Cool tools

[paolo]

I thought I'd start a thread where we can tell others about any good (free) tools and applications we come across on the web that may be helpful, or just 'cool'.

This one is definitely cool, but is it helpful? Don't know, I haven't explored it yet:

http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html

You type in a site's url (e.g. yours) and it shows you a graphic representation of its links with other sites. It visualizes the web. It's like looking at the DNA of the internet. Actually it isn't like that at all, but the graphs remind me of those wobbly models in chemistry class.

If you double click on one of the linking sites, the whole thing re-organises with that one in the middle - very satisfying to play with.

Anybody find any use for it?

[BungleBob]

I couldn't work without these...

Google Toolbar - great for searching, highlighting, etc

Keyword Tracker - great for checking Google rankings and inbound links for your own website

Alexa - lots of interesting web info, download the toolbar to get statistics on how your own website performs compared to others (good place to check the competition too!)

[altyfc]

We are in the process of producing a number of free website tools right now. They will be launched under http://www.aardvarkinternet.net (nothing there right now) before the end of the year.

Among the early release there will be free postcard scripts and free mailing list scripts for those that want to add features like that to their website, but don't have the programming know-how.

Further tools are also in development and will be added as and when they're ready.

All the best

Aaron

[Sue Dyer]

you're a bunch of cool dudes!!! thanks!!

That touch graph is kinda fascinating to watch, as you say, I'm not sure how useful but fun.

I love playing around with new toys so I'll be watching this thread!

[paolo]

Here's another one from a cool dude

Not necessarily useful, but interesting. It's the Wayback Machine:

http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

This is an archive of 30 billion web pages from 1996 to now. You can go back and see how sites used to look way back when, follow their evolution, or visit sites that have now gone to the big superhighway in the sky.

[paolo]

Another which may or may not be useful is the Google Duel.

http://www.googleduel.com/original.php

Put two words or phrases in and get a comparison of how many webpages they appear on.

So you can learn that the phrase 'holiday rentals' appears on 191,000 pages, while 'vacation rentals' is on 2,070,000 pages.

BUT... it gets better - with Google Duel Ultra you put in two words or phrases, and then you put in three adjectives, and you can see which word/phrase is top for each adjective:

http://www.googleduel.com/googlebusinessmain.php

That sounds completely useless but suppose you were considering two possible destinations for a holiday. Say it's San Francisco or Rome. You can get an idea of what the internet says about these places for the adjectives that matter to you.

If I put in romantic, inexpensive and violent, as those are the qualities I look for in a holiday, this device tells me that:
Rome is more inexpensive, but San Francisco is more romantic and violent.

It's rubbish really isn't it? It even told me that Devon is better than Cornwall...I mean, come ON!

[Darren]

Here are a two tools I've used in the past:

Meta tag generator

See your website in a spider/bot's eyes

Search engine spider simulator

Darren

[livinginitaly]

Not sure if it rates as 'cool' .... but i'd call it pretty invaluable!

http://www.gritechnologies.com/tools/spider.go or 'Poodle Predictor' to give it it's common name.

Enter your web address to see how your site will be displayed on googles search page.

Gives an 'instant' view of any changes allowing you to make your page title and first lines of text as 'eye catching' as possible.

[Darren]

Sitemap generator

Just found this one today.

[altyfc]

We are in the process of producing a number of free website tools right now. They will be launched under http://www.aardvarkinternet.net (nothing there right now) before the end of the year.

Among the early release there will be free postcard scripts and free mailing list scripts for those that want to add features like that to their website, but don't have the programming know-how.

Those are both available now should anyone wish to make use of them.

Aaron

[Chris Radford]

This page is really good
Thanks for the tips

I wish I could contribute more but I have just been reading and learning

Chris

[paolo]

http://www.gritechnologies.com/tools/spider.go or 'Poodle Predictor' to give it it's common name.

Enter your web address to see how your site will be displayed on googles search page.

Gives an 'instant' view of any changes allowing you to make your page title and first lines of text as 'eye catching' as possible.

Just to emphasise how important this is for all of us...

If you have the good fortune to have your site found in a search engine, it will be presented on the results page with (typically) nine others. It's obviously essential that your Title and the few lines of text that are shown do enough to persuade someone to click on it.

So take a look with this tool. You can change the Title in your html yourself. I would suggest it should address the sort of action the searcher has in mind, i.e. renting a property like yours.

[A-two]

http://makelovenotspam.com/intl/

Slightly off-topic, but found it today and love it. Takes 5 seconds to download and runs like a dream.

From Internet portal Lycos, a screensaver that endlessly requests data from sites that sell the goods and services mentioned in spam e-mail. You can even suggest sites for them to hit. The idea is to make the monthly bandwidth bills of spammers soar by keeping their servers running flat out.

The net firm estimates that if enough people sign up and download the tool, spammers could end up paying to send out terabytes of data.

Doesn't work for dial-up. Were "always on" Cable, so it's been for running hours. Supposedly only works for Europe, but we're in New York, and it's working fine.

Very satisfying.

For the full article, see:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4051553.stm

[Darren]

Joanna,

Apparently Lycos Europe have put this on hold due to worries of legal action.

It'll be interesting if this still goes ahead.

Darren

[Alan Knighting]

For those trying to get to grips with designing and promoting websites the following site may be of interest. I don’t remember if I have posted it before.

http://www.selfpromotion.com/

The following is a site that offers website design and hosting, etc.

http://www.easyspace.com/main.html

For those who like to keep up with what is going on in France try:-

http://www.french-news.com/

Happy New Year to all,

Alan