Adobe Creative Suite

Undoubtedly, anyone in the design industry knows the value of Adobe’s Creative Suite. From image manipulation with Photoshop, to web development with Dreamweaver, animation and application creation with Flash and vector design with Illustrator, Adobe’s suite contains a very attractive combination of functionality.

A few days ago, Adobe announced the new CS5 which offers even more compelling features. Find out more about Adobe Creative Suite

Coda

If you’re on a Mac and you need to write code (any kind), than Coda should be your #1 choice. It’s lightweight (vs. bloated Dreamweaver for example) and out-of-the-box sports some amazing features such as built-in FTP with direct server editing, multi-file search, subversion control, previews, visual CSS editor, code snippets, built-in terminal, reference e-books, and syntax highlighting for almost any programming language out there!

Find out more about Coda

CSSEdit

CSSEdit allows web designers complete control over their style sheets and offers more than Coda or any other coding software can. Built-in previews, visual editing and intuitive controls make this a must-have for designers.

Find out more about CSSEdit

TextMate

A very simple, yet extremely powerful text/code editor with support for virtual every single language out there. It’s more even more lightweight than Coda and perfect for those quick on-the-go edits.

Find out more about TextMate

Snippets

Do you find yourself often using or needing the same pieces of code? No matter the language, Snippets will handle all of them for you, with sophisticated classification by language and function and built-in syntax highlighting.

Find out more about Snippets

SequelPro

Who are we kidding, phpMyAdmin is ugly! Use SequelPro to handle all of your MySQL databases from now on and you’ll find joy in this usually barbaric task!

Find out more about SequelPro

Transmit

From the same makers as Coda (featured above) comes the best, most reliable FTP app for Mac. Simple, elegant and sophisticated, Transmit is the only FTP program you’ll want to use.

Find out more about Transmit

Firefox (with Firebug)

Firefox is undoubtedly the most popular browser within the developer community. There are many reasons for that, but mainly it’s because of the amazing add-ons available. One of these add-ons is Firebug. Firebug allows developers to debug and make live changes to their sites. It’s an indispensable tool for anyone designing or developing for the web.

Find out more about Firefox
Find out more about Firebug

Browsers: Chrome, Safari and Opera

We’ve covered Firefox just above and we cover Internet Explorer just below, that leaves us with 3 other major players in the browser industry; Chrome, Safari and Opera. You’ll want all 3 of those on your Mac so that you can test out those pesky browsers and make sure all your sites are compatible. Don’t you wish sometimes that there was only 1 browser with only one set of rules? I sure do!

Find out more about: Chrome, Safari and Opera

Testing Internet Explorer

Mention Internet Explorer in a room full of Mac-loving web designers and be sure the party will stop there. Unfortunately, we still have to test our websites and ensure compatibility with Microsoft’s browser. If you are hardcore about your testing needs, you can use Mac’s built-in BootCamp to multi-boot your machine with your desired flavor  of Windows; alternatively you can use virtualization (Parallels, VMWare, Sun VirtualBox) to emulate Windows within Mac OS X, but if all you want to do is make sure your web page is working, than I recommend Alkaline, which uses a remote server to automatically generate screenshots of your website on all different versions of Internet Explorer.

MAMP

Ever wished you could run server-side scripts (such as CMS  or other php-based software – ie. WordPress) without actually uploading to a server? Well, you can with MAMP! MAMP (Mac, Apache, MySQL, PHP) lets you run a websever right from Mac OS X. Out of the box, it’s perfect for testing purposes and/or production purposes. You could, theoretically use it as a public webserver, though it would require some tweaking.

Find out more about MAMP

Skitch

As a web designer, you’ll often need to take screenshots for your sites or to demonstrate something to your clients. You can make this already simple task even better by using Skitch. It’ll allow you to easily clip part of the screen and automatically and upload/share it hassle-free.

Find out more about Skitch

Skype/Adium

As a freelancer, you’ll need to keep in touch with your clients, partners, etc. What better way to do so than on the computer? You’re working on it anyway! Adium is the most customizable and versatile IM app for Mac, whilst Skype provides you with unbeatable VoIp (Voice Over IP) services.

Find out more about Adium
Find out more about Skype

TweetDeck

If you are involved in the web industry, it’s imperative to tweet, right? Well what better way to keep track of all your tweets (multiple accounts supported), lists and trends, all from your desktop! It even supports Facebook and LinkedIn, all out-of-the-box. While you are at it, why not follow me? @jkudish

Find out more about TweetDeck

Evernote

Perhaps not directly related to web development, Evernote is nonetheless an amazing tool. It can be adapted to your own case uses. For example, I use it as a snippets tool which I can than access no matter where I am (laptop, iPhone, etc. vs. Snippets which is Mac only and doesn’t sync). It’s also extremely handy for notes and file syncing accross multiple platforms.

Find out more about Evernote

Bonus #16: Clutterpad (via Fluid)

You might say this is cheating, since a. Clutterpad isn’t an app and b. Clutterpad is affiliated with this blog. But, I have some valid arguments against  that . Ever heard of Fluid? It let’s you run web apps as if they were native apps by creating a dedicated browser just for that app. And yes, Clutterpad is affiliated with Business is Pleasure, but this recommendation is a personal one. If you haven’t tried it out yet, than please do. It’s an amazing tool with great project management capabilities. Check out all the new features, here.

Find out more about Clutterpad
Find out more about Fluid