Web Development Tools

Tools that help with web development. Things like validators, optimizers compressers etc.

FireBug, debugging Javascript, DHTML, and Ajax (#)

Wow, this is useful. For example, opening as a window in the bottom of Firefox, the element inspector and xmlHTTPRequest logger provide great information, and a series of small tabs are available for you to check the CSS, XML, JS and Box properties of an element.

SiteUptime Website Monitoring Service (#)

Perhaps not so much a development tool as a business tool, if you have clients with websites, SiteUptime should help keep you on top of things with 24/7 site uptime monitoring.

They allow 1 free site per account, with advanced packages starting at 3 sites for $5/month, can monitor web servers, email servers and FTP servers and paid accounts have the ability to recieve SMS Alerts.

Jungle Disk & Amazon S3 (#)

Jungle disk is software (win, lin, mac) that allows you to easily connect to Amazon's S3 storage service and provides a GUI for passing files back and forth. A snap to set up, now you have no excuse for not having offsite storage that doesn't double as your dedicated server.

Syncotype Your Baselines (#)

Rob Goodlatte has thrown together a simple bookmarklet that can help you to align text to a baseline grid. This looks pretty handy for adjusting the spacing of your text, helping to align text on an evenly distributed vertical grid. Learn more about the concept on A List Apart.

HTML Tutorial (#)

An HTML tutorial written specifically for working adults who needed to learn HTML quickly and easily. If you need to get some clients up to speed about some of the basics, this could come in quite handy.

Quarkbase - Everything about a Website (#)

A pretty useful tool for getting some quick data about a website, from social popularity on the usual social sites to spotlight "In the blogs" covering blog mentions of a site down to its nameservers and hosting company. Having just had to look up some nameservers today, this was useful. I have to say I really like the name.

PHP TimeSheet Script (#)

A PHP time tracking script for keeping tabs on client work. They offer a hosted solution, but the script is downloadable for local use. It is licensed under the GPL, and would be an interesting candidate for mixing in some ajaxy goodness...

Color Palette Generator (#)

A cool little app that will output a color palette based on an image that you upload.

Web Design Miracle Search (#)

A project of Forty Media, Web Design Miracle Search allows you to search the finest web design websites for inspiration or answers. At the time of posting the project is in beta format. Head on over and try it out!

Cacheability Query - is your page cacheable? (#)

A tool that will take a given url and test it's cacheability by examining the HTTP headers of the document. Links to a bookmarklet that can be used for push-button testing of a pages cacheability.

Webperf URL Breakdown (#)

Given an URI, this tool will measure, from multiple locations on the internet, the response time of the indicated document (and any link elements in the header of the document) in addition to it's size and status code.

UITest.com: Site Check (#)

A great little tool for helping webmasters run a whole gamut of tests on our websites. Input the URI to be tested and it will return a list containing links for the input url to common testing services, like Bobby, the W3C validator and many others.

Check out the Resource categories for older content

The latest from my personal website,
Mike Papageorge.com

SiteUptime Web Site Monitoring Service

Sitepoint's web devlopment books have helped me out on many occasions both for finding a quick solution to a problem but also to level out my knowlegde in weaker areas (JavaScript, I'm looking at you!). I am recommending the following titles from my bookshelf:

The Principles Of Successful Freelancing

I started freelancing by diving in head first and getting on with it. Many years and a lot of experience later I was still able to take away some gems from this book, and there are plenty I wish I had thought of beforehand. If you are new to freelancing and have a lot of questions (or maybe don't know what questions to ask!) do yourself a favor and at least check out the sample chapters.

The Art & Science Of JavaScript

The author line-up for this book says it all. 7 excellent developers show you how to get your JavaScript coding up to speed with 7 chapters of great theory, code and examples. Metaprogramming with JavaScript (chapter 5 from Dan Webb) really helped me iron out some things I was missing about JavaScript. That said each chapter really helped me to develop my JavaScript skills beyond simple Ajax calls and html insertion with libs like JQuery.

The PHP Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks

Like the other books listed here, this provides a great reference for the PHP developer looking to have the right answers from the right people at their fingertips. I tend to pull this off the shelf when I need to delve into new territory and usually find a workable solution to keep development moving. This only needs to happen once and you recoup the price of the book in time saved from having to develop the solution or find the right pattern for getting the job done..