15 Things Every Web Developer Should Be Thankful For

November 25, 2008 / Asides
developer thanksgiving
Photo by xyber matthew.

With Thanksgiving only a couple days away, it’s appropriate to look back on the things that we appreciate best about our jobs. Let’s face it: Web Developers have the best jobs around, right? We’re incredibly lucky to have the professions we do.

Here are 15 things that we all should be thankful for. These are the technologies that we couldn’t live without, or that have previously paved the way and allowed us to be web developers.

1. Mosaic

Graphic designers everywhere should reserve a day in November to give thanks to the software that’s enabled our careers. Without Mosaic’s picture support, the Internet doesn’t need good design. The 1993 launch of this web browsing software opened up a brand new world to web developers and web browsers alike.


Photo by Marc_Smith.

2. Firefox

Firefox ended the long tyranny of IE oppression for experienced web users. The extension-enabled browser has forced IE to play catch up and improve their lukewarm browser, which hadn’t seen an update for 5 years.

Aside from pushing a standards-based browsing initiative, the ability to extend Firefox has made the developers life much easier. There are oodles of extensions that are nearly essential to the developer.


Photo by psd.

3. Browsershots.org

Every web developer knows the awful pain that is making designs constant across different browsers. Thanks to Browsershots, we can easily see a screenshot of any page across a multitude of different browsers, showing potential problems that might arise across different browsers, and giving new reason to invent curses for legacy IE versions.

4. Firebug

Thanks to Firefox, we now have a browser that is also an important tool for the web developer. Firebug is a must-have extension for the web developer. With this nifty little extension you can view just about any aspect of the web page, visible or behind the scenes, and modify it real-time. It’s incredibly useful for designers and programmers alike.


Photo by zeroK.

5. Google Code

If you’re trying to find a useful snippet of code, there’s no place better than Google Code. Not only is it a great place to search for entire libraries, you can find useful bits of code that might be hard to find otherwise. If you’re wanting to house a project, you’ll be especially thankful for G Code, as it’s a free and easy way to have a working community for a project without hosting costs.

Also, with Google Code you can use Google’s bandwidth for the javascript libraries included in your projects. Using jQuery? Just call Google’s hosted version and be on your way. No need to slow your own server down with Google’s gracious offer.

6. Frameworks

Frameworks have given developers a major reason to be thankful. Gone are the days of building websites around repetitive code. Using frameworks like Rails, Django or CakePHP on websites needing database interaction and user permissions takes a major burden off of the programmer. They can spend less time on common, tedious code and more on the interesting and unique. It’s a powerful paradigm shift in programming.

Here are some of the major frameworks used today, in no particular order.


Photo by Nathan Borror.

7. Open Source projects

Mad props should be bestowed upon the Open Source Initiative and all the software it promotes. It is a fact that we wouldn’t have a) the Internet or b) much of the technology that it runs on without open source projects. Most of the biggest and best projects are open sourced software, and they all run on the basis that the people building and contributing to them are doing it for free. Granted, these folks might make a hefty profit on consulting services and other opportunities around the projects, they’re still opening up the code base for developers to modify and improve, as they see fit.

Open Source is the Internet’s best contribution yet. The free exchange of ideas encouraged by Open Source is the best thing that’s happened to the web, especially for web developers. Show of hands: Who hasn’t ever used open source software to build a site or project? I’m guessing none of us. That is plenty to be thankful for.


Photo by Josh Parrish.

8. Creative Commons

On the heels of Open Source is Creative Commons licensing. You can modify, reuse and redistribute Creative Commons-licensed material, in exchange for (at the most) attribution. Ultimately, Creative Commons protects the original work, but allows people to modify and reuse at will.

Creative Commons is a very big benefit for designers and bloggers alike. The pictures seen in posts on this blog? Creative Commons licensed. There is absolutely nothing better for content producers than free media that can be reused and remixed.

9. Paypal

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Paypal and other payment gateways have made collecting payments a much friendlier task on the web. Sure, there are horror stories and bad experiences using their product, but Paypal has revolutionized the way money is exchanged on the Internet. They have an easy to use API, and if you’re wanting something even simpler, they offer a painless web interface to receive money from.

If Paypal has done you wrong in the past and you’re looking for a better alternative to send and receive money, you might check out a CNN article on five Paypal alternatives. Definitely worth the read.

