I’ve been using Outlook to manage my e-mails for as long as I can remember but recently I started to want something simpler and more streamlined. The obvious choice was Gmail so I decided to try it out as my primary e-mail client for 30 days to see how I got on with it.

Damian is an applied psychologist but don’t let that scare you, he’s actually quite nice. With 10 years experience, he’s worked as a usability and customer experience expert for a number of employers including BBC New Media, Wheel (LBi), and National Air Traffic Services. He is customer experience director at Experience Solution.

We’ve produced some high resolution common household textures that you can download for free. The textures include wood, fabrics and work surfaces that would make an ideal background for a website or print project.

Luke van de Paverd is a successful a freelancer from Victoria, Australia. He started freelancing in 2007, went full time in late 2008, and runs the 6 Figure Freelance blog and the Freelance Total web app.

We are delighted to welcome our first guest author to The Web Design Blog. Darren Pinder is a Web Designer working out of Glossop, Derbyshire and in his first article he shares five very handy PHP tips.

Mark Perkins is a full time tea-drinker and general web geek from Brighton, UK who has recently started freelancing under the company name of Medium.

We are delighted to have two Heart Internet Reseller Professional annual accounts worth £300 each to giveaway (plus a free .co.uk or .com domain name)

Jan Cavan is a web/graphic designer, illustrator, blogger, geek, the girl behind Dawghouse Design Studio… and a breakdancer wannabe. We’ve interviewed Jan about working as a freelance designer and running a blog.

Working out what to charge for your web design services can be very difficult. Most designers don’t publish their rates so it can be impossible to compare your prices to others in the industry. I thought it would be helpful to find out and share what others are charging!

Chris Spooner is a creative designer, avid blogger and is generally crazy about pretty colours and shapes. Chris runs the popular blogs Line25 and Blog.SpoonGraphics where he shares his designs, tutorials and inspiration.

BaseKit is a website builder, integrated website CMS for web designers that takes your Photoshop design and produces a clean coded web page in minutes. You can also add dynamic content to web pages quickly and precisely without touching the code.

MiniBooks is an iPhone App for Freshbooks that puts invoicing in the palm of your hand. Manage clients, send invoices, enter payments, check on rates from past jobs, run timers, and much more, all from your iPhone.