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There seems to be an age-old struggle between clients and freelancers: You need work in a pinch but don’t want to compromise on quality. Yes, I’m talking about rush jobs.

For many freelancers, this raises red flags. They’re concerned about being frazzled and not compensated for turning around top-notch work in a short span. You’re worried about meeting a deadline that just came up and saving your skin, too. If you can at all include more time for a project to be completed, do so. It’ll help you avoid rushing around—and probably save you a few bucks as well. But if that inevitable rush job comes into play, you’ll need to work with a freelancer that can swiftly get the job done.

Here are some tips on working with freelancers to complete rush projects.

Ask if Your Freelancer is Rush-Ready

From the beginning of the relationship, it’s important to ask the freelancer if they accept rush jobs. If they do, you know that you may be able to count on them when things get tight. If not, secure a back-up contractor that can take things in a pinch.

Give Notice

If your freelancer has indicated in the past that he or she is open to rush jobs, give him or her as much notice as possible about your project. That usually works by way of a phone call in addition to an email. Talk about the exact parameters of the project and give a clear deadline including everything that is expected of him or her. A freelancer should never take a rush project if they “think” they can do it—they need to be sure. You may want to reiterate that because many people nowadays are trying to snag any project they can to keep money coming in, but it’s only fair if they can deliver the goods on time.

Process the Red Tape Quickly

The contractor will likely want to have a written agreement signed and a deposit sent, so work quickly to expedite the requests you agree to. If you offer a project to the freelancer on Monday morning and it is due Wednesday afternoon, you want to make sure you get everything ready so he or she can get started on it right away. If you delay things a day, the freelancer will likely not start the work until Tuesday, which only gives him or her less than two working days—and that can mean your project won’t get the full attention it deserves. To avoid even more of a rush, make sure you get all the red tape items out of the way promptly.

Expect a Rush Fee

To compensate for scrapping other projects with less-pressing deadlines (and probably pulling all-nighters), many freelancers will include a rush fee. If you have a solid working relationship with your freelancer, he or she can probably get your project done without the extra charge, but in some cases, it is only fair to pay a little extra. Be sure to ask the freelancer if there will be a rush fee if you are tight on budget so you can determine from the get-go if you can afford him or her. If the freelancer is working on an hourly rate, it’s good to see if you can get a cap on hours to keep any project budget in check. If the freelancer is working with a lump sum, they sometimes toss an extra fee in there. It is perfectly okay to question hours or charges, just keep in mind that rush fees are an industry norm and you’ll probably be paying them if you put your contractor on the spot.

Give Yourself Extra Time

Never put your deadline so close to the time you need the project done that you don’t have time to look it over. You want to make sure everything is completed, and if possible, to give it a quick proofread. Remember, even freelancers make mistakes from time to time, so it is a smart idea to review everything before it goes out.

Be nice. A polite note will go a long way to thank your freelancer for helping out with a rush job. Take the time to thank him or her—because you never know when you may need help in a hurry.

Related posts:

1. 40 Quality Photoshop UI Design Tutorials
2. The Power of a (Work)Day Off
3. fight club of freelancing

This industry moves fast — really fast! If you’re not careful, you’ll be left in its dust. So, if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed with the coming changes/updates in HTML5, use this as a primer of the things you must know.

1. New Doctype

Still using that pesky, impossible-to-memorize XHTML doctype?

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
	"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

If so, why? Switch to the new HTML5 doctype. You’ll live longer — as Douglas Quaid might say.

<!DOCTYPE html>

In fact, did you know that it truthfully isn’t even really necessary for HTML5? However, it’s used for current, and older browsers that require a specified doctype. Browsers that do not understand this doctype will simply render the contained markup in standards mode. So, without worry, feel free to throw caution to the wind, and embrace the new HTML5 doctype.

2. The Figure Element

Consider the following mark-up for an image:

<img src="path/to/image" alt="About image" />
<p>Image of Mars. </p>

There unfortunately isn’t any easy or semantic way to associate the caption, wrapped in a paragraph tag, with the image element itself. HTML5 rectifies this, with the introduction of the <figure> element. When combined with the <figcaption> element, we can now semantically associate captions with their image counterparts.

