This list compiles many of the more useful webdesign resources I've come across and (mostly) used
in the past few years. They are here as much for my use as for yours, but I hope you find something
new to make your webdesign life a bit easier. Please don't copy this whole list and claim it as your
own as a few others have done. I have put a fair amount of work into it. ~jw
Update: I've moved most of my web design and
development links over to a section in my SuperLinks list.
The list here is older and is not actively maintained, so please go there instead.
Thanks!
BTW, nCubed.com SuperLinks
is definitely worth checking out. (a very cool ASP/XML links list manager web application)
See also Interesting Articles: Web Design,
ASP Links and Website Design and Development.
For want of a better section name... some of these resources cover so much ground
that they fit into many or all categories of webdesign and development. Others
work at a higher level than just HTML, scripting or graphics. These are some
of my all-time favorite webdesign resources. All are well-written and
understandable for all skill levels.
- A List Apart
A magazine and mailing list site "for people who make websites."
By Jeffrey Zeldman and Brian Platz, this site has interesting articles
and discussion from people who deal with website design issues every day.
Check out Zeldman's Daily Report
for an interesting weblog on mostly web development & design issues.
- WebMonkey
Webmonkey is one of my favorite places. It's the webdesign site/section
of Hotwired. There are the normal sections on all sorts of webdesign topic
areas with lots of articles, tutorials and tips. Characteristic Hotwired
humor and personality help make them fun to read. (unfortunately, this
site has ended, though the old content is still available)
-
Web Page Design for Designers
This site is not only extremely attractive, both in simplicity of design and in
color selection, but it is a well-written site for web designers. See Joe's
Minifonts for interesting small bitmapped
fonts for web design use.
- WebsiteTips
Not family (as far as I know), but Shirley Kaiser has some excellent resources
and commentary for web developers at her WebsiteTips site, at
SKDesigns and at her blog,
Brainstorms and Raves.
-
The Alertbox: Current Issues in Web Usability
This column by Jakob Nielsen, SunSoft Distinguished Engineer, discusses
web design and usability issues.
-
All Things Web
The primary focus of ATW is to help Web designers and authors create usable
Web pages. Not "killer"... not "cool"... just usable.
Usable means many things: structurally sound, long-lived, syntactically correct,
broadly accessible, easily navigable. ATW refers to usable Web pages as
"reader-friendly." (quoted from the ATW welcome)
-
The Web Developers Virtual Library (WDVL)
This site has well-written and organized information about all aspects
of web development. Some are original, and some are links to other
resources. A good starting place for web developers/authors.
- Macromedia Web Site Production Management Techniques
This guide offers tips and techniques from seasoned pros on how to deliver excellent
user experiences while efficiently managing the Web production process. More for large
team design projects, but lots of good info for smaller site designs too.
See also the Web Redesign: Workflow that Works
site for more by the same author and for some of the related downloadable tools.
Below I list a few of the tools and software that I use or find
particularly well-made and useful. Most are inexpensive, but well worth the
price. There are a few more that I've used over in
Favorite Software.
-
HomeSite HTML Editor
A wonderful editor that excels in features, cost, interface, usability and user community.
See also:
-
TopStyle CSS Editor
Topstyle is another creation of Nick Bradbury, the author of Homesite.
His new cascading style sheet editor is proving to be another best-of-class tool.
It is especially well-designed for managing CSS for a whole site and for developing
and testing CSS that will work well and degrade gracefully across many different
types and versions of browsers. His validation helps tremendously to work out CSS
code that avoids browser incompatibility bugs.
- PaintShopPro
PSP is a favorite graphics editing & creation tool for webmasters. It is quick,
inexpensive and yet powerful, especially now that they have layers. Tons of online
tutorials are available for how to do all sorts of things with PSP.
PSP Album is also a great tool.
-
CSE HTML Validator
The CSE HTML Validator is a great tool. A copy came integrated with
Homesite version 3 and I got hooked. Even though Homesite v4 and greater
have their own validator, I still use CSE. Note that it is not a strict validator,
but rather a syntax checker. It is *very* configurable and includes a powerful
template tool. Not free, but definitely worth the money IMO.
