We’ve all made mistakes… some of us more than others! The point is to learn from these mistakes, reconfigure yourself and get back out there! Those on top of their game were once beginners and made all the same mistakes just like the rest of us. If you’re just starting out maybe we can help you avoid some of these and if not, no problem, experience is the greatest teacher!

Running a business for yourself means you have to be inventive
and always on the lookout for a new and better way to get things
done. Innovation junkies, take note: the Internet has a lot to
offer. From invoicing to marketing, these are tools that
freelancers need to know about.

Despite its prominence, Arial and other de-facto fonts just aren’t attractive enough for most designers. Fortunately, there are a number of foundries that create some truly impressive fonts, and are happy to share them with others.

Free Geekery has highlighted 101 of these fonts.

Adobe Acrobat is expensive, but that doesn’t mean you have to live a
life without portable documents. What many people don’t realize is that PDF is a Federal Information Processing Standard, which means the specifications behind the format are widely published.

Numerous developers take advantage of this fact and create programs
that offer effective alternatives to Acrobat. Check out our list of
these programs and take advantage of these tools that are full of some
of the best PDF features and functions.

The vast majority of people don’t really need heavyweight image editing applications like Photoshop or Aperture. Luckily, you can find a lot of great, online applications that’ll do just fine for some simple everyday photo editing tasks. Interestingly enough, although there’s a lot of competition in this space, we constantly see new apps sprouting everywhere. Therefore, we bring you seven apps you may have missed.

A question I get often is: how do you find such great images through Flickr? Most importantly, how do you find such great images that you can use freely? SkellieWag shows you how to find and use Flickr images in your work.

The Adobe Exchange is THE place to find user-contributed add-ons, templates, brushes, symbols, appearances and tutorials for all of Adobe's graphics applications.

One of my all-time favorite sites for free (and pay) fonts in the vein of comic books & comic-style ads, etc. They also have a substantial selection of 'balloon art' and 'sound effects' in case you're producing your own web comic, or maybe you just want to jazz up those family photos..

Most fonts at Blambot are available in many different formats - Mac TT, Mac Postscript, PC TT, and recently they also began offering OpenType downloads as well...

Here's the latest free font available, "Fire Fight", as of 1/02/08:

Enjoy browsing - I always do!

Logotypes, stock photos, sounds, fonts, vector, poser & photoshop brushes : you'll all find links for all these stuffs in Bluevertigo.
Very useful for any graphic designer !

The largest collection of logos in vector format. When you need that corporate logo for your next project and you can't wait for the client to get it for you, this is the place to look. The logos are user contributed, and with the exception of American professional sports, you can find just about any logo you need.

Much like its sister-site vecteezy.com, this site offers a huge collection of Photoshop brushes, complete with preview images, free for download.

When you're trying to find just the right color combination and you only have a base color to start with, try the Color Blender to find some great companion colors.

daFont is the first place to look for free fonts. The fonts are organized by category and the download links are clearly indicated.

I've used this site for years to check standard envelope sizes and grab templates for them in vector format. They also feature some handy references like a proofreader marks chart.

Create beautiful presentations, access them from anywhere, and share them with the world. With 280 Slides, there's no software to download and nothing to pay for – and when you're done building your presentation you can share it any way you like.

DesignPacks offers over 200 images in 15 collections for use in your next Web design project. Collections include: Rust, lights, money, liquid, wood, metal, stone, and more.

I like "free." It's one of my favorite things - especially when it's good free stuff. Check this site out for a few collections of free downloadable vector art. And be sure to check out their collection you can purchase as well - some very cool stuff!

"IconBuffet is home to a tasty plethora of free icons. Collect them, download them, trade them with your friends. They’re kinda like baseball cards, only without the steroids. And you can use them on your website."
everything is said :) try it, it's addictive AND useful! (link provide include my referal)

The best feature of Jungle Disk Desktop (an online storage system) is the fact that your Jungle Disk mounts just like your iDisk - allowing you to access your files directly from the Finder. Drag and drop, copy and delete. You can use your Jungle Disk just like any other hard drive.

Although the price might turn some people away (read: it’s cheap but not free) the pricing structure allows you to pay for only what you use since the application uses Amazon’s S3 internet storage service. After the one-time purchase of $20, this translates into $0.15 per GB-Month of storage used, $0.10 per GB of data uploaded, and $0.17 per GB of data downloaded.

FontSpace is an online community of font designers and enthusiasts. All the 8344 free typefaces for you to download, have been hand-categorized for you to use in your graphic design, scrapbooking, or document purposes.

Neenah Paper recently released three new swatchbooks for ESSE, OXFORD and UV/ULTRA II & CLEARFOLD Papers to continue the series of swatchbook releases that repackage, refocus and redefine Neenah’s broad offering of Neenah, Fox and Gilbert brands. The three swatchbooks were created by Design Guys of MPLS.

See the last paragraph for info on how to order your free copy of the swatchbooks.

Quick Look is probably one of my favorite new Leopard features. QLPlugins.com has a great collection of plugins allowing you to view Illustrator, Quark and numerous other application files in the Finder, as well as useful others such as the ability to get a view of what's inside installer Package files.

Photofont® technology brings that same creative power to traditional print and web applications. Photofonts allow users to break free from the traditional black-and-white lettering and use fonts that are made of real calligraphic brush strokes, everyday objects, scanned historical documents or felt pen doodles. But of course the Photofont® technology can also work with traditional fonts that have a “plain” typographic look. Photofonts are not only fun but also open serious business opportunities for example in the field of personalized marketing.

I always check here first when looking for pre-made vector art. The large collection (growing constantly) of vector art is submitted by users around the globe. Be sure to check for any specific license requirements before using any artwork - but most is free to use commercially.

Viewing fonts doesn't require an extra application. Check it out!