5 handy websites for developers

There are so many sites out there that are helpful tools, and I have plenty of them in my bookmarks! However, today I will introduce you to five of the websites I have favorited for quick access, and I hope at least a couple of them will be useful to you.

1.) JotForm - This site is a tool for an easy form builder. You can make contact forms, satisfaction surveys, job applications, time sheets, and party RSVP’s, just to name a few. You can also use the blank form and mold it into anything you want, and have it include dropdown menus, checkboxes, file uploaders, buttons, text, and more. In your creation you can add a captcha, a password box, birthdate picker, and dozens more. Using JotForm, you can create almost any kind of form or survey imaginable. It’s a pretty handy tool, especially if you need to make something for your website.

2.) Alphabetize - I found this one over at MAMD. You can paste any list into it and it will arrange every item to alphabetical order. It can also make everything lowercase, capitalize the first words in your list, remove duplicates, reverse the whole list, randomize, add any word or symbol of your choice to the start or end of each word, or a mixture of all those things at once. Also a very powerful tool this site provides, it can strip the HTML from whatever you paste into it! Check it out and see for yourself. ;)

3.) Keyword Suggestion Tool - This is a free tool that lets you enter any keyword, and it will give you up to 100 related keywords and an estimate of their DAILY search volume. This can be extremely helpful to bloggers, especially if you want to get ranked for your keywords and include important keywords in your posts.

4.) Hundreds of Free Icons - At this site you will find so many icons you can use that are from the Crystal Clear icon set. Icons for actions, applications, devices, file systems, KDM, and MIME-types are all here. You can use the small version of the icon, or click on it and get the larger version. I don’t know how often you’ll be needing any of these but when you do this can be very helpful.

5.) Cliché Finder - If you like to make your content interesting, then you might want to consider adding some clichés to spice it up a bit. You can search for any word that may appear in your cliché, or you can select to view ten random clichés. For example, when I clicked to see some random clichés, the first one it gave me was “faster than a jackrabbit”. This might not be something you use that often, but if you ever want to say something and make it a little more exciting, this could come in handy.

There you have it! Five handy-dandy websites you can use. I will try to share helpful sites in list posts like this from time to time. I hope any of these might be useful to you in some way.

Web Design Tips for Better Usability

Website usability is a big issue for developers and users. Your website needs to be as user friendly as possible. If your visitors become frustrated trying to find the information they need, they will click off your website and a conversion opportunity is lost. Here are 10 web design tips for better usability.

Tap Into How People Read a Website

• Two studies done by Dr. Jakob Neilson and the marketing firms Did-it and Enquiro have shown people scan websites in a F shaped pattern. This is also known as the Google Golden Triangle. Most people start in the top left corner and scan down and to the right while viewing website. Concentrate your most important information in this area.
• Studies have also shown people only read about 28% of the text on a page. This means your content has to be golden and you need to get your point across quickly.
• Most people read webpages from left to right. This means if you use sidebars place them on the left side. If your page is in Hebrew or another language that reads from right to left, this should be reversed.

The Look of Your Website Matters

• Make use of white space to make your text more readable. Studies have shown that the use of white space not only makes your website look cleaner, but increases reader comprehension.
• If you must go past the fold, use less content above the fold. This encourages readers to scroll down and will keep them on your webpage.
• Pay attention to small details. The font and color of a button can sometimes mean a conversion or a click through. Instead of the annoying 404 message, try a polite two to three sentence message and a search option.

The Performance of Your Website

• Your website needs to load quickly on all devices. Mobile users are just that, mobile. They don’t have time to wait for your website full of graphics and flash to load on their devices. Test out your website loading times on several devices to be sure it loads quickly.
• Make sure your links are up to date. If you make revisions on your website, you’ll need to check the links to be sure they are still active.
• Park a tool bar at the top of the page. As they scroll down the tool bar stays on top of the page. This will make sure your visitors can navigate your site easily. Also don’t overuse the search option. It is better to have good navigation than to rely on a search box.
• Make sure your landing pages are optimized. A study by Gerry McGovern showed in 2010 only five percent of conversions originated from your home page. By having the right SEO on each landing page your pages will show up in search results. This will drive traffic to landing pages and your conversion rates will increase.

These are 10 web design tips for you to use to increase your website’s usability. Your website needs to be attractive, easy to read, and easy to use. Don’t ignore the details and just concentrate on the big picture,all of the elements of your website work together to increase usability.

A New Way to Publish your Shared Folders on the Web

File hosting services like Dropbox and Google Drive have made it easy for anyone to distribute files through Shared Folders. You can upload a file to your shared folder and that file is instantly available to all other people with whom you have shared that folder. In the case of Google Drive, you can even create “public” shared folders where your files can be viewed by anyone on the web.

The problem is how do you keep people in the loop when you add new files to a shared folders. Also, the less tech-savvy crowd may still prefer to receive these shared files as email attachments instead of using Dropbox or Google Drive.

iBeam.it, a new web service from Wappolf, is trying to solve this problem in an interesting way. Here you can put your files on Google Drive or Dropbox as before and the files are instantly “beamed” to other users who are watching your shared folder.
To get started, you just have to connect any of your Dropbox or Google Drive folder with iBeam.it (it uses OAuth). The folder get a unique URL that others can use to follow your folder (see this sample folder).

The “followers” are unaware of the service that you are using to host your files and they may choose to “receive” them inside Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, SkyDrive, Box and other popular services. Alternatively, they may choose to follow your Shared Folder through email and in that case, they will get your files as email attachments.
The service is free though you are only allowed to beam files up to 25 MB in size. Most email programs won’t handle attachments that large anyway. Also, sharing is one way – if you delete a file from the shared folder, it won’t be deleted from the folders of other users.
Similar things can possibly be done through IFTTT but iBeam.it is super-easy and doesn’t even require you to create an account.

Over 100 government websites hacked in 3 months: Sachin Pilot

As many as 112 government websites, including those of Planning Commission, the Finance Ministry and various State government agencies, were hit by cyber attacks during a three-month period ending February 2012, reveals minister of state for communications and IT Sachin Pilot in the Lok Sabha.

The minister further revealed that the website of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) was hacked on December 4, 2011 by a hacker group called 'H4tr!ck'. The websites of Finance, Health, Human Resource Development ministries and Planning Commission also suffered the cyber attacks. A number of state government websites, including those of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim, Manipur, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Gujarat, came under attack.

Pilot also said that the Department of Information Technology and the National Informatics Centre (NIC) are working on upgrading their skills to handle threats from cyber attackers. The agencies are working on upgrading the Firewalls and new filters are being added to keep the hackers at bay.

The minister's revelation has not surprised much as the government sites have been long targeted by the hackers. The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) recently disclosed that the government sites were hacked almost 200 times during the Commonwealth Games in 2010. The DRDO also pointed out that more resources were required to control these cyber attacks in near future.