Top 10 Web Development Cheats/Tools/Tutorials/Software That I Can’t Live Without
// November 29th, 2009 // No Comments » // Web Marketing, Web Technology
I’m a web administrator by profession and a web geek by nature. I don’t know everything, in fact, I barely know anything. But, there’s some sites and software that I’ve ran across that have made my life so much easier. They make my job quicker, easier, and less tedious. Some are paid, but totally justified. You will notice none of my links are affiliate links or garbage like that. I’m listing things because I like them. Nothing more, nothing less.
This list excludes my staples… because they’re obvious. Before I get on with my list, my staples should be shared: Adobe Dreamweaver CS4, Adobe Photoshop CS4, Globalscape CuteFTP, PuTTY SSH, Microsoft Expression Studio, phpSQLadmin.
Here’s some web dev tools that kick the llama’s ass:
- Artisteer - A WYSIWYG CMS template builder. Not terribly clean, but great for little contract jobs or quick personal sites. The premium version comes in at 130 bucks, but can build Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, Blogger, and DotNetNuke. As far as I know it’s the only WYSIWYG builder with a full feature set for these CMSs. It’s pretty sweet. Again, not recommended for professional sites or anything, but for a quick job, you really can’t beat it. I can bang out a WordPress template in 10 minutes
- Web Form Factory – I hate making forms. I can do it off the top of my head, but it pisses me off. Mostly because I inevitably capitalize a variable. The Form Factory is awesome, and if you can code, you can strip out their advertisements.
- OpenKapow – This may be replaced when Google Wave hits the mainstream… but it’s a great way to deploy personal homepages in about… hmmm… 5 seconds Just an aggregator for widgets, feeds, and all sorts of cool little features.
- A1 Sitemap Generator – Alright, I know what you’re thinking. There’s a billion sitemap generators out there and Google even has their own. Hear me out. Google is a pain in the ASS to install. PAIN. Once it gets wider support and utilizes something more than the Python platform, we can talk. The A1 Sitemap Generator is a great on-the-fly solution to generate your sitemap file in all applicable formats, robots.txt file, everything. It even uploads it for you. Plug in your data and minimize it. An hour or so later, you’re done. Gotta love it.
- WebCEO - GREAT analytics software. It provides competitor analysis and individual keyword ranking and change tracking. Output is a nice, clean, graphical PDF.
- Axure - Wireframing software. An associate turned me onto it a few months ago and I’ve fallen in love. It’s like Visio for web development on steroids. It even outputs HTML for those customers who need to click their wireframes to “get it.”
- Table2CSS - Want to be super lazy? Throw something together in Photoshop, export the ugly table right from Photoshop, then pop it into the Table2CSS converter. Bam… PSD to CSS in 20 minutes. Heh, lazy, yes. Will it have to be modded? Yes. But dear Lord is it quick. It’s bad practice, and horrible to do though. Don’t do it if your reputation is on the line or anything
- MiniAjax - Quick, free Ajax scripts. No one LIKES coding Ajax and your needs are mostly the same as everyone else’s
Check this site out. It’s an awesome resource! - jQuery - I might… might… be pretty close to burning a small calf in honor of jQuery. It’s a Javascript library that lets you do more CLEANER. Building on this, jQuery UI is pretty hawt as well. It’s like a GUI for jQuery. Limited, but nice in some situations.
- DailyColorScheme - Keep your color themes interesting by adding the feed from this site to your reading list.