Note: registered HomeSite, Studio or
TopStyle
users can sometimes get discounts on CSE Validator. Also, see
this FAQ
for info about getting CSE to work with HomeSite, .
- Xenu's Link Sleuth
A small, fast, yet capable and well-designed link checker. A good
choice if you have a site larger than NetMechanic can handle for
free but don't have the money for Linkbot.
- Analog: WWW Logfile Analysis
Analog is probaby the most used software for generating reports from webserver logs.
It's configurable on a number of levels to allow for easy setups for ISPs while allowing
users to personalize their settings. Personally I download logs and run it offline
under win9x. It's free, capable, highly configurable and very fast.
- BookMarklets
Bookmarklets, sometimes called Favelets, are snippets of javascript that can
run from your browser bookmarks/favorites. You can also copy them to your browser
links toolbar for quick access. They can perform all sorts of useful functions
for surfing, webdesign, etc.
- Jesse Ruderman's Bookmarklets, zoom, web development,
links-to-more, etc
- Go Wayback bookmarklet,
When you get a 404 page not found error, just click this to look it up in
the Wayback Archive. For now, to find this bookmarklet, go to What's New
and look for them under May 16, 2002.
- Accessify: Accessibility-checking favelets
A tool to view the structure of web pages: "Ian Lloyd, has created a free bookmarklet that exposes the underlying structure
of a web page without requiring you to view source. "Show and label divs
with ids" outlines all div elements with a red border and prints their id
labels. Add it to your Bookmarks or Favorites tool bar, and you can
deconstruct most websites with a click of the mouse." Lots of other useful
'Favelets' here too... (link thanks to Zeldman)
- FaveLets, validation, browser sizing and other webdev bookmarklets
- Validation Bookmarklets
- Web UI dev tools for MacIE5
- Sam-I-Am: Web Page Debugging & Development Bookmarklets
- Simon Willison: Using bookmarklets to experiment with CSS
- Wilk4: Bookmarklets (Addall book lookups)
- DirectoryCompare
DirCompare is a directory diff and synchronization tool I use a dozen times a
day. It's great for sync'ing a directory tree on your harddrive with one on a
ZIP drive. This one lets you save and quickly recall setups, so you can compare
many sets easily. And it's free! By Juan M. Aguirregabiria. You can have it
call ExamDiff, WDiff or other external file compare tools.
- ExamDiff File/Directory/ZIP Difference Utility
A good free file differences utility. Works great with DirectoryCompare.
The Pro version has some very handy additional features and is quite affordable.
(I've bought it myself) Another I've used, but which seems to be orphaned, is
WDiff File/Directory/ZIP Difference Utility.
For a more expensive one, but with a really interesting display method see
PMDiff.
Beyond Compare is also good.
- Bobby
This validator tests for browser compatibility and access for the disabled.
- BrowserCam
Browser Cam creates screen captures of your web pages loaded in a variety of
browsers, and on a variety of operating systems/platforms to help you check
and debug browser compatibility issues. Note that this
will help with some things, but may not help you check dynamic things such
as javascript or DHTML issues. Not free, but inexpensive.
- W3C's HTML Validator
W3C has HTML and CSS
validators which are quite good.
- Whois Source
A great site to help you pick a domain name. Enter keywords and it puts
together a variety of combinations of those words, telling you the
availability status of each domains in .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz and .us.
Great for brainstorming domain names.
- DomainSurfer
This site helps you get info on registered domains, either for looking them
up or to help pick ones that aren't taken. This is quick and does
substring searches so it's a lot more useful than the
standard single domain whois checks. See also
DeletedDomains for domains
that are now available.
- SelfPromotion.Com
I found what seems to be a powerful and honest promotion, search engine submission
tool. It's donation-supported, so you can use it and give what you think it's worth to you.
This article
describes it and some of it's advantages. The advice on the site alone is worth your
time, particularly when promoting a new site. (and Finally! someone who is wordier than me! ;-)
- Yahoo: Web Hosting
List of sites to help select a website host.
See also CNet's Ultimate Web Host List.