10. Javascript Libraries

Javascript is always one of the most popular aspects of web development, and a big reason for that is the advent of Javascript libraries. Javascript libraries, (like frameworks), have eliminated the much of the need for custom Javascript programming. Aside from the fact that the core files in the Javascript libraries do a great many functions themselves, the ability to use custom plugins gives even more functionality to the library.

Not having to do custom Javascript programming for specific effects has given me a much greater respect for Javascript libs this holiday season. Here are some of the more popular Javascript libraries:

11. Amazon S3 and EC2

Amazon’s on demand services S3 and EC2 have developer’s lives a lot simpler. Not only do they not have to worry about traffic influxes and scaling headaches, they don’t have to spend buckets of cash on reserve servers. The pay-what-you-use business model to web hosting and file serving is a godsend for developers.

The launch of these “cloud” services has also spawn the change of many hosts to move to the pay-as-you-go model. Amazon’s innovation has helped spurn change for the betterment of web development.


Photo by Nicholas T.

12. Anti-RSI software

There is no friend like RSI-preventing software. RSI (or Repetitive Strain Injury) is typically in the form of carpal tunnel for web developers and typing zealots. Because the typical developer or designer spends at least 8 hours sitting in front of a computer screen all day, there is a likelyhood that RSI will creep into the wrists, hands, forearms, elbows, shoulders, back… and the list can go on and on.

Thanks goodness for RSI software that forces you to take breaks on a regular basis. Many times I’ll find myself fixated at the computer until I finish xyz, and consequently it’s over 50 minutes before I’ve gotten out of my chair away from the computer. With RSI software, you can have a reminder flash on your computer at set intervals that ensures you’re moving your limbs and warding off RSI. If you’re on a Mac, try AntiRSI, Windows and Linux users can try Workrave.


Photo by Dave Parker.

13. Advanced Text Editors

Advanced text editors have sped up the development time by adding a myriad of useful features that can benefit nearly anyone who writes in code, blogger to advanced programmer. Whether you prefer Textmate, Emacs, Vim or some other editor, text editors can save plenty of time on the development cycle.


Photo by D’Arcy Norman.

14. CSS

CSS seems to be one of those technologies that is taken for granted. Can anyone remember what the pre-CSS days were like? It wasn’t pretty. Modifying a web layout’s design meant going through each page and changing each inline style. Ugh. Thanks to the wonderment that is CSS, we can make one change in a single file, and Poof!, it’s reflected across the entire site. Simple, clean, and much less involved.

There are times when I’m not that thankful for CSS (see: Internet Explorer), but for the most part it’s a technology that we’re much better off having.


CSS editor CSSEdit.

15. Coffee

Ah, coffee. I don’t think I’m in the minority when I say that coffee is a staple to my day. Web workers in general crave the bean, and without it the day doesn’t go as well. There’s something about the smell of a fresh pot of coffee that makes the senses come alive. Many a cup of joe has sustained me through long nights of writing and coding deadlines. I doubt I would have made many of those deadlines without the aide of our caffeinated friend.


Photo by Chris Owens.

Bonus: Laptops

Laptops can completely change the effectiveness of a developer. Instead of being confined to the same room, chair, keyboard and monitor each day, the laptop allows for a much-needed change. While the screen real estate may not be as big as your office setup, it offers one thing the other can’t: Variety. Laptops enable you to work from anywhere.

I’ve found that since switching to a laptop, my RSI (see #12) has essentially gone away. I’m constantly working in different chairs and have my hands resting in different positions, which in turn is continuously working different muscle groups. I’m extra thankful for laptops.


Photo by Johan Larsson.

How About You?

What are you thankful for? What should be included on this list? Reply below!


About the Author:

Glen Creator of http://webjackalope.com

Editor of Web Jackalope. Follow Glen on Twitter.

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145 Comments

  1. Andy Sowards  November 25, 2008 at 4:46 pm

    This post saved me a ton of time incase anyone asks me what I am thankful for, I can just print this off and hand it out! Great things to be thankful for!

    Thanks a bunch!

  2. Cubicle Generation  November 25, 2008 at 5:21 pm

    No Photoshop / GIMP / alternative image editor?

  3. Glen  November 25, 2008 at 10:41 pm

    @Cubicle Generation Yeah, that’s something to be thankful for! :)

  4. kohana user  November 26, 2008 at 6:56 am

    under frameworks, you may also want to include http://kohanaphp.com

  5. bryanjones  November 26, 2008 at 9:30 am

    God bless advance text editors.

