E-mail Services
The following services have been used extensively by our users and are known to be reliable, affordable (in many cases, outright free) and enhance your use of e-mail in conjunction with your web hosting services.
Google Apps for Domains (http://google.com/a)
The Google Apps Standard Edition is a free solution available for any user with a domain and can be used with cPanel hosting, VPS hosting and free hosting alike.
Google Apps gives you a private-label version of many of Google services including but not limited to Google Mail (Gmail), Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites and more.
Windows Live Admin Center (http://domains.live.com)
This would be the Microsoft counterpart to Google Apps allowing you custom and private-labeled versions of Live.com applications as Live Mail, Live Messenger and more.
With WLA you can even provide free e-mail to your viewers using your domain!
Constant Contact (http://www.constantcontact.com/)
By working with a dedicated e-mail marketing solution provider for your large bulk e-mail needs, you greatly increase your domain reputation as a sender who complies with many various laws and even improve your reception with your audience!
Constant Contact provides solutions for e-mail marketing, surveys and event marketing and will guide you through the best way to present and deliver your message.
Benchmark Email (http://www.benchmarkemail.com/)
Like Constant Contact, Benchmark Email provides you with a more comprehensive e-mail marketing and delivery system for your e-mail marketing and bulk e-mail needs and even provides numerous e-mail templates for free.
Statistics and Traffic Measurement
It doesn't help you to not know who is visiting your site, for how long and from where, without this information and more, you risk damaging your site by changing something your viewers may love or focusing on areas they really don't like.
Google Analytics (http://google.com/analytics)
Based on Urchin technology, Google Analytics provides in-depth and comprehensive statistics for each tracked page, domain and service including click maps, search information and even AdWords integration so you know how well your advertising is paying off.
StatCounter (http://statcounter.com)
StatCounter is a long-standing service that offers very detailed statistics in an easy-to-read and navigate format from what pages your visitors entered your site on most to what pages send them away most.
Coding and Reference Sites
No one knows absolutely everything about the languages they work in and from time to time, need to reference a function or syntax.
PHP (http://php.net)
Discover new methods and proper ways of writing secure, compatible and versatile PHP sites.
HTML, CSS, Javascript and more (http://w3schools.com)
Learn about syntax and proper coding in various languages in an easy, comprehensive and well explained manner from W3 Schools.
HTACCESS explained (http://corz.org/serv/tricks/htaccess.php)
Learn about how to use .htaccess files which is supported on all platforms
mod_rewrite (http://www.workingwith.me.uk/articles/scripting/mod_rewrite)
Get the basics of rewriting links and requests via mod_rewrite for SEO purposes, friendly sites and more.
How to Debug PHP Scripts (http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/os-debug/)
Blank page error with your site? Find out how to debug your web scripts in PHP.
Debugging Javascript (http://javascript.internet.com/debug-guide.html)
Javascript errors present themselves when least expected, it's best to know how to debug and fix your scripts.
Recommended Tools and Software
Over the years we have grown accustomed to various tools which help us in our daily developments and in troubleshooting, here are some recommendations for you as a webmaster.
Firefox (http://getfirefox.com)
Discover a highly compliant and customizable open source browser.
Opera (http://www.opera.com/browser/)
Availability, standards and features are at the top of the priority list for the developers of Opera browser.
Chrome (http://chrome.google.com)
Based on the open source Chromium project, this is a very fast and memory friendly browser from Google.
Filezilla FTP Client (http://filezilla-project.org/)
Free, open source and well supported and documented, Filezilla is an excellent FTP client.
Firebug for Firefox (http://getfirebug.com/)
Debug your website source code easily and make realtime test changes to your HTML, Javascript, CSS and more.
Web Developer for Firefox (http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/)
Evaluate, test and check your websites easily and efficiently with Web Developer.
