If you work as a freelance web designer or developer, you probably rely on a number of applications to perform daily tasks. From crafting code and pushing pixels to productivity and business management, it’s usually safe to say, “There’s an app for that.”

Shiny new apps are popping up more than ever. You are well familiar with the routine: a hot new URL sporting early beta invites buzzes its way across Twitter, picks up a handful of users and eventually falls off the map, never to be heard of again. This pattern is particularly strong for productivity apps (a.k.a. “getting things done” apps) and web development tools.

Don’t get me wrong: some of these little gems find success in segments of the market. They add to a vast reservoir of quality solutions that can be found for every task. With so many apps to choose from, how does one decide which to try and which to ignore?

In this article I will highlight a few apps that I’ve relied on heavily over the course of my career as a freelance web designer.

Cash flow is crucial for any business, but especially important for small businesses and freelancers.

When you think back to when you first started your freelance design career, you probably didn’t expect to spend so much time chasing down clients to pay their invoices. You started it to do what you love and get paid for it.

To help you do just that, here are 8 tips that you can implement into your business immediately to help you get paid faster.

If you have any other tips from your own experience, please share them with us in the comments.

Good typography is paramount to any good design.

An otherwise-beautiful design can really suffer if the typography choices are wrong. But combining fonts beyond the basic serif/sans-serif pairing can be tricky and confusing to a lot of designers.

While a lot of what goes into good typography is subjective, there are some guidelines that can point you in the right direction. From there, it’s up to you to experiment and try out different things.

Don’t be afraid to try new things in your typography, but trust your eye and your instincts as a designer. Sometimes, even things that follow all the “rules” of typography can still look awful (and vice versa).

Apple.com has undergone some adjustments to its design in the past week or so, changes that, if you weren’t paying close enough attention, you may not have even noticed.

Although many reports are referring to this as a “redesign”, I think it’s difficult to classify it as such. There certainly are some significant changes, but the changes are not exactly a complete overhaul as was the case for CNN.com in late 2009.

Nonetheless, the changes are significant to web designers, so I’ll briefly look at them here. If there’s anything about the changes that I’ve neglected to mention, feel free to comment.