  6. Den  November 26, 2008 at 1:10 pm

    Amazing))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) I seemed to be a beginer))))))))

  7. Den  November 26, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    Amazing. I seem to be just a beginner.

  8. Honour Chick  November 26, 2008 at 1:14 pm

    wow … great. i use all these thing. except COFFEE :)

  9. Ner  November 26, 2008 at 1:16 pm

    this is so much better than the other list i saw a day ago on digg. i use all the sites mentioned above! =)

  10. jp  November 26, 2008 at 1:17 pm

    I would thank W3c keeping up standards.

  11. pixelguru  November 26, 2008 at 1:23 pm

    I’m pretty thankful for the Apple Cinema Display I’m gazing at right not. Remember the days of 15″ flickering CRTs? I do, and have the retinal scarring to prove it.

  12. maxwell  November 26, 2008 at 1:52 pm

    what about ‘coda’

    I find that to be the best text editor/web tool

  13. matt  November 26, 2008 at 2:06 pm

    My IM friends help keep me sane when dealing with difficult jobs.

  14. Court  November 26, 2008 at 2:13 pm

    Under frameworks, you are linking the Zend corporate website instead of the actual Zend Framework website. The link should be: http://framework.zend.com

  15. Ze  November 26, 2008 at 2:32 pm

    What?! Not a single mention of Perl?

    Catalyst is an excellent framework for Perl.

  16. simon  November 26, 2008 at 3:09 pm

    thats a great list – kudos

  17. Khoe  November 26, 2008 at 3:26 pm

    No mention of YUI framework. No mention of Drupal. Great list, though not as thorough as I’d like and honestly quite random. No, I don’t drink coffee. :)

  18. mkjones  November 26, 2008 at 3:35 pm

    WordPress.

    You sort of touched on it with the Open Source projects thing.

    Sure there are other publishing platforms but it seems like nothing else has found the balance like WordPress has.

  19. Mobular  November 26, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Might as well add glasses, mountain dew, cola, the web developer toolbar (more popular then firebug to be honest), tons of programmer sites, php.net

  20. Josh of Cubicle Ninjas  November 26, 2008 at 4:42 pm

    I’d second Wordpress. It has changed the way many developers and users approach CMS. A few others I’d throw in:

    CSS Design Galleries – Sure, they’re everywhere. But remember a few years ago when your best resource was a *gasp* magazine? Good times.

    The stock revolution – Need textures? Need fonts? Need images? Need vectors? Need Flash? Need video? Need audio? One web designer now has an unlimited set of talented artists at their disposal.

    The web blogging community – I’d bet that pound for pound there isn’t a more influential group on the web. We toppled IE, we screamed for standards, we hacked javascript into something useful, and we shared the information so others could learn. Each day something exciting and new appears on the horizon, and we have an ambitious community to thank for that.

  21. john  November 26, 2008 at 4:45 pm

    Nice work Glen !

    Just a quick question, has anyone ever bought a coffee or beer for you after reading your works ?

    I know it is a silly question but just wondered ! :-)

  22. rex  November 26, 2008 at 4:57 pm

    Huh, I’m definitely thankful for virtual machines!

  23. DH  November 26, 2008 at 6:18 pm

    Additional Nominations:

    Framework: Drupal (drupal.org)
    Text Editor: Notepad++ (google it)

  24. Jesse Wilder  November 26, 2008 at 6:28 pm

    Wow dude that might be the coolest thing yet.

    jess
    http://www.anonymity.cz.tc

  25. lorz  November 26, 2008 at 7:39 pm

    Nice source of information

    http://www.lorztech.com

  26. Ollie Jones  November 26, 2008 at 8:01 pm

    Eclipse IDE.
    Subversion.

    Both open-source tools have made a huge difference to me and the teams I’ve been on.

  27. Ahmad  November 26, 2008 at 9:55 pm

    I think ExtJS should be in the JavaScript libraries section

  28. ryan  November 26, 2008 at 10:40 pm

    I’m thankful for my simple keyboard,. without it, life is full of click’s :p

  29. Ramón Ramos  November 26, 2008 at 11:05 pm

    Hi there.. amazing list!!..

