Recommended Software, Services and Resources

Web developers (and computer users in general) may find the below recommendations useful.

Our Favorite Apps (for Windows)

The software listed below are our favorites because we use them often (listed in alphabetical order).

Directory Opus - Directory Opus is "the complete File Management and Explorer Replacement Solution for Windows". We use it every day and have found it to be quite powerful and surprisingly configurable, just like CSS HTML Validator!
EmEditor - EmEditor is the text editor we use on a regular basis. Plus, it's available in 32-bit or 64-bit (we use the 64-bit version) and integrates with CSS HTML Validator.
FinePrint and pdfFactory - FinePrint is another program we use all the time to save paper and toner. FinePrint lets us preview documents before sending them to the printer, allowing us to delete pages that we don't want to print, and to print 2, 4, or more pages per sheet. We also use its companion, pdfFactory.
PuTTy - PuTTY is an SSH and telnet client, developed for the Windows platform. We use it to securely connect to our server.

PageSpeed Insights - PageSpeed Insights helps you make your web pages fast on all devices.
GTmetrix Performance Test - GTmetrix Performance Test is another service that can analyze a URL and suggest performance improvements.
Uptrends Uptime Test - Checks the availability of a website from worldwide checkpoints.
Website Performance Test - This website performance test site can run a website speed test from multiple locations around the globe using real browsers (IE and Chrome) and at real consumer connection speeds.
Website Planet Tools - Website Planet has some usefule tools, including a Robots.txt Checker, Favicon Generator, SSL Checker, XML Sitemap Validator, Responsive Checker (preview your website on mobie, tablet, and desktop resolutions), and Domain Expiration Checker.

Our SEO Tips - Start here with our own list of SEO tips for optimizing search engine rankings and avoiding SEO pitfalls.
SEOscout and AnswerThePublic - Give these tools a keyword or phrase and get free keyword ideas and suggestions.
101 White Hat SEO Tips - Another list of SEO tips, currently at 167 tips and still growing.
ezSEO - Articles and information about SEO, internet marketing, and self-publishing.
SearchEngineNews.com - "Since 1997 the definitive source of Search Engine information for the professional SEO."

CSS Button Generator - An online generator for creating CSS buttons.
Modern CSS Solutions for Old CSS Problems - A series by Stephanie Eckles.
Ultimate CSS Gradient Generator - A Photoshop-like CSS gradient editor from ColorZilla.

JSON Format - Describes the structure of the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) lightweight data-interchange format.
JSON Formatter & Validator - Good online site to reformat JSON (which can help in debugging).

Favicon Generator - Generating favicons is not as simple and easy as you might think but this generator makes it easy.
contrast-ratio - Easily find the color contrast ratio between two colors and make sure the contrast is sufficient.
Font and Color Choices - Helps you select what font and colors to use on a web page by immediately letting you see how your choices look. Created by Pat Moss.
SSL Server Test - SSL Server Test lets you enter a URL to performs a deep analysis of the configuration of any SSL web server on the public Internet.
TinyPNG - Drop your PNG or JPEG images onto the webpage and it will use smart lossy compression techniques to reduce the file size, and with 100% support for transparency.

Blumentals Easy Button & Menu Maker - Easily create web site buttons and menus.
Other Blumentals Software - Discounts for Blumentals software for CSS HTML Validator users.
NetDrive - NetDrive - The Network Drive for Windows lets you manage FTP, WebDAV and NAS servers as virtual drives, gives you direct access to cloud storage from your desktop, and connects you to Google Drive, Amazon S3, and more.
NoteTab - An excellent and inexpensive text, HTML, and more editor with support for CSS HTML Validator.

K Software SSL Certificates - K Software resells Comodo SSL web server certificates at great prices and with top-notch customer service. They also sell code signing certificates (we use one to sign CSS HTML Validator).