<figure>
	<img src="path/to/image" alt="About image" />
	<figcaption>
		<p>This is an image of something interesting. </p>
	</figcaption>
</figure>

3. <small> Redefined

Not long ago, I utilized the <small> element to create subheadings that are closely related to the logo. It’s a useful presentational element; however, now, that would be an incorrect usage. The small element has been redefined, more appropriately, to refer to small print. Imagine a copyright statement in the footer of your site; according to the new HTML5 definition of this element; the <small> would be the correct wrapper for this information.

The small element now refers to “small print.”

4. No More Types for Scripts and Links

You possibly still add the type attribute to your link and script tags.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="path/to/stylesheet.css" type="text/css" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="path/to/script.js"></script>

This is no longer necessary. It’s implied that both of these tags refer to stylesheets and scripts, respectively. As such, we can remove the type attribute all together.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="path/to/stylesheet.css" />
<script src="path/to/script.js"></script>

5. To Quote or Not to Quote.

…That is the question. Remember, HTML5 is not XHTML. You don’t have to wrap your attributes in quotation marks if you don’t want to you. You don’t have to close your elements. With that said, there’s nothing wrong with doing so, if it makes you feel more comfortable. I find that this is true for myself.

<p id=someId> Start the reactor.

Make up your own mind on this one. If you prefer a more structured document, by all means, stick with the quotes.

6. Make your Content Editable

The new browsers have a nifty new attribute that can be applied to elements, called contenteditable. As the name implies, this allows the user to edit any of the text contained within the element, including its children. There are a variety of uses for something like this, including an app as simple as a to-do list, which also takes advantage of local storage.

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html lang="en">
<head>
	<meta charset="utf-8">
	<title>untitled</title>
</head>
<body>
	<h2> To-Do List </h2>
     <ul contenteditable="true">
		<li> Break mechanical cab driver. </li>
		<li> Drive to abandoned factory
		<li> Watch video of self </li>
	 </ul>
</body>
</html>

Or, as we learned in the previous tip, we could write it as:

<ul contenteditable=true>

7. Email Inputs

If we apply a type of “email” to form inputs, we can instruct the browser to only allow strings that conform to a valid email address structure. That’s right; built-in form validation will soon be here! We can’t 100% rely on this just yet, for obvious reasons. In older browsers that do not understand this “email” type, they’ll simply fall back to a regular textbox.

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html lang="en">
<head>
	<meta charset="utf-8">
	<title>untitled</title>
</head>
<body>
	<form action="" method="get">
		<label for="email">Email:</label>
		<input id="email" name="email" type="email" />

		<button type="submit"> Submit Form </button>
	</form>
</body>
</html>

At this time, we cannot depend on browser validation. A server/client side solution must still be implemented.

It should also be noted that all the current browsers are a bit wonky when it comes to what elements and attributes they do and don’t support. For example, Opera seems to support email validation, just as long as the name attribute is specified. However, it does not support the placeholder attribute, which we’ll learn about in the next tip. Bottom line, don’t depend on this form of validation just yet…but you can still use it!

8. Placeholders

Before, we had to utilize a bit of JavaScript to create placeholders for textboxes. Sure, you can initially set the value attribute how you see fit, but, as soon as the user deletes that text and clicks away, the input will be left blank again. The placeholder attribute remedies this.

<input name="email" type="email" placeholder="doug@givethesepeopleair.com" />

Again, support is shady at best across browsers, however, this will continue to improve with every new release. Besides, if the browser, like Firefox and Opera, don’t currently support the placeholder attribute, no harm done.

9. Local Storage

Thanks to local storage (not officially HTML5, but grouped in for convenience’s sake), we can make advanced browsers “remember” what we type, even after the browser is closed or is refreshed.

“localStorage sets fields on the domain. Even when you close the browser, reopen it, and go back to the site, it remembers all fields in localStorage.”
-QuirksBlog

While obviously not supported across all browsers, we can expect this method to work, most notably, in Internet Explorer 8, Safari 4, and Firefox 3.5. Note that, to compensate for older browsers that won’t recognize local storage, you should first test to determine whether window.localStorage exists.

via http://www.findmebyip.com/litmus/

10. The Semantic Header and Footer

Gone are the days of:

<div id="header">
	...
</div>

<div id="footer">
	...
</div>

Divs, by nature, have no semantic structure — even after an id is applied. Now, with HTML5, we have access to the <header> and <footer> elements. The mark-up above can now be replaced with:

<header>
	...
</header>

<footer>
	...
</footer>

It’s fully appropriate to have multiple headers and footers in your projects.

