20 Useful Tools to Make Web Development More Efficient
There are many available tools to help make web development projects quicker and more productive. Aside from a handy text editor or WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver, you can find plenty of tools and utilities that can greatly increase development speed, reduce debugging and testing time, and improve quality of the output. The tools described below are a variety of utilities, optimizers, testing, and debugging tools aimed towards helping developers create websites more efficiently.
1. CSS Grid Builder
7 Applications to Make Working with MySQL Databases Easier
MySQL is the most popular open-source database. Whether you’re an aspiring web application developer or a person working on an existing database-driven web application like a content management system, ecommerce platform, or blogging platform — there are a variety of handy applications that you can use to make MySQL database design and administration (relatively) a breeze. So if you find yourself in a position where you have to work with MySQL, you don’t have to use a command-line interface, check out these 7 outstanding applications to help you create, write, manage, and visualize your database.
1. TurboDbAdmin
10 Useful Gadgets for Mobile Computing
If you’re a web worker, mobile computing is either a necessity of the job or something you choose to do to get away from the monotonous confines of your office work station. Along with your laptop and (most probably) your iPhone/Blackberry/[insert handheld here], there are a plethora of useful devices that you can tag along with you to enhance your computing experience. Here’s a round-up of 10 cool gadgets that can supplement your remote workspace.
1. LapStrap
If you’d like to keep things minimal and leave your big, bulky, heavy laptop case behind, LapStrap is an excellent solution. It’s a simple shoulder strap that attaches to your laptop. The LapStrap also solves the awkward moments in airport lines where you struggle to juggle between your other carry-on luggage and taking out your laptop from its conventional case.
25 GIMP Video Tutorials to Help Get You Started
The GIMP is a very powerful, open source digital image editing application that rivals its commercial counterpart - Adobe Photoshop. Open source alternatives are great not only because they’re free, but because of the helpful community that typically surrounds them.
One of the quickest ways to pick up something new is by watching video tutorials. With that concept in mind, I’ve collected 25 awesome GIMP video tutorials geared to get you started, get you familiarized, and get you inspired. If you’re intrigued to try out GIMP after watching some of these videos, you can grab GIMP from their download page.
Basics
1. Gimp Basics
A showcase of some fundamental functions in GIMP.
16 Free JavaScript Solutions for Displaying Your Images
If you’re looking for a way to display your images on a website but don’t have the time to create a custom solution, there’s plenty of free and easy-to-use scripts available at your disposal.
Here, I’ve compiled 16 free image galleries and slideshows for you to take a look at. Though the effects are smooth and their features are robust, none of them use Flash, only JavaScript, and they require very little coding on your part.
1. JonDesign’s SmoothGallery 2.0
SmoothGallery 2.0 is a nifty slideshow gallery that transitions between images very… smoothly. The author tested SmoothGallery 2.0 in Firefox, Opera, IE 6 and 7, and Safari. It requires the mootools JavaScript framework.
20 Invoicing Tools for Web Designers
This post was written by Steven Snell of Vandelay Website Design.
Every web designer has a need to create invoices and track payments that have been received or have not yet been paid. Fortunately, there are a number of tools that can streamline this process, and we’ll look at 20 options here. There is a good deal of variety in terms of features and pricing. Some are better suited for organizations that have several employees, while others may be a good fit for a freelancer. Some of these tools will simply help you to create attractive invoices and other will extend further into the area of accounting software.
PayPal
30 Exceptional CSS Techniques and Examples
In this article, I’ve pieced together 30 excellent CSS techniques and examples that showcases the capabilities and robustness of CSS. You’ll see a variety of techniques such as image galleries, drop shadows, scalable buttons, menus, and more - all using only CSS and HTML.
Clicking on the title will direct you to the documentation/tutorial, while clicking on the accompanying image will direct you to the demo page if it’s separate from the documentation.
1. Hoverbox Image Gallery
A pure css-based gallery; hovering over an image enlarges it.
Top 6 Internet Explorer Extensions for Web Developers
For Web developers wanting to use Micosoft’s Internet Explorer as their primary browser, there’s some terrific IE extensions/add-ons that can aid you analyze, troubleshoot, debug, and speed up development of web pages.
Here, you’ll find the top 6 free IE extensions for web developers.
7 Incredibly Useful Tools for Evaluating a Web Design
An effective web design is one in which your users are able to find information quickly and in a logical fashion.
Do they visit the content you want them to visit? Are they looking in the right places of your web page? Are you able to keep your user’s attention, or do they just leave quickly?
It’s not just about the content either. If your design loads slowly - or if moving from one section to another takes a long time - it affects the user’s experience.
These things can be the make-or-break factors between a user clicking on a link to find more information, or the back button to find it elsewhere.
Awesome Things That Firefox’s Web Developer Extension Can Do
Chris Pederick’s Web Developer extension for the Mozilla Firefox browser is one of the best tools in a web developer’s arsenal.
About a couple of months ago, I wrote an article about it entitled "9 Practical Ways to Enhance your Web Development Using the Firefox Web Developer Extension" and I’d like to follow up on that by showcasing even more things you can do with the Firefox Web Developer extension.