I've had good luck with Interland and
MyHosting.Net. Please tell them I referred
you if you go with them. (jwilkinson@mail.com)
- NetMechanic
NetMechanic provides tools to do page or whole site checks of links, html and your server.
I don't use them much but they are ok for small sites.
This section has some applications that you can use for your website, but which
are hosted by 3rd parties. They provide all of the setup and administration and
a certain amount of flexibility in design and look. You sign up and do a little
linking or add a few form pages from your site to add the function. Much easier
than writing or installing scripts or similar functionality yourself.
The CGI Resource Index has a list of
Remotely Hosted
scripts and functions. Also, check out the Webmonkey article,
Adding Search to Your Site.
- FindApps.com - The Application Rental Guide
A new? directory of hosted applications of all kinds.
-
Website Search Tools
- http://www.searchtools.com/default.html
A directory of many available website search tools with reviews,
examples, news and a guide to help you select a search tool.
- Atomz Search
This free hosted search is used by some really large sites like O'Reilly and WebMonkey.
Free for sites under 500 pages. I highly recommend this one. Much faster, more powerful, and more
configurable than any of their competitors (that I've found so far). Also, no ads!
(I'm using it here, on brassica and on cpc.)
See the notes from my testing.
- Freefind
This site provides a nice little indexed search function for your website and
can dynamically generate sitemaps and what's new pages in several formats.
It's easy to set up and free to use. See the notes
from my testing. Much more limited than atomz.
- NetMind Search-It
This is another free remote search tool that I tested.
Much more limited than atomz.
- Topica
This site lets you set up and/or participate one or more mailing lists.
It has all the web-based admin you need, is free, and only takes about 20
minutes to be set up and going. You can have multiple lists, either announcement,
moderated discussion or open discussion. I've used it on the
NotGNU download site
and asp4hs.
- GuestWorld
This site provides hosting for free guestbooks.
You can set up one in just a few minutes. It comes with full
utilities to create, configure, and manage your guestbook including
entry editing and deletion functions.
(Note: HTMLgear took over Guestworld.
The functionality is the same or better but I've had a lot more trouble with
the 2 gbooks there since the change. They have been down a number of times
with server problems, a few times for weeks. I'd be more hesitant to put an
important guestbook on their system now and I've moved mine. -jw)
- I've done a little exploration of online discussion forum scripts and hosting.
There are many freely available scripts to let you do your own forums and there are
free or paid sites that will host forums for you. Some of them have pretty amazing
functionality and adminstration control for free apps. Here are a few resources
I've found so far. Note that I haven't thoroughly tested them yet.
(I'd welcome any comments on your experiences with forums.)
- Web Standards Project (WSP)
WSP, a newly-formed international coalition of leading Web developers is
dedicated to
promoting a worldwide standard for Web and browser design.
The WSP is urging browser makers to fully support the standards created by
the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) in the upcoming round of browser
releases, as well as support emerging standards that are being developed.
"The time for proprietary innovation in Web browsers is past," says Glenn
Davis. "It's time for the browsers to start fully supporting W3C core
standards - standards that Microsoft and Netscape helped develop and promised
to support - so that people building Web sites can spend more time building
better sites and less time fighting browsers over compatibility issues that
create unneeded expenses for everyone, at every level of the Web."
- The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
- HTML Writer's Guild (HWG)
- WebServant.US, a forum for Christian Web Authors
- ASP
- For some ASP scripts and sites, see ASP Links.
- DHTML / JavaScript
- DHTML drop-down, pop-out menus (something I'm getting into a bit lately)
- dhtmlcentral: CoolMenus (I use this on broccosprouts.com)
- WebReference: HierMenus (Hierarchical Menus)
- CGI/Perl
- DevEdge: Introduction to the JavaScript Debugger
Introduction and tutorial to Venkman, the javascript debugger included in mozilla
and Netscape v7+. It "shows off the basics of using Venkman, and ends with a step
by step sample walkthrough. This should be the first in a series of Venkman how-to
articles for DevEdge."
- SitePoint: JavaScript 101
good tutorial, at least 3 parts available.
