Web Dev, Linux, WordPress & More
Overwhelmed with the number of passwords you have?
Use the same username/password combo for every site?
Here’s a handy open source tool I use in WinXP to generate secure passwords and keep them securely stored in a database on a USB drive. I highly recommend this program.
I promise that I won’t make every post about icon sources, but while I’m thinking of it, here’s one more icon project that I’d certainly endorse: Dan Cederholm’s SimpleBits Icons.
Dan’s written a few terrific books on web standards design entitled Web Standards Solutions and Bulletproof Web Design.
I highly recommend them both. They camp out next to me in my quick reference stack and I refer to them regularly. If you’re into CSS and web standards, they’re downright fun to read. But I digress . . .
Mr. Cederholm also created some royalty-free stock icons that you can purchase directly from his site, and although he doesn’t have the same variety of iconography as some other sources, I like his simple, direct style.
Looking for cool, free icons to spice up your site? MaxPower.com has compiled a list of completely free icon sets listing the author and license terms with a completely cool little previewer.
Free! Icons for your website or application at MaxPower
Most sets are licensed under GPL, LGPL, or CC.
Making sure your pages validate is a snap with the Firefox Web Developer Toolbar Extension.
Many web development applications bundle in ways to check your page markup. Both Dreamweaver 8 and TopStyle Pro (tools I use daily) have this functionality built-in, or you can also use nifty online tools, like those at W3C:
If your web development tools don’t have built-in validators, or you’d like a second opinion, the Web Developer Toolbar offers an easy way to validate HTML and CSS (among many other things) from any page on the web.
Use the Firefox Web Developer Toolbar to see how your site looks and behaves without styles, images, and javascript.
There are three features in the Firefox Web Developer Toolbar Extension for Firefox that can help you quickly test the usability and construction of your website.
Each of these is very easy to use and can give you some quick information to let you know what users would see if they have certian browser functions disabled.