Try not to confuse these elements with the “header” and “footer” of your website. They simply refer to their container. As such, it makes sense to place, for example, meta information at the bottom of a blog post within the footer element. The same holds true for the header.

11. More HTML5 Form Features

Learn about more helpful HTML5 form features in this quick video tip.

12. Internet Explorer and HTML5

Unfortunately, that dang Internet Explorer requires a bit of wrangling in order to understand the new HTML5 elements.

All elements, by default, have a display of inline.

In order to ensure that the new HTML5 elements render correctly as block level elements, it’s necessary at this time to style them as such.

header, footer, article, section, nav, menu, hgroup {
   display: block;
}

Unfortunately, Internet Explorer will still ignore these stylings, because it has no clue what, as an example, the header element even is. Luckily, there is an easy fix:

document.createElement("article");
document.createElement("footer");
document.createElement("header");
document.createElement("hgroup");
document.createElement("nav");
document.createElement("menu");

Strangely enough, this code seems to trigger Internet Explorer. To simply this process for each new application, Remy Sharp created a script, commonly referred to as the HTML5 shiv. This script also fixes some printing issues as well.

<!--[if IE]>
<script src="http://html5shim.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script>
<![endif]-->

13. hgroup

Imagine that, in my site’s header, I had the name of my site, immediately followed by a subheading. While we can use an <h1> and <h2> tag, respectively, to create the mark-up, there still wasn’t, as of HTML4, an easy way to semantically illustrate the relationship between the two. Additionally, the use of an h2 tag presents more problems, in terms of hierarchy, when it comes to displaying other headings on the page. By using the hgroup element, we can group these headings together, without affecting the flow of the document’s outline.

<header>
	<hgroup>
		<h1> Recall Fan Page </h1>
		<h2> Only for people who want the memory of a lifetime. </h2>
	</hgroup>
</header>

14. Required Attribute

Forms allow for a new required attribute, which specifies, naturally, whether a particular input is required. Dependent upon your coding preference, you can declare this attribute in one of two ways:

<input type="text" name="someInput" required>

Or, with a more structured approach.

<input type="text" name="someInput" required="required">

Either method will do. With this code, and within browsers that support this attribute, a form cannot be submitted if that “someInput” input is blank. Here’s a quick example; we’ll also add the placeholder attribute as well, as there’s no reason not to.

<form method="post" action="">
	<label for="someInput"> Your Name: </label>
	<input type="text" id="someInput" name="someInput" placeholder="Douglas Quaid" required>
	<button type="submit">Go</button>
</form>

If the input is left blank, and the form is submitted, the textbox will be highlighted.

15. Autofocus Attribute

Again, HTML5 removes the need for JavaScript solutions. If a particular input should be “selected,” or focused, by default, we can now utilize the autofocus attribute.

<input type="text" name="someInput" placeholder="Douglas Quaid" required autofocus>

Interestingly enough, while I personally tend to prefer a more XHTML approach (using quotation marks, etc.), writing "autofocus=autofocus" feels odd. As such, we’ll stick with the single keyword approach.

16. Audio Support

No longer do we have to rely upon third party plugins in order to render audio. HTML5 now offers the <audio> element. Well, at least, ultimately, we won’t have to worry about these plugins. For the time being, only the most recent of browsers offer support for HTML5 audio. At this time, it’s still a good practice to offer some form of backward compatibility.

<audio autoplay="autoplay" controls="controls">
	<source src="file.ogg" />
	<source src="file.mp3" />
	Download this file.
</audio>

Mozilla and Webkit don’t fully get along just yet, when it comes to the audio format. Firefox will want to see an .ogg file, while Webkit browsers will work just fine with the common .mp3 extension. This means that, at least for now, you should create two versions of the audio.

When Safari loads the page, it won’t recognize that .ogg format, and will skip it and move on to the mp3 version, accordingly. Please note that IE, per usual, doesn’t support this, and Opera 10 and lower can only work with .wav files.

17. Video Support

Much like the <audio> element, we also, of course, have HTML5 video as well in the new browsers! In fact, just recently, YouTube announced a new HTML5 video embed for their videos, for browsers which support it. Unfortunately, again, because the HTML5 spec doesn’t specify a specific codec for video, it’s left to the browsers to decide. While Safari, and Internet Explorer 9 can be expected to support video in the H.264 format (which Flash players can play), Firefox and Opera are sticking with the open source Theora and Vorbis formats. As such, when displaying HTML5 video, you must offer both formats.

