Supernatural Station

Technology Toolshed: Free Web Site Tools

This list of software and web design tools were used in the development of this web site and its content. They are either freeware, a free online service, or came pre-installed on a system. All downloadable products were found to be spyware free and virus free at the time of download.

Web Graphics Tools

1. FavIcon from Pics - An online favicon.ico generator

   An easy online favIcon.ico generation tool and tutorial. Simply use the online form to select an image from your hard drive, click “Generate FavIcon” button and voilà, you have a downloadable favIcon for your web site. The favIcon.ico file is provided in a spyware-free zip file.
   System Requirements: platform independent
   Download Page:www.htmlkit.com/services/favicon/

2. DigitalColor Meter

   This is a great color picking utility that I use frequently for web design and graphics. Just point the mouse anywhere on the screen and DigitalColor Meter magnifies the pixels under the mouse and gives you it’s hex and rgb values. You can mouse over anything…a web page, an image, or a desktop icon…and get the color value. This tiny application came preinstalled on the iMac. It takes up so little memory that I keep it running 24×7 for whenever an eyecatching color grabs my attention. There is an OSX freeware version of this called iPalette that does a little more, such as give a web-safe version of the color picked, and a similar looking PC freeware, called Color Cop that gives you whole palettes. I tried Color Cop and it does a nice job on the PC, but requires that you “drag and hold” the eyedropper to pick a color. The “always on” feature of DigitalColor Meter is much simpler.
   System Requirements: Mac OS-X 10.3+
   License: Proprietary.    Copyright: Apple computer
   Download page: N/A (included with Mac OS-X)

Web Server/Content Management Software

1. Wordpress

   This opensource software is the core software running this web site. With the addition of more CMS capability in version 2, Wordpress moved beyond just a blogging software. Wordpress is made available by most ISP’s for their customers, plus with the wealth of documentation, ease of installation, plenty of freely available plugins and template designs, and the high user rating, selecting this software was a no-brainer.
   System Requirements: Any web server running PHP 4.2+ and MySQL 4.0+
   License: GNU GPL (opensource)
   Download page: www.wordpress.org/download/

2. MAMP

   MAMP (Mac-Apache-MySQL-Php) put this on your Mac workstation (or XAMPP on your PC) and get a fully functional web server equivalent to your ISP’s. Designed for development purposes only, this is a very handy tool to see what your site looks like and how it behaves when queried. I use it to install and test upgrades, evaluate plugins, experiment with new software, and to develop my own plugins prior to uploading to my ISP’s web server. Of course, this is most useful if your web site account with your ISP is on a Linux or Unix server. Windows accounts don’t use Apache and may or may not give you access to MySQL and PHP, so you’ll have to check with your ISP.
   System Requirements: Mac OS-X 10.3+
   License: GNU GPL     Copyright: Living-e AG
   Download Page: www.MAMP.info

HTML/CSS Editors, Debugger, and Developer Tools

1. GViM

   I am a longtime vi user and I use vi exclusively for editing code. Any other editor just slows me down. My vi editor of choice on the Mac is VIM and on PC is GVim Portable. Both are implementations of gVIM, the GUI version of VIM (Vi IMproved). WinVi, the de facto Windows vi editor, is also a very good editor and I used it for a while, but it does not support all vi keyboard commands and after experiencing some headaches because of this, I switched to gVIM. gVIM has the added bonus of syntax highlighting for html, css, and php code and can open multiple documents in tabs. This program is best for experienced vi users. If you are a vi newbie who wants the advantages of gVIM’s syntax highlighting, you should probably use Cream, instead.
   System Requirements: Windows, Mac, Unix, Linux, OS/2, and many more.
   License: GNU GPL (opensource).   gVIM is charityware.
   See the “Help” menu for details about donating to their chosen charity.
   Download Pages:
   macvim.org/OSX/ for Mac OS-X (classic versions are also available)
   portablegvim.sourceforge.net/downloads.html for Windows
   www.vim.org/download.php for all other platforms.

2. KompoZer

   I have tried several of the free css and html site building tools out there and I have not found them to be particularly useful. The only reason I am listing KompoZer, a tool based on Nvu and the obsolete Mozilla Composer, is that this tool makes building tables a lot easier than by hand. When I need a table, I open KompoZer and create it, format it, and populate it there, then copy the resulting well-formed html table into my document.
   System Requirements: Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, OS/2
   License: GNU GPL (opensource)
   Download Page: www.KompoZer.net

3. Firefox Built-in Tools: Javascript Console & View Source

   Firefox Tool: Javascript Console (”Error Console” in FF 2)
   This built-in debugging tool lets you know exactly where your javascript errors or css syntax problems are. Most importantly, the line numbers are accurate and the messages are meaningful. Another reason why Firefox is my browser of choice.

   Firefox Tool: View Source
   Firefox menu option “View => Page Source” is more than just a source viewer. It displays the page’s html code with “syntax highlighting” and it automatically debugs the html, showing you any errors it finds in red.
   System Requirements: Windows, Mac OSX, Linux
   License: Mozilla Public License (MPL) Copyright: Mozilla Corp.
   Download Page: www.mozilla.com/firefox/

4. jquery Ajax/Javascript Framework

   I am a little late getting into the using an AJAX framework, but I have come to embrace jquery because of it’s plugins like “Thickbox” and “Tablesorter”. This framework comes built-into Wordpress 2.2.
   System Requirements: All platforms, any modern browser
   License: GNU GPL (opensource)
   Download Page: www.jquery.com

File Transfer/Communications Tools

1. Cyberduck

   A full-featured ftp client for Mac OSX systems. This easy-to-use software lets you drag and drop files from your desktop or from a Finder window (file manager) right into your ISP account directory.
   System Requirements: OS X 10.3+
   License: GNU GPL (opensource)
   Download Page: www.cyberduck.ch

2. FireFTP Firefox Extension

   If you are a web developer and you use Firefox as your web browser, then this is a must-have extension for you. This handy little extension is a fully functional ftp client. There is no easier way to upload files to your ISP.
   System Requirements: Win, OS X, or Linux, and Firefox 1.5+
   License: MPL
   Download Page: addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/684

Site Promotion Tools

1. MyPageRank.Net

   Offers free online tools and web promotion services such as sitemap creators, sitemap search engine submitter, links checker, and site statistics.
   System Requirements: Platform independent
   Download Page: www.MyPageRank.Net

2. Feedburner.Com

   Provides free online publishing, beautifying, and statistics for your site’s blog feed. This company was recently acquired by Google. Hopefully this means their feeds will get a higher Google ranking.
   System Requirements: Platform independent
   Download Page: www.Feedburner.Com
   A note about beautifying your feed: if you want to see how your raw feed looks beautified, open it with the Safari browser built-in RSS reader…Apple really knows how to do pretty.