Additional References and Resources

On this page we’ll list those sites which provide excellent additional resources and references, as well as tools and software that are useful.

Websites

Below are websites hand-selected by us that provide additional high-quality resources and reference.

SitePoint

One of (if not the) leading websites for website designers and developers. They post numerous articles with various information on a very regular basis. They also have my favorite forum for web developers. You can find me posting there frequently (I’m samanime). Also, they have the most complete reference for HTML and CSS that I’ve seen on the web. They also publish some excellent books.

Software & Tools

Below are software and tools that are essential for any web developers toolkit. To be listed in here, the tool must be free to use, so you know you can get these all without any worries. The Internet browsers listed are those that I always test my websites in to ensure that they work properly, since there are often minor discrepancies between them.

Firefox (Internet Browser)

My personal favorite web browser. Why would I include a Internet browser in a web developer toolkit… I wonder.

Opera (Internet Browser)

An excellent web browser with the highest web standards compliance of them all.

Safari ( Internet Browser)

Another excellent web browser and the default browser for all Apple computers.

Internet Explorer (Internet Browser)

Probably the worst Internet browsers of all time do to it’s low web standards compliance, though they are getting better. However, it’s essential that you have Internet Explorer to test your website in because the majority of Internet users use Internet Explorer, and it is the most buggy that you must check your site in it.

Multiple IEs

This great package lets you install all versions of Internet Explorer from version 3.0 to version 6.0. This is handy so you can see what your website looks like if someone is running this old browsers. Now a days you won’t find anyone running version 3.0, but you may find them still running 6.0, so you should always check it out.

Web Developer Toolbar (Firefox Plugin)

Once I discovered this toolbar, I couldn’t live without it. It gives you a crazy number of tools to use when creating websites from outlining specific elements to modifying the CSS right from your browser. It’s a must-have tool.

HTML Validator (Firefox Plugin)

This handy tool allows you to validate your website right from the browser, instantly. It’s a super time saver, and let’s you instantly ensure that you are meeting web standards. If you have an error, it gives you a red X and will give you a description of the error. If you are good, it gives you a green check mark.

Textpad

This is the best free text editor I have found which will help make it easier to make your websites. Features handy things like giving line numbers, color coding syntax, and more.

GIMP

GIMP is the best free image editor around. It’s a bit tough to use, especially when you first start, but once you get the hang of it it is a great tool.

Not-So-Free

Below is a list of not-so-free software that is really great and you should get if you want to go beyond the hobbyist level.

Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop is the industry-standard for image editing. A must have for professional web designers.

Adobe Dreamweaver

My favorite web site editor. While it is technically a WYSIWYG (What-you-see-is-what-you-get) editor, which means it can allow for creating websites with drag-and-drop functionality (at the expense of sloppy code… don’t use it for this, hand-coding is the way to go), it’s other features are why I love it. It features excellent text editor capabilities, along with auto-complete and code-hinting. It also has a built-in FTP client which can automatically upload your files when you save, as well as a website manager and a built-in reference from O’Reily, one of the leaders in computer related reference books.

Adobe Fireworks

Even Adobe doesn’t give this product enough credit. This is the best program I have ever seen for designing your website. Fireworks is essentially an image editor, however, unlike Photoshop (which is raster-based), Fireworks is vector-based which means it’s images don’t distort when you change it’s size. It also means you can position things using their coordinates, similar to how you will think about it in websites, so you can use it to design the site and then as a reference through the building process. If you get only one Adobe product, get this one. A must have!

Adobe Flash

The defacto standard for interactive multimedia on the web. None of the other options compare to Flash yet.

Have Something to Add?

If you know of something or have something that you would like to add to this list, please Contact Us and let us know about it. We will check it out, and if we like it, we’ll add it to our list.