<video controls preload>
	<source src="cohagenPhoneCall.ogv" type="video/ogg; codecs='vorbis, theora'" />
	<source src="cohagenPhoneCall.mp4" type="video/mp4; 'codecs='avc1.42E01E, mp4a.40.2'" />
	<p> Your browser is old. <a href="cohagenPhoneCall.mp4">Download this video instead.</a> </p>
</video>

Chrome can correctly display video that is encoded in both the “ogg” and “mp4″ formats.

There are a few things worth noting here.

1. We aren’t technically required to set the type attribute; however, if we don’t, the browser has to figure out the type itself. Save some bandwidth, and declare it yourself.
2. Not all browsers understand HTML5 video. Below the source elements, we can either offer a download link, or embed a Flash version of the video instead. It’s up to you.
3. The controls and preload attributes will be discussed in the next two tips.

18. Preload Videos

The preload attribute does exactly what you’d guess. Though, with that said, you should first decide whether or not you want the browser to preload the video. Is it necessary? Perhaps, if the visitor accesses a page, which is specifically made to display a video, you should definitely preload the video, and save the visitor a bit of waiting time. Videos can be preloaded by setting preload="preload", or by simply adding preload. I prefer the latter solution; it’s a bit less redundant.

<video preload>

19. Display Controls

If you’re working along with each of these tips and techniques, you might have noticed that, with the code above, the video above appears to be only an image, without any controls. To render these play controls, we must specify the controls attribute within the video element.

<video preload controls>

Please note that each browser renders its player differently from one another.

20. Regular Expressions

How often have you found yourself writing some quickie regular expression to verify a particular textbox. Thanks to the new pattern attribute, we can insert a regular expression directly into our markup.

<form action="" method="post">
	<label for="username">Create a Username: </label>
   	<input type="text"
	   name="username"
	   id="username"
	   placeholder="4 <> 10"
	   pattern="[A-Za-z]{4,10}"
	   autofocus
	   required>
	<button type="submit">Go </button>
</form>

If you’re moderately familiar with regular expressions, you’ll be aware that this pattern: [A-Za-z]{4,10} accepts only upper and lowercase letters. This string must also have a minimum of four characters, and a maximum of ten.

Notice that we’re beginning to combine all of these new awesome attributes!

If regular expressions are foreign to you, refer here.

21. Detect Support for Attributes

What good are these attributes if we have no way of determining whether the browser recognizes them? Well, good point; but there are several ways to figure this out. We’ll discuss two. The first option is to utilize the excellent Modernizr library. Alternatively, we can create and dissect these elements to determine what the browsers are capable of. For instance, in our previous example, if we want to determine if the browser can implement the pattern attribute, we could add a bit of JavaScript to our page:

alert( 'pattern' in document.createElement('input') ) // boolean;

In fact, this is a popular method of determining browser compatibility. The jQuery library utilizes this trick. Above, we’re creating a new input element, and determining whether the pattern attribute is recognized within. If it is, the browser supports this functionality. Otherwise, it of course does not.

<script>
if (!'pattern' in document.createElement('input') ) {
	// do client/server side validation
}
</script>

Keep in mind that this relies on JavaScript!

22. Mark Element

Think of the <mark> element as a highlighter. A string wrapped within this tag should be relevant to the current actions of the user. For example, if I searched for “Open your Mind” on some blog, I could then utilize some JavaScript to wrap each occurrence of this string within <mark> tags.

<h3> Search Results </h3>
<p> They were interrupted, just after Quato said, <mark>"Open your Mind"</mark>. </p>

23. When to Use a <div>

Some of us initially questioned when we should use plain-ole divs. Now that we have access to headers, articles, sections, and footers, is there ever a time to use a…div? Absolutely.

Divs should be utilized when there’s no better element for the job.

For example, if you find that you need to wrap a block of code within a wrapper element specifically for the purpose of positioning the content, a <div> makes perfect sense. However, if you’re instead wrapping a new blog post, or, perhaps, a list of links in your footer, consider using the <article> and <nav> elements, respectively. They’re more semantic.