- WebMonkey: Programming | Javascript Section
- Thau's Basic JavaScript Tutorial
Learn the basics including variables, if-then statements, link events, and
image swaps in what's been called the best JavaScript tutorial on the Web.
Updated July 2001. See the quick JavaScript Crash Course Index
- Thau's Advanced JavaScript Tutorial
Take JavaScript to the next level with if-then-else statements, cookies,
string handling, browser detection, preloaded images, debugging techniques, and a lot more.
- How to Steal JavaScript
"Borrowing" JavaScript code is easy, particularly from one of the many
free script archives. Making it work on your own pages, however, can prove
difficult. Nadav reveals what you need to know to make those scripts sail.
- Builder.Com:
Programming & Scripting (CNET)
- SuperScripter
Articles on scripting techniques. Some have Cool Tools,
online, interactive tools that will generate javascript code that you can
paste right into your web pages. Some examples:
mouseover machine,
hover helper,
window-builder,
cookie cutter,
color code converter,
style-o-mattic,
autobrowsing,
slide navigator,
tip-window maker,
quiz-creator,
sortable-tables,
local search,
regular-expression inspector
- Script Library
- Packaging scripts as .js files
- The JavaScript Source (alt)
A good archive of scripts, mainly user-submitted. Good listing info, categorization
and demos.
- WebReference: Doc JavaScript
Good articles and tutorials as well as scripts and
cool tools to generate javascript.
- JavaScript City
- Some useful javascript bits
-
W3C - The World Wide Web Consortium
W3C is THE place to come for the official references and
DTD's for HTML as well as other 'official' web information.
Learn to read the specs for HTML, CSS, etc. They are surprisingly easy
to read and learn from, especially for specs.
- The Web Developers Virtual Library (WDVL)
This site has well-written and organized information about all aspects
of web development. It is a great starting reference point for HTML questions.
- Bare Bones Guide to HTML
The Guide lists every tag in the official HTML 3.2 specification,
plus the Netscape extensions, in a concise, organized format.
- Cross-referenced List of HTML Tags
This is a cross-referenced list of HTML tags with an explanation
of their use, their syntax and their attributes.
- HTML Quick Reference
This quick reference is nice to print out to keep beside you as you edit.
- NCSA--A Beginner's Guide to HTML
Another classic guide and a great starting place for beginners.
- World Wide Web FAQ
This FAQ has gotten a bit outdated, but he is starting a set of new
OpenFAQs that you can contribute to.
- Central's Church Webministry FAQ
A practical and current discussion covering many topics of building church and ministry websites.
(my writing)
- Microsoft Site Builder Network
Useful, though obviously very slanted toward MSIE.
Here are some of the better resources and info I've found concerning the use of
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Since there are many incompatibilities and bugs in
CSS use between the different browsers, versions and platforms (PC, mac, unix, etc)
it's very important to test and read a lot before using any
particular CSS feature. You can find my recommended starting point CSS file
here.
-
CSS: A Guide for the Unglued
by Owen Briggs of The Web Standards Project. "This is not a complete resource, this
is a fast resource. These are the sites that I refer to first, and that I tell people
to read. When you want more, just about all of them have their own links to good sites."
Bookmark This!
- W3C
- Eric Meyer's list of CSS Info links
From one of the best known CSS experts, this is a useful list. Be sure to check out
Eric's experimentation/demo area... css/edge. See also his master lists, a classic reference,
now relocated to devedge.
- Builder.Com
- Webmonkey: Stylesheets collection
- CSS Layout Techniques: for Fun and Profit
An excellent site, offering techniques for CSS layout that help overcome
the various browser incompatibilities.
- RichInStyle
RichInStyle had some good resources such as CSS and HTML guides and tutorials, extensive
lists of browser bugs, and a AlwaysWork style
sheet that they claim works well across all browsers. While that may or may not be exaggerating,
they do have useful resources.
Another interesting part of this site is their "master class"
where they get into serious issues and how to work around them there, including my
personal peeve, font sizing...
-
TopStyle CSS Editor
Topstyle is one of the creations of Nick Bradbury, the author of Homesite.