    I’d like to add an important thing: work & clients.. without them life wouldn’t be the same, even when they’re such a headache or a PITA I think we should thank them once in a while.

    Greets from Mexico

  30. Shook_1  November 26, 2008 at 11:08 pm

    CMSs? Joomla?

  31. Jani Hartikainen  November 27, 2008 at 12:35 am

    Even though I have barely any idea what this thanksgiving thing is about (not american or anything), this list still kinda manages to make sense.

    I would’ve switched Firefox for Opera, since it was around earlier as an alternative, and coffee for cola, but that’s just me. =)

  32. Rick  November 27, 2008 at 12:57 am

    Internet Relay Chat (IRC). 90% of the questions I have get answered there.

  33. DevLano  November 27, 2008 at 1:25 am

    Adobe. with out them, I would not be as good as I am. Their tools are profound. Not to mention the huge list of other reasons.

    Awesome post. :-p

  34. ReneG  November 27, 2008 at 3:10 am

    Hi,
    Except sugar and calvados in my coffe, i dont really see what i could add :)
    THanks for your list.

  35. cb  November 27, 2008 at 3:17 am

    I’m thankful for the blogosphere :)

  36. lee  November 27, 2008 at 3:55 am

    In your list of open source frameworks, please include Drupal – http://www.drupal.org. It’s one of those ‘even hard to pronounce, even harder to explain’ technologies – not quite a cms, not quite a framework, that lends itself to extensibility beyond what even the originator ever imagined. With patience and planning, you can do anything with Drupal that involves multiple users and just about any kind of content – and it’s scalable – just ask Yahoo! and IBM.

    Just sayin’ it’s one of those things I’m grateful for.

  37. Alex  November 27, 2008 at 4:16 am

    I would like to add Apple/Parallels for the ability to have all the browsers you can think of on one machine.

  38. Jon  November 27, 2008 at 6:37 am

    Where version control systems? Subversion is indispensible!

  39. dibatam  November 27, 2008 at 6:42 am

    Notepad++ for text editor, appserv for installer of apache, php, mysql.
    w3schools, google, etc :)

  40. Ed  November 27, 2008 at 10:27 am

    Thankful for great free text editors like Notepad ++.

  41. Firman  November 27, 2008 at 5:26 pm

    Hi,

    Neat list, just for addition: Gmail, FTP client, PuTTY, Messenger, Weblog software, Twitter.

    Err so many things should be thankful and I’m still missing for laptop :(

  42. ainemainekaine  November 27, 2008 at 5:52 pm

    Thanks dude.
    I work as a webdeveloper since few years now and already knew all your point, — exept one!
    Point 12 did realy open my eyes.. I’m sitting 10+ hours a day in front of the monitor.

    From my point of view you missed following:
    Apache
    MySQL
    PDT (Eclipse)
    GIMP
    VirtualBox/Parallels whatever
    Wordpress
    Subversion
    and last but not least: LINUX

  43. Jeff  November 27, 2008 at 9:38 pm

    Great article!

    http://cakephp.org/ – This is the correct link for Cake PHP.

  44. Aalaap Ghag  November 28, 2008 at 1:49 am

    I think this post is kinda lame.

  45. Deepak  November 28, 2008 at 6:44 am

    Nice list I almost use everything mentioned on a regular basis. And I really thank all the people for making all these applications a reality

  46. Rishi Luchun  November 28, 2008 at 8:23 am

    Great list, fairly sure there are more though??

  47. Gian  November 28, 2008 at 9:57 am

    Great list, I might give a go to those anti RSI things…

  48. Maniquí  November 28, 2008 at 12:55 pm

    I work as a web developer and RSI is killing me since 3 or 4 years ago. And it’s getting worse! Don’t know why it doesn’t go away… probably because I spent too much time on da intarweb.

    The Evoluent Vertical Mouse didn’t help at all, and probably, it hurts me more than it helps :(

    So, if you are feeling the first symptoms of RSI, you should immediatly start looking for a solution…
    Believe, you won’t enjoy at all to have pain in your arms and fingers during all day…

    Well… thanks for this article, and for the RSI reminder.

  49. www.krembo99.com  November 28, 2008 at 1:28 pm

    GREEAAAT list !!

  50. Al  November 28, 2008 at 5:17 pm

    What about music? or more specifically mp3s, I don’t think I could go a days work without having some of my favorite tunes at hand.

