I was redoing a website for a friend, and I kept collecting cool free web development tools that I was finding, from free ecommerce shopping carts to Web 2.0 curvy corner generators. I realized that the Work.com audience could save a lot of money on their startups and ecommerce websites by doing-it-themselves with these free tools, so to share my growing list of resources, I decided to write a Work.com guide called 60+ Free Web Development Tools & Resources for Entrepreneurs. I really would like your help to expand the list, so I am posting it here too so blog readers can add their own resources.
So, here is my list of the best
free resources for web 2.0 design, development, and ecommerce:
Free Web Design Tools (22):
Background Image Maker
Cornershop – rounded corner graphics
CSS Button Generator
CSS Rollover Generator
CSS Tab Designer
curvyCorners – free JavaScript program that will create on-the-fly rounded corners
Design Patterns – flickr collection which captures consistent, unique, or interesting interfaces and design flows from across the web
Favicon Generator – create that tiny graphic that shows up in the browser tab
Gradient Maker
Grid Layouts – Javascript for grid layouts
Layout-o-matic
Listamatic – create lists with different bullets
More than 100 Web 2.0 Online Generators - grid layouts
My cool button – make cool web 2.0 buttons
Open Source Web Design – free web design templates
Resizr – resize images
RoundedCornr
Stripe Generator 2.0
Tabs Generator – tweak size, corners, colors
Web 2.0 Badges
Web 2.0 Colour Palette
Welie.com – patterns in interaction design
Free Web Development Tools (11):
Ajax Rain – Ajax/Javascript/DHTML examples and demos
Contact Form Generator – create a form-to-email with no programming skills
Create RSS Feed – automatically create RSS feed in XML
Drupal – open source content management system
GroundWork – open source IT monitoring
Help Desk – list of help desk and issue tracker software
Joomla – open source content management system
Mashable's 250+ Tools and Resources for Coding the Web
Nagios – open source host, service and network monitoring program
script.aculo.us – user interfaces & animations
Wufoo – build a form easily
Free Ecommerce Tools (7):
107 Add to Cart Buttons of the Top Online Retailers
Bigcartel – free online store
cubecart – PHP & MySQL shopping cart
Fat.Free.Cart – works with PayPal and Google Checkout
Magento – open source ecommerce platform
Opencart – PHP-based online shopping cart
Zen Cart – free open source shopping cart system
Free Feed/Widgets Tools (2):
Feedburner – create an RSS feed, allow subscriptions, and track feed stats
Widgetbox – create a “portable chunk of the web”
Free Community Tools (5):
Google Groups – create your own free email group
me.com
Ning – create your own community
phpbb – open source message board software
Yahoo Groups – create your own free email group
Free SEO/Advertising Tools (4):
Google Keyword Tool
Keyword Rank Checker
SEO Book Keyword Research Tool
Yahoo Site Explorer – analyze backlinks
Free Web Promotion Tools (5):
del.icio.us – make it easy for your users to bookmark your site on del.icio.us
digg
Pingomatic – after updating your site/blog, ping a lot of directories
HTML2PDF - create a PDF of your site for marketing purposes
Technorati – make sure you tag your blog posts to show up
Free Web Analytics/Tracking (5):
Alexa – compare web traffic
Google Analytics
sitemeter
StatCounter
Google Alerts
There are many more great free resources – if you have one please add it as a comment.
Tags: entrepreneurs, startup
Oh I forgot to add opensourcecms.com
Posted by: Shara | November 30, 2007 at 05:58 PM
Hi Shara, although I need to reveal that my husband and I own the company, I think many of our visitors will be excited to find the usefulness of our Jing Project for building visual Web sites. You can capture images, record video, and share online. It's cool.
I attended a conference two weeks ago in Nashville, the Conference on Information Technology (CIT), during which professors were already talking about how they "jing" an image to their students. The student "jings" an image back and they learn from the exchange. The applications in business are huge for visual Web sites. And, it's currently free, so it meets your criteria.
And, what a list, by the way. Amazing.
Posted by: Susan Heathfield | November 30, 2007 at 11:46 PM
Hi Susan, I just watched the video for Jing and it looks amazing! I'm installing it as we speak. I can't wait to try it.
Posted by: Shara | December 03, 2007 at 11:47 AM
Glad to see this awesome list/guide has been added to the Community Blog. I notice it's also been getting lots of interest on del.icio.us. Way to let more of the world know what great small biz resources Work.com and this blog are!
Posted by: melissa paxton | December 05, 2007 at 12:14 PM
As of today, 23 saves on del.icio.us.
Posted by: Shara | December 06, 2007 at 10:44 AM
When I saw the article title as 60 plus resources, I readily remembered a recent site I visited that has six hundred plus resources on corporate governance, and ceo training. A wonderful resource for new leaders, and CEOs, with top US board conferences and even movies.
You can visit the page here: Corporate Governance page
Posted by: William | January 25, 2008 at 03:54 PM
HI wanted to thank you for sharing this great info , I am just embarking on a business/project to help small businesses with their b2b and b2c , specially small mom and pops as you know our economy is pretty rough right now any assistance always helps and ofocurse FREE and sharing info and thats what I like doing thanks again and keep up the great work
Posted by: Carlo | May 09, 2008 at 10:18 AM
css textboxt input (textfield) style - examples - -
http://www.css-lessons.ucoz.com/textbox-css-examples.htm
Posted by: chester | May 24, 2008 at 11:39 AM