His new cascading style sheet editor is proving to be another best-of-class tool.
It is especially well-designed for managing CSS for a whole site and for developing
and testing CSS that will work well and degrade gracefully across many different
types and versions of browsers. His validation helps tremendously to work out CSS
code that avoids browser incompatibility bugs.
- Agitprop
Todd Fahrner's collection of CSS writings, tests, and treatises.
- Discussions of Controlling font size via CSS
- Zeldman's Daily Report: Accessible Font Sizing, 7/16/02
and the followup on 7/17/02
discuss the difficulties in controlling font sizing across different browsers in a way that
allows users the accessibility feature of resizing to their preferences. Offers
a keyword-based approach
and a number of useful links.
- Toward a standard font size interval system
An essay-in-progress by Todd Fahrner on CSS font size intervals. One of the most intelligent discussions
of the font-sizing issues that I've seen anywhere. (TF's Agitprop
site also has other excellent css discussions.)
- ALA: Fear of Style Sheets 4
Discusses what does work in any "CSS-capable" browser, no matter how old,
inadequate, or semi-standards-compatible. Suggests that in controlling font sizes
with CSS, only 2 things really work:
- Use pixels (not points, not ems, not percentages, not keywords) to specify your font sizes. Or:
- Use nothing. Do not specify font sizes at all, and let the browser's stylistic defaults
and the visitor's preferences take care of the relative size relationships.
- ALA: CSS: Making Alternate Style Sheets Work
This details how to make a little widget you can put on your site that lets users quickly pick
between several style sheets, perhaps with different font sizes. Works well, though it's sad
that it's come to this because of font size control in CSS being so poor.
- WebMonkey: Web Typography Tutorial
A useful tutorial in 2 lessons; one provides a gentle introduction to typography to give
you a basic overview of how type works. The second lesson examines the challenges specific
to using type on Web page: How to make it legible on a computer screen? Which type
technologies do you need to master to control the fonts on your pages?
- Joe Gillespie of Web Page Design for Designers (WPDFD) discusses CSS and
font sizing issues in his Advanced Techniques section.
He is clear and particularly discusses some of differences between PC and Mac font sizing with CSS.
- RichInStyle's Master Class
"is designed for people who already know CSS so that they can become
CSS Masters. It discusses such issues as the best fonts, margins and color
for the real world - explaining the key bugs and telling you how to work
around them."... see the discussion of
font sizing.
- I've done some testing and have some recommendations re CSS font-sizing and link coloring in
my WebDevRes section.
- CSS Pointers Group
- Index dot CSS
(by the author of Index dot HTML)
- Project Cool's browser compatibility list for
CSS Style Properties
- Jacob Nielsen's guide for Effective Use of Style Sheets
- Web Standards Project:
IE's Top 10 CSS Problems
- HTML Writers Guild:
CSS FAQ
- WDG: Style Sheet Dependence
- MS: CSS Attributes (IE4 support)
- MS: CSS Gallery
- WebReference: Cascading Style Sheets
- DevHead: CSS/Fonts Section
- PC Magazine: PC Tech (Taking Style Sheets to the Next Level) (CSS2)
- PC Magazine: PC Tech (Cascading Style Sheets)
- Zeldman: CSS in the real world
- ChurchArtPro
An excellent company for church-related clipart for use on web or in print publications.
Not your normal ugly junk seen on most free religious clip-art sites. Very
attrative, professionally created, and organized into an enormous, easily-searchable
online archive. Subscription-only, but well worth the cost.
- iStockPhoto.com
This site is community based, where users submit their own photos to the archive for
royalty free use by others. Very inexpensive (50 cent download, royalty-free)
Submitting your own helps you get download credit or you can buy credit.
(see my submissions)
They have a new, related professional site at iStockPro.
- FirstGov: U.S. Government Graphics and Photos
A listing of various United States government websites which include graphics
and photos, most of which are already paid for by taxpayers and can be
freely reused in other work.
- A few scanning tips
This site by Wayne Fulton is one of the most useful sites I've seen for
both beginner and more experienced scanner users. It has very useful
and clearly written information about using scanners, improving your
scans, and many of the techniques and details that you can't find
easily elsewhere.
