5 Useful Tools for Web Developers

Web development is certainly not an easy task.  There are countless things you need to know and do.  You may think that people expect you to go in alone, but you’re wrong.  There are many useful tools out there to give us web developers a helping hand.  I’m here to bring them all to your attention.

1. WhatTheFont

Ever see a cool font on a site that you would just LOVE to use in your next design?  You take a closer look, and realize it’s an image.  What do you do now?  Some people might just look through all their own fonts trying to find a match.  But that leads to a lot of extra and useless work.  Why not just automate the process?  That’s what WhatTheFont (WTF) is here for.  All you need is an image with text in it.  WTF will give you a list of fonts similar to the one in the picture, and you can pick the right one on your own.  I’ve been using this tool for awhile, and I rarely have a case where it can’t find the font I’m looking for.  But when I do, I just post on their forums.  Yes, believe it or not, they have a whole community of font-enthusiasts that can instantly recognize any font, and put a name to it.

2. My IP Neighbors

Most of us are on a shared server.  Meaning that there are a bunch of other websites on the same server that our site is on.  Maybe it’s just me, but I often find myself wondering, or needing to know, what other websites are on your sever.  I’ll be honest, it isn’t the greatest service.  It works, but I’ve noticed that it can randomly go into an “Under Construction” state for months at a time.  But it gets the job done.  After five minutes of using it, I know that my host packs me on to a server with hundreds of other sites, and I need to switch hosting providers.

3. Who Is Hosting This

This goes hand in hand with My IP Neighbors.  If you’re ever curious about who is hosting a certain website, then this is the place.  When you’re actually searching for a hosting provider, this is also a great tool.  You can check out who hosts those lightning fast sites that we all love so much.

4. CSS Superscrub

As a developer, loading times should always be one of your main concerns.  Simple things like getting rid of redundant calls and stripping uneeded content can significantly reduce the size of any CSS file.  CSS Superscrub does that all for you.  This could significantly decrease page load times, as well as give you a more organized, and overall, better stylesheet.  I highly recommend giving it a try.

5. DomainScour

Every new site starts with a domain.  The problem is finding one that works for you.  You probably want to know which ones are already registered.  And you probably want to be given different options, in case your first choice was already taken.  You probably know of a few tools that can easily accomplish this task.  But in my own opinion, DomainScour is one of the best out there.  Every time I need a domain, I head to DomainScour first.

Wrapup

Well, I hope these tools make your life easier.  I find myself constantly using one or the other, whether I have a reason to or not.