  51. Durkin - Go Holga  November 28, 2008 at 7:10 pm

    I think I would have to put cans of coke over coffee :)

    Great list!

  52. Buggsy2  November 28, 2008 at 7:54 pm

    Re: RSI. Wife (CAD worker) developed CTS and found a tablet and wireless pen solved it the best. Get rid of the mouse!

  53. Adam  November 28, 2008 at 8:00 pm

    Anti RSI software? I prefer smoking – every hour I manage to stop typing and get some fresh air.

  54. blodefood  November 28, 2008 at 9:15 pm

    Would have been great to see this before Canadian Thanksgiving which is second Monday in October. Still, nice to see the spirit of thankfulness in the web developer community. These are all things — especially open source — that we can be thankful for, indeed!

  55. Djordje  November 29, 2008 at 3:49 am

    It’s not CodeIgnitor it’s CodeIgnitEr

  56. Tony Cheetham  November 29, 2008 at 4:59 am

    I notice your leaning very heavily towards open source in that list ;) Let’s not forget to thank Microsoft for giving us xmlhttp, and by extension ajax. And under frameworks you should list .net also, it is by far the most widely used framework at the moment.

  57. Tony Cheetham  November 29, 2008 at 5:00 am

    Ohh, and for my RSI I got myself a trackball mouse, it totally fixed me up.

  58. mohan  November 29, 2008 at 3:16 pm

    I think we should be thankful to the browsers a lot than others.good list..

  59. weberica  November 29, 2008 at 4:20 pm

    I am thankfull to big monitors… and stumbleupon :) )))

  60. Chris  November 29, 2008 at 4:58 pm

    You forgot to include “Dual Monitors”… I program in one and load em up in another..

    Everyone I know who’s used two monitors never goes back.

  61. Jon Williams  November 29, 2008 at 5:28 pm

    I agree. Thanks, nice post. Cheers

  62. Craig  November 29, 2008 at 5:31 pm

    Don’t forget ASP.NET!!

  63. VitaminCM  November 29, 2008 at 5:41 pm

    What about Dreamweaver? Yeah, I know everybody loves hand coding. But how many of us got into the game using some WYSIWYG editing tool. And Dreamweaver was always the only one worth using.

  64. Craig  November 29, 2008 at 5:45 pm

    You know you’re right I do both and Dreamweaver saves time which = money ;) These days the code is quite lean so why worry?

  65. tommy  November 29, 2008 at 6:20 pm

    good starter list. thanks for posting!

  66. pizzadebarr  November 29, 2008 at 7:28 pm

    Internet Explorer 5.5 … just kidding, just kidding…

  67. JONxBLAZE  November 29, 2008 at 8:58 pm

    I’m thankful for WordPress.

  68. Aaron  November 29, 2008 at 9:16 pm

    Photoshop
    W3C
    16GB thumb drives

    I would switch coffee to caffeine, in general, other than that I use everything on the last on every project or job.

  69. jess  November 30, 2008 at 3:04 am

    Re: #14 (CSS). As a front-end developer, I say you should always be thankful for CSS. Even when IE is involved. Because we all know it’s not the CSS that’s causing the problems/quirks/half of my job, which is why I write by the standards, testing in FireFox as I go along, and *then* move on to testing in IE.

    I’m slightly more thankful for IE7… still not 100%, but it’s an improvement..

  70. Creative Writing  November 30, 2008 at 10:37 am

    i’ve just started to get into web developing and, like jess, i’m a css integrator. this was an excellent post and made me realize that perhaps i did take a few things that make my time easier for granted. thanks for reminding me.

    René
    http://www.workingauthor.com

  71. gurel  November 30, 2008 at 11:24 am

    SVN – not only for web projects but definitely a must have!!

  72. Gerald Weber SEO Tips Blog  November 30, 2008 at 4:41 pm

    Awesome list. I am very thankful for each and everyone thing on this list. especially CSS and coffee! ;-)

  73. Bill in Detroit  November 30, 2008 at 5:33 pm

    Good list. There is no way that this list will ever be complete, though. Talented people keep whacking away at things and great code / devices just keep happening.

    I liked ColdFusion WYSIWYG for its outline view of site hierarchy.

    Since coming to Linux, I am still looking for a WLW replacement to use with WordPress.

    Right now I am using OO and cut/paste for longer posts.

