holds keys, sunglasses, cell phones, etc.; and a basket for shoes as they come off by the front door. The reader also keeps alibrary books in a bag that hangs off one of the hooks. Simple and perfect.
11. PalmPilot. Actually, any PDA works, but one reader swears by the Palm OS. Like the Filofax organizer above, the PDA has calendar, address book, to-do lists, documents/applications (Word & Excel, or others), clock (including alarm), calc, and more. It also syncs with work calendar. PDAs are also good for instant capture.
12. Stickies on your desktop (computer or physical). The Stickies program is a popular one for the Mac, and one reader keeps a running to-do list using stickies for each task. The most important things go at the top, and stickies are deleted as tasks are done. Others use actual Post-It notes, on their physical desktop, in the same manner. Analog or digital, it works well.
13. A notepad and a pen. Classic, and perfect. The Moleskine is a popular pocket notebook (I use it, because of its aesthetic appeal), but any cheap notebook works.
14. OneNote 2007 (and one index card/day). For use with GTD.
15. Vitalist.com. A popular online GTD oriented list application that is straightforward, easy, and free. I’ve actually tried this one and it works very well, and surprisingly the free version does everything you need.
16. A habit list. In addition to your to-do list, your habit list keeps your action list from becoming overwhelmed by the every-day things.
17. Remember the Milk. Does lists and tasks very well, including repetitive tasks. It has a plug-in for Google Calendar for one-stop organizing.
18. Task Toy. Simple web-based to-do list manager, populr with GTD-types.
19. iGTD. One of the most popular GTD apps for the Mac, and it’s free to boot.
20. Journler. Another Mac tool, this diary/journal app helps you keep track of your life. Entries can be for anything that goes on in your day, thoughts, tasks, etc., and can be organized into folders and store files.

1. SlimTimer – A Start/Stop little timer that tracks jobs on a main web interface
2. Tick – Timetracking application focused on keeping track of your budgets
3. Time Assistant – Professional timesheet software
4. Harvest – Simple and efficient time tracking
5. FourteenDayz – Online time tracking for teams
6. PunchyTime – A simple time tracking tool for creatives
7. TimePost – Timer that plugs into Harvest, Basecamp and Tick
8. FunctionFox – Timing for creatives (subscription pricing)

Invoicing
When you don’t invoice, you don’t get paid, so it literally pays to stay on top of your billing. Here are some tools to help:

1. 

   Billing Orchard – Electronic billing and invoicing software, starting at $14.95 per month

2. Billable – Service and invoice tracking
3. SimplyBill – Easy to use invoicing software
4. Blinksale – More easy to use invoicing software
5. Quickbooks – Small business financial software
6. Side Job Track – Free web-based job tracking, invoicing, reporting and project management for the part-time independent contractor
7. Freshbooks – Tracks time, sends invoices by email or U.S. mail, and generally makes invoicing easier
8. InvoicePlace – Easy Invoicing and Quotes From Anywhere
9. LessAccounting – Is your job title Accounting? Probably not. Do less accounting!
10. MS Office Accounting Express (Free) – Free Microsoft Accounting

Project Management and Organization
These resources will help you stay organised and manage those projects and clients

1. Proposal Kit – Proposal and contract management tools
2. Ta-Da Lists – a simple (free!) to-do list application that can be shared with the world
3. Backpack – Service that integrates to-do lists, notes, files, images, and a calendar with reminders that can be sent to your email or cell
4. Writeboard – Sharable, web-based text documents that save edits, so you can collaborate, roll back and compare
5. ConceptShare - Share designs and get feedback with visual annotation tools
6. Wridea – Free tool for writers focusing on idea generation
7. GoPlan – Note-taking, calendaring, task management, issue tracking, file management and online real-time chat
8. Toodledo – Another web based to-do list
9. ActiveCollab – Open source collaboration and project management tool
10. MonkeyOn – Your to-do list for things that you want other people to do
11. Remember The Milk – Another To-Do List manager

Stock Libraries
Templates, Photos, Flash files all to help make you look good

1. FlashDen – A resource selling stock Flash, audio, video and fonts for as little as 50 cents
2. Dreamstime – Royalty free stock photography for $1 – $2
3. Getty Images – When price is no object and quality is essential
4. Istockphoto – Royalty free stock photography, videos, and illustrations for $1 – $50
5. Veer – Rights managed and royalty free photography, illutration, type, and motion
6. Stock.xchng – Completely Free stock photography
7. Ice Templates – Website templates in Flash and HTML
8. Template Monster – The biggest website template company on the web!
9. MyFonts – All the fonts you could ever want and a very handy font identification tool as well.
10. IconBuffet – Icons, more icons and even more icons
11. VectorVault – Vector illustration sets

Business Tools
Resources to help with the business of freelancing…

1. 