24. What to Immediately Begin Using

With all this talk about HTML5 not being complete until 2022, many people disregard it entirely – which is a big mistake. In fact, there are a handful of HTML5 features that we can use in all our projects right now! Simpler, cleaner code is always a good thing. In today’s video quick tip, I’ll show you a handful of options.

25. What is Not HTML5

People can be forgiven for assuming that awesome JavaScript-less transitions are grouped into the all-encompassing HTML5. Hey — even Apple has inadvertently promoted this idea. For non-developers, who cares; it’s an easy way to refer to modern web standards. However, for us, though it may just be semantics, it’s important to understand exactly what is not HTML5.

1. SVG: Not HTML5. It’s at least five years old.
2. CSS3: Not HTML5. It’s…CSS.
3. Client Storage: Not HTML5. It was at one point, but was removed from the spec, due to the fact that many worried that it, as a whole, was becoming too complicated. It now has its own specification.
4. Web Sockets: Not HTML5. Again, was exported to its own specification.

Regardless of how much distinction you require, all of these technologies can be grouped into the modern web stack. In fact, many of these branched specifications are still managed by the same people.

Related posts:

1. 120 Tips, Tricks, and Tuts from 2009 Worth your Time
2. Fantastic Tips for Shooting Bravely in the Sun(copy from photo.tutsplus.com)
3. 9 Tips for a Perfect Portrait Background

Accidents do happen — so plan on it. What’s more important is that you learn exactly what to do when these spills inevitably occur.

Step 1. Don’t Freeze. Unplug!

Ahhhh! The wife (meaning, you) accidentally spilled wine all over your keyboard. From personal experience, I can assure you that, for some odd reason, your first instinct with a massive computer spill is to freeze for five seconds or so, in shock. Don’t do this! Luckily Apple laptops are pretty helpful about automatically shutting down to prevent as many issues as possible before they happen. The more recent laptops even have liquid detection…though I’m certain that Apple is more interested in voiding your warranty than protecting you. For those uninformed, most laptop warranties do not cover spills.

Nonetheless, don’t waste a single second. Quickly unplug the computer, and shut it down.

The walls and carpet may have liquid on them as well, but ignore that. The computer is far more important right now.

Step 2. Flip that Sucka

The next step, which should occur within seconds of beginning Step 1, is to flip the laptop upside down, into an L-shape. Gravity will then force as much liquid to drain out of the keyboard as possible. Make sure that you lay it on a towel so that it can soak up the liquid.

Let gravity do its job. Immediately flip the laptop into an L-shape.

Step 3. Open the Back

Using a tiny screw driver, unscrew the back-side of your laptop. This will, of course, vary, depending upon which model you’re using. I’m sure you can figure it out.

Particularly on Macs, not all of the screws are the same size. Make a note of which screw goes where.

Step 4. Remove the Battery and Hard Drive

Before progressing, ensure your livelihood and touch some metal objects nearby to remove any potential static electricity from your body.

Needless to say, batteries and liquids — especially sugary, acidic liquids — don’t play nice together. Wherever yours is located on your laptop, remove it as quickly as possible. Next, get the hard drive out as well. We don’t want to risk any liquid seeping in, and corrupting your file system!

And now that you know how easy it is to remove a hard drive, don’t ever again pay a person to upgrade your hard drive. It only takes a moment to do yourself.

Step 5. Dry the Insides

With a paper towel of some sort, begin cleaning the insides of your computer. Depending upon how much liquid was spilled, this may either be a quick or lengthy process. For yours truly, it took around ten minutes to clean everything.

Some people prefer to use a hair dryer to clean the insides. This one is up to you; however, I’d encourage you to not do so. Play it safe and use a towel. We don’t want to risk frying the insides.

Step 6. Rubbing Alcohol and Cotton

Next, we need to continue removing as much sugar and acid as possible from the logic board. Otherwise, over time, it can begin to corrode the wiring. Yeah, this isn’t good!

Using rubbing alcohol and a cotton swab, begin dabbing any stained areas — but be gentle. If you have access to the backside of your keyboard, clean that area as well. Unfortunately, on the newer Macbook Pro models, it’s extremely difficult to access this section. With past models, it was quite easy to remove the keyboard entirely, for cleaning purposes. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case.

Rubbing alcohol will help dissolve any remaining acid or sugar on the logic board.