  74. Raj  November 30, 2008 at 10:40 pm

    You forgot Dreamweaver. More than Text editor, Dreamweaver is a IDE worth mentioning.

  75. My Tech Tour  December 1, 2008 at 1:14 am

    Ya, Dreamweaver is nice tools for developer.

  76. zeropaper  December 1, 2008 at 2:25 am

    @My tech tour
    hummm… if you do not use the WYSIWYG (who’s generating crap) indeed… it may be a good text editor.. even if i would prefer Aptana instead…

  77. Harsha BN  December 1, 2008 at 9:33 pm

    Thanks a lot for this great list..

  78. Ernest  December 1, 2008 at 11:41 pm

    To be fair, you should mention YUI

  79. Sajid Iqbal  December 2, 2008 at 4:41 am

    Yeah, rightly so. We should be thankful to these apps.

  80. minanube@gmail.com  December 2, 2008 at 2:57 pm

    wakakak…

    awesome shoot man…

    many thanks for you :D

  81. Jeff  December 2, 2008 at 3:35 pm

    This is a great list, sometimes I forget how great some of the applications can be.

  82. Alex  December 2, 2008 at 8:06 pm

    I second photoshop, and wordpress too (though the ones you present above are probably still more important). Also, what about AJAX?

    but the real reason I was gonna comment was to report:
    typo on #11 Amazon S3: “Amazon’s on demand services S3 and EC2 have developer’s lives a lot simple”

    I assume it should be “have made developer’s lives…”

    Great piece! Going to check out the RSI software right now

  83. Aaron  December 3, 2008 at 1:13 am

    great blog here lol ;)

  84. 4MIN  December 3, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    The Excellent selection. I am thanked you.

  85. Gary Pollock  December 3, 2008 at 6:47 pm

    Having a laptop is defiantly nice compared to desktop. In fact since I purchase my laptop I have only used my desktop a total of 2 times in about the past 4 months. It’s been really nice eliminating the common confounds of my desk and now I have my data ready every where I go. PS: I also keep a jar of instant coffee on hand. =) If your a caffeine addict try deton8 (no affiliation).

  86. Al  December 3, 2008 at 9:00 pm

    condoms. You forgot condoms. And a pic of them.

    Condoms ought to be added for a variety of reasons:
    1) most persons don’t use them; bad idea.
    2) most programmers don’t know anymore what they are and facing one may be using them to wrap their pen drives.
    3) using them would dramatically decrease the numbers of guys like me and you in the world: those like me thinking that IE wasn’t a tyranny and those like you who think that IE was nothing less than tyranny and oppression.

  87. Sandeep Kadam  December 3, 2008 at 10:48 pm

    Really good article.. hats off :)
    Thanks to author

  88. jay smith  December 4, 2008 at 12:22 am

    This is a fabulous website.

  89. Giulio  December 4, 2008 at 5:02 pm

    I’m thankful for all this stuff,
    I’d include total commander, since I use it my productivity has dramatically increased.

    I thank all the aids that avoid my right hand from moving constantly from the keyboard to the mouse/touchpad.

  90. allthebestofthenet.com  December 5, 2008 at 1:05 am

    I’m not much of a programmer but what about note pad… it rocks!

  91. seo company  December 5, 2008 at 6:39 am

    well i’m thinking stumbleupon, the whole reason i got here! Good work guys!

  92. Gushin  December 5, 2008 at 1:21 pm

    The laptop one hits very high on my list. How great is it that you can take your work with you?

    The iPod is another. What’s sitting at Starbuck’s on WiFi without your tunes?

    BTW…your laptop pic looks like it shows a pair of Koss PortaPro headphones. They are inexpensive and have great sound and even fold up!

  93. Dallas  December 6, 2008 at 9:54 am

    An excellent post–I learned some great things. Thanks!

  94. James  December 8, 2008 at 11:49 am

    Re: #12 RSI software:

    Nothing for mac was mentioned. With Time Out http://www.dejal.com/timeout/ I programmed regularly scheduled micro-breaks of 15 seconds ever 10 minutes, and a 10 minute break every 50 minutes. Use it in combination with Dockless app to keep it out of my Dock.

  95. James  December 8, 2008 at 11:56 am

    guess i actually missed the antiRSI mentioned ;) but I still recommend trying Time Out anyway.

