Web developer info, references, and tools

By Craig Goldwyn, visibility.tv

Here are some links to websites and other resources, references and tools that can help you build and maintain your internet business.

Testing tools

http://www.w3c.org - These guys write the standards the web is built on. There are good tips and examples, and the code validator is essential.

http://www.netmechanic.com - Offers a suite of services that check a site for bad links, html errors, borwser compatibility and more.

http://badwarebusters.org - A super service that helps you disinfect your site if you get hit byu malware. A post to their message board gets a rapid response.

http://www.serviceuptime.com - An inexpensive service that sends a "ping" to your website at a specified period, say every 5 minutes, to make sure it is up and running.

http://www.browsercam.com - BrowserCam creates screen captures of your web pages loaded in any browser, any version, any operating system so you can quickly check your webpages on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, in IE, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera, Firefox, and Safari.

http://www.htmlcodetutorial.com - Learn html.

http://www.labs.bt.com/people/rigdence/colours/PalFiles.html - View colors the way colorblind people see them. Download a plug-in for Paintshop or Photoshop. Use this to design so more people can see your site.

http://www.netmechanic.com - Lets you see your website as if you were using another platform and browser. $15 per session or $120/year.

http://www.anybrowser.com - Similar to NetMechanic, but not as robust. Free.

http://vischeck.com - See what your site looks like to color blind people. Free.

http://www.northernwebs.com/set/setsimjr.html - Search engine and metatag checker.

http://validator.w3.org - Checks your html and css code for compliance with standards.

htt.1stwarning.comp://www - Pings your website and emails you when it is down.

http://www.internetseer.com - Ditto.

http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html - Xenu Link Sleuth checks your site for broken external links.

http://www.seventwentyfour.com - A link checker that helps stomp out linkrot.

http://www.bugnet.com - Solve those unexplained anomalies. Maybe.

Design ideas

http://layoutcookbook.com - Layout design ideas.

http://www.useit.com - Jakob Nielsen's site with ideas on design and usability.

http://www.zeldman.com - Design guru Jeffrey Zeldman's profound thoughts on web and ad design.

http://www.glassdog.com/design-o-rama - Lance Arthur's design wisdom.

http://www.vistaprint.com/marketing-article-detail.aspx?pid=892 - A printer who understands the web!

http://linkdup.com - Design ideas, tips, and links to great sites.

http://www.webbies.com - Annual awards to the best websites. See what the best sites look like.

http://www.creativepro.com - Good articles on imaging, fonts, web developing and more.

http://www.flazoom.com - Great examples of what Flashers are doing. Addictive. You'll waste hours here.

http://www.campchaos.com - Ditto.

http://whichtestwon.com - Two home pages, each slightly different. Which page sold more product? See what works in the real world.

Free scripts

http://www.scriptsearch.com - Lots of free javascripts. But be careful, bad javascript can freeze a browser easily.

http://www.advancescripts.com - Lots of free scripts: cgi, perl, java, etc.

Calendars and meeting planners

http://www.calendars.net - A free service that lets you create a calendar that the public can view online. Great for picking dates for meetings. People can login and mark dates they are available or unavailable. You can customize the look and feel, and allow others to enter info on the calendar and even control this by passwords. Exports data that can be imported into Outlook. Very cool tool. A bit slow and clunky, but it works and its free.

http://www.signmeup.com - Here's a tool to help you get people registered for small meetings, family reunions, or even large conferences.

Surveys and questionnaire tools

http://www.zoomerang.com - The leader in surveys and polls.

http://questionform.com - Highly recommended.

http://www.survey.com - Helps you create web based surveys.

http://www.createapoll.com - Survey and polling tools.

http://www.supersurvey.com - Another way to conduct polls and surveys.

http://www.surveymonkey.com - Yet another way to conduct polls and surveys.

http://wufoo.com

Tutorials and learning tools

http://webdesignersbookmarks.com - Links to lots of good sites with tools and tips.

http://www.w3schools.com - Great online tutorials for practically every web language.

http://www.tutorialized.com - More good tutorials.

