Design and Development Apps That Don’t Break the Bank

By Michael Cervieri in MediaFool on May 4, 2008

Finished up another semester teaching at Columbia and a common question I get is what design and development applications do I use. And, more important for everyone carrying their grad school debt, what would I recommend that won’t break the bank (e.g., Adobe CS3).

What follows is by no means exhaustive, and it’s admittedly light on the PC side since I am and always have been on a Mac.

However, these are applications I’ve come across over the past year or so that range from free to generally less than $75.

If you’re a fan of others, use the comments field below to add to this list. No pimping.

And thanks to members of the WWWAC mailing list who’ve recommended software and solutions over the years.

Mac

  • Pixelmator: Image Editor ($)
  • Acorn: Image Editor ($)
  • NetNewsWire: RSS Reader (Free)
  • MarsEdit: Desktop Blog Editor ($)
  • Ecto: Desktop Blog Editor ($)
  • Transmit: FTP Client ($)
  • CyberDuck: FTP Client (Free)
  • Xyle Scope: CSS analysis and troubleshooting tool. ($)
  • Coda: Text/CSS editor for coding with FTP, with preview built in. ($)
  • TextMate: Text Editor for coding ($)
  • CSSEdit: CSS Editor ($)
  • iMovie: Video editor that comes with your Mac.
  • GarageBand: Audio editor that comes with your Mac.

PC

Mac & PC

  • KompoZer: WYSIWIG site development (free)
  • Audacity: Multitrack Audio Editor (Free)
  • FireFTP: FTP plugin for the Firefox Browser (Free)
  • Picnik: Online image editor (Free)
Michael Cervieri is Executive Producer of ScribeMedia.Org and an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Discussion

  1. Thanks this is really helpful!

    Posted by michelle | May 4, 2008, 2:55 pm

  2. I wish FireFTP were installed on all the j-school computers.

    Posted by dave | May 4, 2008, 2:56 pm

  3. It’s not design and development but in the GTD department, and everyone needs the GTD department, here’s a comprehensive list.

    Posted by bmunch | May 4, 2008, 5:01 pm

  4. For image editing on the Mac I recommend the freeware proggy Live Quartz.

    Posted by Amita | May 5, 2008, 12:41 am

  5. Ach, totally forgot FeedForAll. It’s an RSS feed creator.

    We use it for our Podcasts.

    Posted by ScribeMedia.Org | May 6, 2008, 11:13 am

  6. Or how about this massive list from Smashing Magazine: 35 Useful Sourcecode editors.

    For both Mac and PC.

    Posted by bmunch | May 13, 2008, 8:03 pm

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