  96. aidan  December 8, 2008 at 6:29 pm

    wonderful list.. :)

  97. jasen  December 8, 2008 at 7:58 pm

    excellent web developers stuff and a useful site!! thumb up!!

  98. Anthony Damasco  December 10, 2008 at 9:35 am

    Number 14! Thank god for CSS

  99. EZ Computers  December 12, 2008 at 10:01 am

    Very true, most of those are indespensible! I don’t know what i would do without css!

  100. optimistic  December 12, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    Wonderful abstract of a plenty useful applications !

  101. ATOzTOA  December 15, 2008 at 1:15 am

    Nice ones…

    I will get an RSI software myself…

  102. Arjen  December 15, 2008 at 6:56 am

    I love browsershots, it’s so useful when it comes to testing!

  103. Scott Mahler  December 15, 2008 at 11:44 pm

    Is it bad that the thing I’m most grateful for is PayPal? Dont’ get me wrong, alll the other stuff has made my life a lot easier and my job a lot more fun, but I couldn’t do any of it without getting paid. Here here to all of it!

    http://www.datexmedia.wordpress.com

  104. 冰古  December 16, 2008 at 6:37 am

    I like tea more than coffee, ;)

  105. Nick Masao  December 17, 2008 at 4:51 am

    Thanks for this. Great post.

  106. igmuska  December 18, 2008 at 7:13 pm

    netbeans 6.5, aptana…..eclipse

  107. EnzoLove  December 19, 2008 at 7:19 pm

    Amazing list man! I’m starting web design and I learned a lot! Keep up the good job!! ;-)

  108. Jikeb  December 20, 2008 at 12:05 pm

    Well i think a lot of people already tell you that : Awesome list, thank’s for writing it! :)

  109. kırma eleme  December 23, 2008 at 2:19 am

    Yeah, good things : ))

  110. petemayo  December 30, 2008 at 2:23 pm

    The first and last thing we should be thankful for is linux.
    U can mention Apache, PHP, MySQL, VI, Open Source, but linux sums it up nicely :)

  111. frank katzer | 1klang.de internetagentur  December 30, 2008 at 5:42 pm

    i personally am thankful for chrome. smart, fast and easy to use…

  112. Los Angeles Limos  December 31, 2008 at 9:07 pm

    And we are only just beginning…

  113. highway traffic act  January 15, 2009 at 12:09 am

    CSS all the way!

    Tables should only be used to display data, not for site designing!

    Also, G-code is amazing!

    Great Post and nice blog!

  114. wayne  February 26, 2009 at 12:51 am

    Amazing. I seem to be just a beginner.

  115. Joaquim Bandeira  March 5, 2009 at 2:02 pm

    Hi Constantin,

    We are a Portuguese Training Company. We have Courses and Tutorials from Design, WebDesign and 3D Applications.
    We want to Known if you want wright tutorials for our sites every month.

    Best Regards,

    Joaquim Bandeira
    Joaquim.Bandeira@web-designer.pt
    Director Marketing
    Creative Station
    Edifício Mar do Oriente
    Alameda dos Oceanos, 1.07 1P 1.1
    2740-122 LISBOA
    Portugal

  116. Joaquim Bandeira  March 5, 2009 at 2:03 pm

    Hi Constantin,

    We are a Portuguese Training Company. We have Courses and Tutorials from Design, WebDesign and 3D Applications.
    We want to Known if you want write tutorials for our sites every month.

    Best Regards,

    Joaquim Bandeira

  117. cancel bubble  April 3, 2009 at 3:10 pm

    #3, Browsershots doesn’t give you any functionality/behavior of your page in other browsers – plus it can be damn slow. And really, who amongst us needs to test in browsers we haven’t even heard of?

    VMWare, or even better, a FREE alternative from Sun called VirtualBox. A BEAUTIFUL post over at http://www.10voltmedia.com/blog/2008/12/screencast-install-internet-explorer-on-osx-using-virtualbox/ if any of you Mac folks are looking to do cross-browser detection on your Mac (Mainly just running IE). Get yourself IETester and you have multiple IEs right on your Mac.

  118. cancel bubble  April 3, 2009 at 3:11 pm

    Oops, that should be “cross-browser testing” above…

  119. website design company  April 16, 2009 at 2:11 am

    Joomla needs to be included as one of the greats

  120. Digby Green  May 1, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    Great list – very enjoyable reading for an old guy like me who grew up with IBM XT’s !