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey - Lotsa how-to articles for novices and coders alike. Deep, rich, impressive web development reference. Definitions of all html tags. Pays attention to all platforms from Mac to Linux to Windows.

http://www.zdnet.com - Great allround resource for free software, demos, articles, news, reviews, tutorials. Online home of PC Magazine, Internet Business, eWEEK, Yahoo! Internet Life, Interactive Week, Ziff Davis Smart Business magazines. The Developer section is a great resource.

http://www.cnet.com - A great technical portal. The internet section has an excellent list to hosting services and e-commerce hosts with a list of features and prices. Also plenty of good articles on designing and building websites.

http://www.soh.nsw.gov.au/files/virtual_tour/vrtour.html - A stunning virtual tour of the Sydney, Australia Opera House. The best example of what can be done with Flash and QuickTime Virtual Reality on the web.

http://spinography.com - Examples of "Spinography," immersive interactive 3D images, with descriptions of the leading technologies, notes for webmasters, and examples. Lost of QuickTime Virtual Reality. Produced by Yours Truly.

http://computerhope.com - A huge database of PC tips. Has a section on web design and promotion.

http://www.helponthe.net - More info sources on bugs. More than a dozen pages on Windows fatal errors alone.

http://www.sba.gov/classroom/courses.html - The Small Business Administration offers free online courses in business and e-commerce.

http://serverwatch.internet.com - News and reviews about servers and software.

http://www.webservercompare.com - Ditto.

http://www.tucows.com - Huge software library with freeware, shareware, and commercial demos, sorted by computer platform. Try before you buy.

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey - Webmonkey has lots of tutorials, FAQs and cool stuff for developers.

http://www.adobe.com - A complete suite of tools that share similar interfaces and exchange data fairly well. The site has good resources and examples of what others are doing.

http://www.photowebber.com - PhotoWebber is a newer, lesser known web design, development, and management tool for both Windows and Mac. I have never worked with it, but I have deen a demo and it looks very impressive, especially for creating complex pages with rollovers, dropdowns, etc.

http://www.apple.com - QuickTime (cross platform Swiss army knife for movies, animation, VR, streaming media, and it is rapidly becoming a standard format), iMovie (consumer oriented movie making for Mac), FinalCut Pro (professional movies for Mac). FileMaker Pro is the best medium-weight database, and the best seller, on both Win and Mac. It is relatively easy to learn, and it has web serving capabilities. WebObjects has become very popular for e-commerce development among major sellers.

http://www.real.com - RealProducer is a standard on the Windows platform for streaming media and audio.

http://www.netobjects.com - Netobjects Fusion is a powerful and respected web development and management tool for Windows only.

http://www.quickbase.com - Free multi-user databases. Remarkably capable from Intuit, the people who brought us Quicken.

http://www.myfonts.com - Decorative fonts reasonably priced.

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/default.asp - Industry standard database for web and offline. Many third party vendors have built shopping carts and other solutions using SQL.

http://www.oracle.com - Industrial strength databases and integrated web solutions. Awesome and expensive. Many third party products.

http://www.symantec.com - Get a virus checker and news of the latest virii.

http://www.symantec.com/securitycheck - Probes your computer for security holes.

http://www.netcraft.com/whats - Enter a url and netcraft will tell you what server and OS the site is running on. Spy on the competition.

http://jguru.com - Tips on web developing, especially java and javascripting.

http://www.expressdigital.com - ExpressDigital sells a package of software tools and training that includes internet integration, but I have never seen it or tried it.

http://www.alchemedia.com - Offers software to prevent people from stealing your images online.

http://www.freetools.com - Some useful freebies, and some guaranteed to crash you.

http://www.mgisoft.com - Software tailored for web viewing of photos including VR and zoom.

http://www.dalelabs.com - A respected lab that can process your film and return high quality digital images in different formats.

http://www.imageol.com

Books and CDs

http://www.killersites.com/core.html - A promo for the author's excellent book, but there are some good tips on the site. HTML for Dummies - Classic Dummies book. Simple, witty, user friendly.

http://www.peachpit.com/books/catalog/88678.html - Excerpts from The Web Design Wow! Book by Jack Davis & Susan Merritt 1998 - Instructions, tips, how-to, lots of colorful examples, CD.

http://www.peachpit.com/books/vqs.html - The Visual QuickStart Guide books are excellent. There's one for practically every program you'll use.

http://www.lynda.com - CD-ROMS, books, videos, and DVDs on web design by Lynda Weinman, a highly respected web designer. Site has great tips.

Mags, zines, and newsletters

http://www.internetworld.com - Daily email newsletter with web news.

http://www.thestandard.com - Numerous email newsletters on a variety of topics.

http://www.ePrairie.com - News of net happenings in Chicagoland.

http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk - Daily email with technology news.

http://amazingribs.com/smoke_signals_newsletter/index.html - Subscribe to my BBQ email newsletter and see how I use it.

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