These are some of the tools, applications and hardware I use day to day I think are fantastic.
Whois Domain Tools
This is a great site if you want to find out details about who owns a domain this often gives you details of “backdoor” contacts into a business like the Tech Directors.
http://whois.domaintools.com/
Netcraft
This is a smart little tool that lets you look at what server infrastructure a company is running there site on. This is very techie so something for those that know what they are looking for. Helpful if you want to understand the technology clients are using or hosting on.
http://news.netcraft.com/
Survey Monkey
A great tool that lets you do your own on-line surveys. Very simple to use and saves having to build them. It does all of the work.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/
Google AdWords
A great tool where you can type in key words and see which ones are the most searched for and other words related to them. You can then use this to develop SEO strategies and ensure that the content on the site is likely to be relevant and up there in the top searches by including these key words
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Google Trends
This is a beta tool that Google is playing with that lets you do comparative searches on different words, companies, products etc. It then will graph over time how much noise is online about them at a specific time period and compare them. It does this globally so some very interesting data comes out of it.
http://www.google.com/trends
Blogpulse
This tool lets you search the blogosphere and look at key stories that people are currently writing about online. Very helpful if you want general opinion about a client or product etc.
http://www.blogpulse.com/trends.html
BrightStat
This is a free online tool that helps you with online tools do statistical analysis.
http://www.brightstat.com/
Web SEO tools
Some very helpful tools that let you look at how well your site is put together for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). It is also useful to use when creating copy to go on the site so that you can look at how popular key words are. By ensuring these words are in your copy you will also start to come up in the main searches that users do.
http://www.webuildpages.com/tools/
Web Optimisation.com
A useful tool that runs some quick basic tests on a URL. It will look at the home page and give you stats around load speed and give you some recommendations on issues that it finds.
http://analyze.websiteoptimization.com/wso
Google Alerts
This is such a helpful tool. Its currently in Beta but works very well. It lets you set up key words that google automatically searches for and then every week compiles a list of stories and emails the list to you. I use this to keep an eye on clients business mainly but also key industry topics that I think are interesting but i don’t have time to trawl hundreds of websites or magazines to keep on top of.
VSO Image Resizer
There are lots of tools like this out there but this is my favourite. This little freeware tool allows you to batch re-size images very quickly in pretty much any format. Even works as drag and drop. Very simple and does the job very well.
VSO Image Re-sizer
http://www.vso-software.fr/products/image_resizer/
Drobo (18/10/08)
This is the best bit of kit I have! Ever lost data by a drive failing? If not then at some point you will and the amount of data we are all generating it gets tiring trying to archive to DVD or CD-R’s. There are also some seriouse concerns that this media also has a very low shelf life and you can loose data within 2 years. This is not good if like me you have been storing video and photos in digital format expecting it to survive if your hard disk fails.
Drobo helps to solve that little problem.
drobo
It is a “smart” external hard drive robot. It spreads data across multiple drives, tells you if one of the drives is failing and if it does then you don’t loose any of your data because it is backed up automatically. You can even pull the drives in and out while it is switched on and they don’t fail – I know because I have tried it. Amazing bit of kit that makes me feel much safer about my data.
http://www.drobo.com/Products/drobo.html
Survey Monkey (17/10/08
A great tool that lets you do your own on-line surveys
Survey Monkey
Clip Fisher (14/10/08)
This is a handy tool that allows you to save video files out from places like You Tube, Google Video etc
http://www2.ashampoo.com/webcache/html/1/product_2_0056__.htm
Whois Domain Tools (14/10/08)
This is a great site if you want to find out details about who owns a domain http://whois.domaintools.com/
Visit4Info(14/10/08)
This is a great site to be able to look up TV commercials. http://www.visit4info.com/
Neo Trace Pro (12/10/08)
This tool lets you do a network trace on and email address or URL. It uses the who is look up data base but gives you a very nice visual map pin pointing the location. Its quite useful to find out where companies are located and to get details who the domain is registered to.
Neo Trace Pro
http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Reviews/r66.html
Peer Guardian (12/10/08)
This tool is by a company called Peonix Labsand what it does is help to protect your privacy from unscrupulous marketers to name a just a few. It uses a database of IP addresses to check who your computer is talking to and then if they are on the list it just blocks them. Very nice and simple and its amazing when you look at it to see who is watching you when you when you browse the web. This type of tool I am sure must annoy the hell out of companies like Double Click.
Astra Site Manager (11/10/08)
This is a great little application that maps out a spider web of any site you point it at and then checks for download speeds and broken links. Really helpful to get a handle on how big a site is.
Astra Site Manager
I have a copy but cant find now where to download it from since it was taken over by HP but you can have a look at what it does here and if you can find it anywhere else on the web please let me know.
http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/project_details.cfm?index=133&id=133&domain=
Netcraft (8/10/08)
This is a smart little tool that lets you look at what server infrastructure a company is running there site on.
Linkedin Outlook Toolbar (8/10/08)
Linkedin is a great business networking tool that lets you keep in touch with business contacts and allows business contacts to find you within a network. This in itself is great but what I really like is one of the tools that you can down load for free called ”Outlook Toolbar” (Look at the bottom of the Linked in page in the Tools section).
Linkedin Toolbar
What it does is allows you to search through all of the emails you have and builds a new database of contacts from it (all those people you forgot to add to your contacts list because you were in a rush). It also makes adding new contact details a breeze. All you have to do is highlight their contact signature and click a button called “grab”. This then copies all of the details into a new contact entry in outlook and all you have to do is click save! This has saved me hours of copying and pasting contact details and is well worth a look. www.linkedin.com
Power Mapper (2/10/08
I have searched all over the web for a good tool that will map out websites and this is one of the best ones I have found. Very useful and allows you different ways to view the site once mapped.
http://www.powermapper.com/products/mapper/pro.htm
Tiny URL (2/10/08)
This is just great and makes those huge URLs small and easy to send – Genius! http://tinyurl.com/
SENDUIT (2/10/08)
This is like your own instant FTP server so you can send those big files to your friends and contacts without having to kill your email. http://www.senduit.com/
Wayback Machine (28/09/2008)
This is a fantastic site that is attempting to archive the Internet and lets you type in a URL and preview historically how that site has changed over the years. http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