- Photo.Net: Philip's House of Stock Photography
6000+ images, copyrighted but royalty-free?, by the creator of the excellent Photo.Net
photography site and community. Mostly his personal photos offered for use, unsorted
but many interesting photos, particularly travel photos.
- Taylor McKnight's Steal These Buttons
Tons of those little 80x15 pixel link buttons for every topic imaginable.
- See PaintShopPro above. Note that they have a
Designer Studio area with some tips and
links to tutorial sites. FWIW, there are a great many PSP tutorial sites out there
with detailed directions for how to do all sorts of neat things graphically.
- Chibi Creations
This graphics designer is used by a friend
of mine for website work with great success. Very nice work. She has some free
page sets on her site as well.
- Windy's Design Studio
Nice free original graphics, a tremendous selection of beautiful web page backgrounds and some page sets.
- Designed to a T-Graphics
Nice selection of original, free graphics plus a great
PSP tutorial.
- Map Resources,
Need maps for your web or print projects? Map Resouces offers over 1,000 royalty-free,
fully editable, multi-layered maps in Illustrator format, available for immediate
downloading. Use them to create Flash or SVG presentations, as well as more
conventional raster web images (gif, jpeg).
- LogoTypes
When you need a logo image but are having trouble finding one, check this
site.
- Pixelsight
A collection of some good small gifs and interesting online-execution
tools to manipulate and change them. Subscription-only now.
- Clipart Castle
Interesting graphics and backgrounds, much of it medieval.
- Some Stock Photos Sites, not yet checked out... YMMV.
- Fotosearch Stock Photography, Stock photography and royalty-free stock photos, from 50 photo vendors
- USDA Online Photography Center, public domain, lots of food, farms, crops, animals, etc.
- Corel, see clipart center, photos & clipart, inexpensive subscription
- Publisher's Depot
- PhotoDisc
- Veer, Professional stock photography
site. Not cheap, but very nicely shot and royalty-free.
- PictureQuest,
provides an interface to both rights-protected (stock) and royalty free
photography from more than 40 of the world's leading photo agencies.
Access is free, photos are not.
- Visibone Webmaster's Color Lab
This tool and the related builder.com article,
Back to the Color Drawing Board,
present a better layout of the 216 web-safe color table. This is the best
arrangement I've seen so far. He has a
color lab/picker tool,
printed color cards, downloadable swatches (palette files) for many graphics
applications and HTML editors and HTML tables.
(new visibone popups)
- moreCrayons
moreCrayons suggests its time to go past the 216-color 'web-safe/browser-safe' palette and offers
a 4096-color palette (16x16x16 color cube) and neat tools for color selection.
- EasyRGB Color Harmonies
Search for colors complements to your RGB values. Create color harmonies, combinations and themes.
From your main (or background) color select trim and accents tones. Also, they have a
color matching function to help you
match an RGB color to color cards, paint lines, inks, fandecks, etc.
- Eric Meyer's Color Blender
gives you a range of blends between any 2 hex colors. Small but handy.
- Palette Master
A neat tool that lets you select a base color and at the click of a button, instantly
generate a 42 color palette that is perfectly complimentary to your base color.
- WPDFD: Graphics and Palettes
Web Page Design for Designers presents an interesting approach to selecting colors.
See also an argument about whether we should continue to use only the websafe
color palette... Web Safe 2000.
- About.Com: Color Symbolism
Charts showing color symbolism and the symbolic meanings or associations of
various colors in various cultures. Useful links to further color selection resources.
- WebReference: The World of Color
a good discussion of color theory.
-
A New Look at the 216-Color Palette
This Devhead article by Troy Brophy rearranges the 216-color palette
into a layout which is much more useful than for comparing and selecting
colors than what we generally see (sorted by hue or luminence).
- ALA: Color Your Web
A good article from A List Apart
for webdesigners about color theory and selection.
See also the Web Design Pad,
a mousepad with a color wheel of websafe colors for webdesigners.
