Even webmaster know-it-alls may not really know it all. The amount of knowledge that must go into the design and implementation of a website is overwhelming, to say the least, so a little help in this area never hurt anybody. And, in case you’re a little shy, you don’t even have to ask; we’re giving you these 10 bookmarks that Aussie webmasters must have just for stopping by!
- WebmasterWorld – The WebmasterWorld forums cover all topics that are useful to webmasters from designing and coding to maintenance and marketing of websites. The homepage also displays the top in news and discussions daily.
- 99 designs – Australian based 99 Designs was created as a resource to connect both designers and clients. Through this website, clients release projects (in the form of contests) for designers to complete. They then choose their favourite work and award the prize money. 99 designs is an excellent site for freelancers and those looking for extra work, or needing help with projects.
- Flashkit – Flashkit is an excellent resource for Flash design/development with over 1200 tutorials for viewing, audio loops for projects, and forums for discussing the most recent Flash related topics. Over 633,000 members and counting make up this thriving Flash developer community.
- Envato – Envato makes it mark as a one-stop shop for webmasters. This Aussie based company runs a network of sites, each dedicated to a different focus, such as web design education, a marketplace to buy and sell work, freelance forums and galleries of inspiration work.
- Istockphoto – We all know the saying that a picture tells a thousand words, so when putting together great designs, an image from iStockphoto could be the extra touch that ties it all together. It’s free to browse the millions of stock photographs, vector illustrations, stock video footage, audio tracks and Flash files in store, and you only pay when you download.
- Stock.xchng – Another great stock photo resource is stock.xchng. They have acquired nearly 400,000 high quality images, and many more are on the way. Although downloading some content does cost money, a search result will display a long list of free images for your chosen topic as well.
- Brands of the world – Looking for a vector formatted logo for a specific brand? Brands of the World is just the place to look seeing as it has the largest selection of brand logos out there. Since anyone can contribute to the resource, the website also boasts as being a place for designers to display, and be popularised, for their work.
- W3C – The World Wide Web Consortium is an international consortium focused on the goal of creating web standards. They provide link checkers, markup validators and CSS validators that benefit any webmaster.
- BrowserShots – We all know that checking browser compatibility can be a tedious and annoying task. Now, you can avoid some of the annoyance by using BrowserShots, the quick and easy way to see how your website will render in various browsers.
- webdesigner depot – webdesigner depot is an excellent blog full of tutorials, tips and techniques involved with web and graphic design. The blog is worked on by a number of designers and developers around the world that specialise in various subjects from coding to Photoshop.
When it comes to being a webmaster, the list of subjects one must be familiar with seems endless. Even though this is only a short post of ten great resources in these various subjects, hopefully it gives you a few more useful websites to add to your bookmarks. We understand that the webmaster’s job is never finished, so it is always good to know there are some excellent resources and communities to turn to whenever help is needed.