    Amazing to see how much coffee features in the comments.

    What about googling for Adkaf the new desktop coffee mug holder it will stop you guys spilling your coffee.

  121. Aurelius  May 6, 2009 at 12:49 am

    What about google?

  122. Iconz  May 9, 2009 at 1:59 pm

    fantastic list my friend… really!!! The internet has gone through a lot of evolutions…

  123. Dave Romero  May 9, 2009 at 2:40 pm

    This post just made my day!

    I would have never thought of the RSI software — very important indeed!

    The one thing I would add to the list, as it is new to the internet community, is Safari 4. We’re having all our developers move to the new Safari as a standard dev browser. It has so many great built-in feautres like:
    1) Visual pageload analysis
    2) Firebug-like tool for css/html debugging.

    …Not to mention, the aesthetics are bar-none!

    Cheers!

    Dave Romero
    Tsuvo
    Web Development Boise

  124. TechThem  June 9, 2009 at 2:43 pm

    what about w3c html markup error checker?
    anyway! GREAT LIST.

  125. Phaoloo  June 15, 2009 at 9:18 pm

    Can’t live without Firebug, Firefox, jQuery. The first time to hear about Mosaic.

  126. weblover  July 22, 2009 at 8:38 pm

    Thanks Glen,

    Your articles are very nice. I also thanks you very much for your – 16 Different Clones You Can Build with Drupal – post.
    Can I translate some of your articles into Myanmar language, and link back to your main articles? My main purpose is to introduce latest Web Technologies to young Myanmar students, whose are not much in touch with foreign languages.

    Thanks you

  127. Jehnee  July 23, 2009 at 10:16 am

    nice collection of nice information.. keep on shinning glen.

  128. Ricardo  July 29, 2009 at 4:21 pm

    i’m grateful to apple for AppleWebKit & Safari… hoping that the last jurassic/mosaic browser Internet Explorer dies!

  129. Bliitzi  August 13, 2009 at 5:18 pm

    I’m thankful for MAMP. What would I do without it?

    And for MacOSX… Fuck Windows ;-)

  130. Raj  August 14, 2009 at 3:57 am

    I am think i will thank Thomas Alva Edison and Michael faraday.. for inventing the Electricity !! :-)

  131. 秦歌  September 16, 2009 at 7:55 pm

    No mention of YUI framework ? It is incomplete.

  132. jzigbe  September 16, 2009 at 9:49 pm

    Drupal made simple = MODx

  133. Guruboy  September 17, 2009 at 2:00 am

    Hi , this is a great site. I got to know a lot of tools yeh! thumb up Glen!

  134. reiver  October 11, 2009 at 6:30 pm

    You’re missing SkinnyMVC from the list of frameworks…

    http://skinnymvc.com/

    (It’s PHP based.)

  135. love  October 14, 2009 at 11:28 pm

    just let love be

  136. New Deals  November 10, 2009 at 3:40 am

    A great deal of useful info. Very helpful. Thank you for your efforts.

  137. Amanda  November 20, 2009 at 9:51 am

    Absolutely cannot live without my coffee and Firefox. Those two make working from home so much easier. Paypal is a close third with Wordpress is my fourth pick.

  138. izdelava spletnih strani  December 9, 2009 at 8:52 am

    I use firefox cos of my job, but it grew on me. I like it

  139. Ezuca  December 10, 2009 at 8:21 pm

    I also use browsershots to check my site every time I develop my site. Thanks

  140. Sachin Bhavsar  January 20, 2010 at 7:35 am

    How can you ignore Google?

  141. MC  January 21, 2010 at 4:19 pm

    CSS Edit! And Coda. Both have so many neat features that I would never go back to Dreamweaver.

  142. nev  February 22, 2010 at 4:47 pm

    nice one like it

  143. advertising  February 28, 2010 at 6:03 am

    ASP.NET should be in that list somewhere

  144. Walter  April 8, 2010 at 9:19 am

    Helpfull apps! Thanks

  145. Andrew  April 17, 2010 at 1:35 pm

    There’s a typo. “CodeIgnitor” should be “CodeIgniter”.

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  1. By AndySowards.com :: Web Development Nerdy Daily Links For 11/26/2008 | AndySowards.com :: Professional Web Design, Development, Programming, Hacks, Downloads, Math and being a Web 2.0 Hipster? on November 25, 2008 at 11:59 pm

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