Step 7. Leave it Alone

Anxiety is a dangerous thing. Resist the urge to determine whether or not you’ve destroyed your laptop, and keep it off for a minimum of 72-120 hours (3-5 days). This will allow any remaining liquid to dry/evaporate first. Make sure that, while its drying, you keep the battery outside of the computer. This is mostly a precaution.

Keep the computer off for 3-5 days — no questions asked. Do not turn it on during this window.

Step 8. Cross Your Fingers

After 72-120 hours, reconnect the battery, screw everything back in, cross your fingers, say a prayer, and turn on the computer. Particularly if you’re using a new Macbook Pro (2009+ models), you’ve done everything you can do. With hope, and more often than not, it’ll chime, and start-up like a charm. However, if the battery is dead, or the hard drive is corrupted, you’re next best option is to take it in for official repair. Of course, this will somewhat depend upon how skilled you are, when working under the hood.

About the Author

Jeffrey Way — me…yes, I’m speaking in third person — recently committed a Cardinal Sin, and caused a massive wine spill into his Macbook Pro. Had he not followed these exact steps, he’d be forking over another life savings for a new Mac. Luckily, that was not the case.

Thanks for reading. Should the same ever happen to you, I hope this guide will help a bit!

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In April, Jeffrey Way provided us with a list of the “20 Mac Apps You’ll Use Every Day.” Not one to be biased, if you prefer Windows, this article rounds up the best programs available for boosting your productivity as a web designer.

1. Skybound Stylizer

While I prefer to use Firebug, I’m finding this “out of the box” CSS editor to be really helpful. Skybound Stylizer has been out for a while, but the latest version, 4.0, is now out with a lot of incredible features to help you in the development process. One of the core features is that it supports Google Chrome, Firefox 2 – 3.6, and Internet Explorer 6 – 8.

Stylizer is an exotic visual CSS editor that keeps you in the drivers seat while delivering enormous productivity gains.

2. Notepad++

Notepad++ is by far my favorite text editor for Windows. It’s fast, flexible and offers a variety of plugins. If you want to increase your productivity with this editor, be sure to install the ZenCoding plugin. You can download the plugin here.

Notepad++ is a text editor and source code editor for Windows, one main advantage of Notepad++ over the built-in Windows text editor, Notepad, is tabbed editing, to easily work with multiple open files.

Alternative

• e-TextEditor

3. IETester

IETester is the most stable and useful IE test tool available for Windows. With tabbing navigation, a source code viewer, and the debug bar, it’ll help you through the process of “happy” IE debugging.

IETester is a free WebBrowser that allows you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE9 preview, IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process.

Alternative

• Browser Sandbox

4. Filezilla

Filezilla is the most popular and free FTP for Windows, and, of course, is my favorite FTP client for this platform. It’s lightweight and easy to use.

FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface.

Alternative

• SmartFTP

5. Dropbox

Dropbox is a multi-platform sync system, which is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. You can use it as a backup folder to transfer files to your friends and family. It’s amazingly intuitive and fast.

Dropbox allows you to sync your files online and across your computers automatically.

6. Jing

Jing is a great tool to share images or videos in the Windows platform. It’s free, but you can order the Pro version with even more features.

Use Jing to capture anything you see on your computer screen and share it instantly… as an image or short movie.

7. XAMPP

For PHP/MySQL development, Xampp automatically installs MySQL, Apache and PHP in your PC.

XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very easy to install and to use – just download, extract and start.

Alternative

• Wamp

8. FoxitReader

FoxitReader is the primary PDF reader in my PC; it’s very fast, and supports tabs to read my PDF files.

Foxit Reader is a multilingual PDF reader. Both the basic and full version readers can be downloaded for free. Foxit Reader is notable for its short load time and small filesize, and has been compared favorably to Adobe Reader.

9. doPDF

Print-as-PDF isn’t installed by default on Windows. That makes this tool particular handy when you need to quickly send a document.

doPDF installs itself as a virtual PDF printer driver so after a successful installation will appear in your Printers and Faxes list. To convert to PDF, you just have to print the document to doPDF, the free pdf converter.

10. Breevy – Text Expander for Windows

Breevy is one of the most responsive, intuitive text expander applications for Windows. Whether you’re a web developer, blogger or {your-occupation-here}, you’ll find this one very useful. It’s not free, but will save you hours upon hours of typing! It’s worth the cost.

Breevy is a text expander and AutoText program for Windows that helps you type faster and more accurately by allowing you to abbreviate long words and phrases — saving you time and money.