- Pallete Man
Another websafe colors gizmo... this does it well, not merely providing the colors,
but allowing you to experiment with the ways they interact.
- Color Picker by Andrew Porter Glendinning.
Shows blends, tints & shades of 2 colors, from the websafe palette
- Lynda Weinman's Designing Web Graphics
- WebReference / Authoring / Graphics / Color
- WPDFD: Web Page Design for Designers
- Victor Engel's No Dither Netscape Color Palette, The Browser-Safe Palette
- Akamai's Color Test Javascript
- ColorCenter
- Webmonkey's Color Codes Reference
- WebVoodoo's WebDesignClinic: Color Theory 101
In general, I don't think using heavy graphics for interfaces on websites
is a good idea, but some of these sites have such gorgeous artwork and such neat javascript
interfaces that I'm almost tempted to the dark side... Some other sites just have templates
which could be useful, but not image heavy. So far I prefer to do my own, but these are
good for ideas...
- TemplateStyle
High quality and professional templates. Not free, but very affordable and definitely
worth the price if you find one that matches what you want to do.
- FullMoon Graphics
Beautiful graphics and page sets.
- StickySauce: Web page templates
200+ templates, Not free, but very affordable.
-
FreeGraphics.Com: Families Themes Sets
FreeGraphics.Com has a good list of rated Template/Theme sets. Start looking here.
- Free Web Templates
Has more functional templates, less artsy.
- 4 Templates
Good selection of nice-looking template designs. Not free, but cost is quite low. ($15 range)
- Chibi Creations
This graphics designer is used by a friend
of mine for website work with great success. Very nice work. She has some free
page sets on her site as well.
- Elated Toolbox
Elated has pagekits, button kits, etc all for free use. Designs
are well-done and not as massively graphics-heavy as some sites.
- Mozilla / Netscape Browser Info and Add-on's
Please do all you can to encourage your friends and customers to use
current and better browsers. Netscape v4.x and older MSIE versions
cause webdevelopers much pain and extra work. Try Mozilla, you'll
like it.
- Anti-SPAM measures
- The Web Robots Pages
Excellent information about robots, crawlers, etc including info on controlling what
they crawl on your site and a database
of active robots with enough info to help you filter them from your hits reports if you desire. See also:
- Some useful bits from Webmonkey ...
- Useful bits from Web Page Design for Designers (WPDFD)
- Useful bits from Builder.com
- Simple guidelines on using ALT texts in IMG elements
- Use of ALT texts in IMGs
(part of Text-friendly authoring topics)
- Geographic Nameserver, find US locations by name
- Bartleby.com, books available free online
- The Convergence House Style Guide
- Zeldman: CSS in the real world
- VerisignOff, interesting
- WebGuru: The Fantaulous Icon-o-Matic,
and it's troubled sibling, The Amazing Ribbon-o-Matic
- Cascading Style Sheets, level 1 (With Mozilla Bug Annotations)
- How to hide CSS from buggy browsers
- A brief intro to copyright
and 10 Big Myths about copyright explained.
- U.S. Copyright Office
- Zeldman: css keyword font sizing technique
for sizing and accessibility;
(discussion,
and more discussion)
- Seven tricks that Web users don't know;
They may seem obvious to you, but less-technical users are frequently stymied by issues like these
- Squidfingers: patterns, very cool background patterns
- Personal Media Players: "Media2Go"
- the Next Step for Personal Media Player Devices...
(I really hope they do build this. I've said for a while that digital camera users need
a book-sized device with a harddrive, an LCD screen and some simple controls to let
them store a LOT of photos from their camera without needing to keep a laptop handy.
Something like this would be great on trips. Use your camera and offload to this.
No need for a ton of expensive FLASH memory cards.
(article)
See also a review of the Innoplus Phototainer.
- Eric Meyer on CSS: Tricking Browsers and Hiding Styles
- Eric Meyer: The CSS Anarchist's Cookbook
and The CSS Anarchist Strikes Again!
(I shouldn't have to tell you this, but I'd better make sure ... It's a joke! don't do this for real!)
- Design Theft - The Webmaster's Recourse