   HighRise – Track communication and conversations with leads, employees, clients, colleagues, vendors

2. Campfire – Real-time group chat and file sharing
3. Central Desktop – Shared workspaces and web conferencing
4. Relenta – Manage your email, contacts, documents and activities
5. Google Apps – Communication and collaboration tools from Google
6. Zoho – Free office tools
7. Campaign Monitor – Email newsletter software
8. MailBuild – More newsletter software
9. Breeze – Email campaign and newsletter software
10. Business-Paper – Easy business cards
11. GoToMeeting – Easy online meetings
12. Wufoo – Make forms to survey your clients
13. AIGA Spec Letter – Sample letter to communicate with clients who want spec work or free pitching
14. CPA Directory – Find an accountant (in the US)
15. SBA – Small Business Administration, help and advice
16. Paypal – Online payment system
17. Moneybookers – Online payment system
18. Escrow – Online payment system that protects the buyer and seller, useful for those bigger jobs with anonymous clients.
19. Resources for the Design Entrepeneur – Free sample forms and agreements
20. Work – How-to guides to running a small business
21. XE – Quick and easy currency converter for all your international transactions…
22. Trendwatching – Consumer trends and insights resource
23. FaxZero – US & Canada – Send Faxes for Free

Legal
Because you have to protect yourself and your work…

1. My New Company – Legal and general start-up information
2. Designers Toolbox – Free legal forms for graphic designers
3. Copyright – Everything you need to know about US copyright
4. AIGA Form of Agreement – Standard form of agreement for design services trmplate
5. HelpMeWork – US – Services to help you focus on what you know best
6. CreativeCommons – For licensing…just about anything

Job Boards
A whole bunch of places to find jobs, and don’t forget FreelanceSwitch will be adding its very own job board real soon!

1. 37signals Job Board – Mostly full-time design and programming jobs
2. Authentic Jobs – Full time and freelance job board for standards aware designers and developers
3. Coroflot Job Board – Designer job board
4. WebProJobs – Freelance and full-time jobs for designers, developers, copywriters and marketers
5. Jobpile – Aggregates the best job boards on the web
6. Krop – Creative and tech jobs
7. FWjobs – Web jobs board
8. SlashDot - Jobs for IT professionals
9. CSS Beauty Job Board – Job board for web designers
10. MinistryCamp Job Board – Job board for Christian designers and programmers
11. Guru – Freelancer listing service with job board
12. Elance – List yourself for freelance jobs

Web Tools
Tools to get your Web Presence Up and running…

1. Squarespace – Very nice publishing system for websites and blogs
2. Rackspace – dedicated hosting and customer service that is second to none
3. Mosso – Advanced hosting at a reasonable price
4. MyDomain – Domains for $8.50 per year
5. Media Temple – Easy to set up and use hosting
6. Light – Content management for designers and ad agencies
7. SiteKreator – Instant websites – just add your content
8. StrongSpace – Back-up and store important files
9. psd2html – Builds websites in html from Photoshop files
10. xhtml iT – Website builds from design in 24 hours
11. ExpressionEngine – A neat little CMS app
12. Inblogit – A great free blogging tool for web designers
13. PublicSquare – Easy Web Publishing
14. WordPress – The best damn blogging tool around
15. AgencyFusion – Outsourcable programmers
16. XHTMLized – The original – you supply the design and they do the XHTML/CSS

Advertising and Marketing
A few ways to market and advertise yourself online…

1. Text Link Ads – Text ads to sell your wares and improve your traffic ranking
2. Review Me – Get your service or Web site reviewed by bloggers
3. Adbrite – Text and banner ads on over 20,000 sites
4. AdEngage – Text and Photext ads (image and text ad combined)
5. Adwords – Text ads on Google searches
6. Professional On The Web – Get yourself Listed

Miscellaneous
All the many things we couldn’t fit anywhere else!

1. Creative Public - Useful site for anyone starting a freelance graphic or web design career. A $49.95 fee buys unlimited access to forms, manuals, pricing guides, contracts etc
2. You Send It – Send files up to 2GB online
3. Jewelboxing – superior packaging for short run CDs and DVDs
4. eFax – Send and receive faxes by email
5. PowerXChange – Extensions for a variety of creative software, including Acrobat, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Dreamweaver
6. Coroflot – A great resources for designers to showcase their portfolios, share work and network
7. Cloudmark – Block spam on your PC
8. SpamSieve – Block spam on your Mac
9. Dropsend – Email up to 1GB of files
10. Media Fire – Send 100MB files online
11. Box – Store, share and access files online
12. Icebrrg – Simple web forms
13. Formsite – Web forms and surveys in minutes
14. Lorem Ipsum – Lorem Ipsum generator for dummy copy
15. Textmate – The essential programmers text editor for Macs
16. ETextEditor – Like Textmate but for Windows
17. Kuler – Colour scheme picker
18. Pixie – A useful little colour picker
19. ColourSchemer – A bunch of colour tools
20. Jungle Disk – Online storage for 15 cents a gigabyte
21. AskCharity – free online contacts for journalists
22. TechInline – Remote Desktop Software
23. Protolize – Web Resource Directory