Free Alternative

• Texter

11. Everything

Everything is a search program. As LifeHacker said, “It does what you really want when you hit Search in Windows.”

“Everything” is an administrative tool that locates files and folders by filename instantly for Windows, 20,000 files will take about 1 second to index. 1,000,000 files will take about 1 minute.

12. Miro

Miro lets you play nearly every single video format in the world; but it’s not just a video player: you can even subscribe to podcasts, video channels, etc. It’s my video player of choice. And yes! It’s free!

Miro is the only internet TV you’ll need—it’s an application that brings together thousands of shows from all over the web. There’s TONS of great content, lots of it in HD, and fresh shows are added all the time. You can watch and organize video feeds when you’re offline or traveling, find TV programs on sites like Hulu, and download from sites like YouTube. Miro downloads in HD, whenever it’s available!

Alternative

• VLC

13. KeePass

KeePass is a nice and lightweight password manager for Windows. The amazing thing about it is that you can sync the database with Dropbox – But what if I own a Mac as well? Okay, just install KeePassX. There are numerous cross-platform password managers available (even one more in this round-up), but KeePass is simple and effective enough to get the job done.

KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file.

14. Sobees

Sobee is one of those applications you’ll always love. It allows you to get the most out of your social sites. You can choose multiple layouts to display your social data, as it offers LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace support — even a New York Trending News widget. Be sure to check this one out!

Enjoy the convenience of tracking all your different social networks and news from a single place and share, like or tweet what’s on your mind easily.

15. Aptana

Aptana is, in my humble opinion, one of the best Integrated Development Enviroments (IDE) for Windows. It has great HTML, CSS, and JavaScript intellisense, JavaScript debugging tools, built-in support for JavaScript libraries, a DOM outline viewer, file transfer & synchronization, live previewing (Safari and Firefox), and much more.

Aptana Studio is the industry leading web development environment that combines powerful authoring tools for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, along with thousands of additional plugins created by the community.

(Available for Linux and Mac)

16. Picasa

Picasa is a must have if you want to organize and share your photos on the internet. It’s light-weight, free, and just works!

Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great. Sharing your best photos with friends and family is as easy as pressing a button!

(Available for Linux and Mac)

17. Google Talk

If you’re one of the GMail lovers (like me), then Gtalk is the perfect Gmail notifier for you. And of course, you can chat with your buddies as well!

Google Talk (GTalk) is a free-of-charge Windows web-based application for instant messaging and voice over internet protocol (VOIP), offered by Google Inc.

18. Adobe Photoshop CS5

Adobe Photoshop CS5 is, for obvious reasons, the greatest tool available for graphics / web design available in the industry. Photoshop is open on all of my computers… at all times.

Adobe Photoshop CS5 software is the ultimate solution for advanced digital imaging, delivering all the editing and compositing capabilities of Photoshop CS4, plus breakthrough tools that let you create and edit 3D and motion-based content.

19. Pidgin

Pidgin is a simple instant messenger. I use it to chat with my friends and family, similar to Adium for the Mac. AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and Facebook are supported.

Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once.

20. InstallPad

Although I don’t use InstallPad every day, it’s still a great tool, and is worthy of being listed here. It helps you to install all of your favorite Windows applications at once.

InstallPad takes a list of your favorite programs and will download and install the ones you pick. It doesn’t need to ask any questions, so you can go do more important things. InstallPad can resume downloads you’ve canceled, and can even try and find the latest version of your program online.

Alternative

• Ninite

21. 1Password PC (Beta)

The hugely popular Mac password manager, 1Password, is currently in Beta mode for Windows! Whether you need to store hundreds of website passwords, or track your software licenses, 1Password will do the trick!

“1Password for Windows has been a dream of ours for a long time and we’re thrilled to open beta testing to everyone!”

Free Alternative

• LastPass

22. Bubbles

Mac users have access to a nifty app, called Fluid, which allows them to turn any website (Mint.com, Producteev.com, etc) into a desktop app. It’s very helpful. PC offers its own version of this service, via an app, called Bubbles.

“Bubbles is an application platform, based on Browser technologies. It detaches Web Applications from the classic Browser and offers them with the familiar accessibility, capabilities and always-on nature of Desktop applications.”

Conclusion

These are the applications I use nearly every day on my PC. Did I miss any? Don’t agree with me? What do you recommend?

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