The speed of your site, or the amount of time it takes your pages to load, is one of the many important factors to consider when developing websites.
With the release of Google’s new tool Site Performance, available within your webmaster tools account, I thought it would be a good time to provide a few resources that you can use to ensure your sites speed is up to par – the following are five tools I have found particularly useful. 
Firebug is a Firefox add-on that extends the browser with some very helpful web development tools. I think the tag line on their website says it best “You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page”.
The key phrase here is “live in any web page”. Firebug can be activated for any site on the internet and allows you to interact in a number of ways. Throughout this article, I will explain some of the common scenarios that I use on a daily basis.
Arguably one of the most important elements with regard to web design is navigation usability. Recognizing this, a great deal of consideration should be put into making sure your website is easy to navigate. After all, if your customers cannot easily navigate your site and find what they are looking for you will risk losing potential new customers and in turn revenue. Can you afford this?
The good news is that it is never too late to improve the usability of your website’s navigation. Whether you are in the process of building a new site or looking to enhance your existing site the following are seven essential usability tips for providing an easy-to-use navigation experience.
Most designers are just as particular about the way their code looks as they are about the way their page looks. Good thing Dreamweaver offers a tremendous degree of control toward shaping your code just the way you like it.
The basic option, Apply Source Formatting, is found under the Command menu and reformats all the code in your page according to your Preference settings where you can specify elements such as indent, tab size, automatic wrapping, and more.
As any web developer knows testing for cross-browser compatibility can be a time consuming process. To help ease this process Adobe has been developing BrowserLab intended to help simplify and speed up the process of testing for compatibility. Here’s Adobe’s description of their hosted solution BrowserLab:
BrowserLab is an online service that allows web professionals to test their websites on popular browsers and operating systems. Screenshots of actual browser renderings are generated in real time, with multiple viewing options to help pinpoint issues. Note Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 software users have access to additional functionality such as testing local and active content.
Google Chrome for Mac was released as an official beta a few days ago. If you are interested in getting the bleeding edge development version with even more features, there is a very easy way to do so.
TechCrunch has created a downloader that will grab the latest development version of Chromium (note: that’s the name for the open source browser Chrome is based on). Get the details of the downloader here. Once you’ve downloaded it, just run the included app and the latest and greatest Chromium build will be downloaded to your Applications.
Looking for a simple date stamp? Use Dreamweaver’s Date object from the Insert bar’s Common category.
This handy little object can update the page with the current date – and time, if you want — in a slew of formats. You’re offered an automatic update option, which inserts the current info whenever you save the file.
One of the first hurdles individuals run into when breaking into web development is setting up a testing server. This often occurs when you create your first PHP page in Dreamweaver or other text editor and try to view it in your browser. Most likely, you see some bizarre ‘Unable to Connect’ message or even worse, a window pops up for you to download the file you are trying to view. These undesirable results are probably occurring because you haven’t set up your computer to be able to serve PHP pages. The good news is…you can now set up a PHP/MySQL testing server in minutes.
So my daughter asked me for an iPhone last week for Christmas. My thoughts immediately turned to the cost justification of the purchase and the numbers just didn’t seem to add up. Sure, I own one and love how it has changed the way I communicate on a daily basis. I want her to enjoy the advantages of consolidating the devices she carries around (phone, iPod, gaming console of choice) but at a price that isn’t going to make me shudder every month when my statement comes in.
I started talking to friends and researching ways to get that recurring payment down. What I found was a way to get around being locked into the additional $30 a month data fee but with an inconvenience factor that keeps me from being sold on the move. Here’s how it can be done by changing your APN (the setting that tells your phone how to access mobile data) http://bit.ly/7860i6.
The holidays are here and to celebrate we’re holding our biggest storewide sale of the year. Save 30% on all WebAssist products including our:
Dreamweaver extensions
Pre-built PHP solutions
Extension Library Membership Program (discount applies to enrollment fee)
The Holiday Sale will run through December 31st, 2009, so head on over to the WebAssist Store and get while the getting’s good – tell your friends too!
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