In this always on, 24/7 world, anyone working on the Web knows that time is an extremely elusive element – it seems our brains go at a hundred miles an hour.  Boy I wish there was another one of me…

In an attempt to make my life easier, I keep – no further than a click away – resources on the Web that make my life easier.  Here are 10 of my favorite sites – bookmark them:

The Way Back Machine ^[1]

Although I don’t use this daily, it is one of my most useful tools.  Let’s say you visit a site, come across something useful, bookmark it and forget about it.  Three months later, you’re researching for a post, and you remember that useful comment on somewhereoutthere.com?   You go back, and alas, it is gone.  Error 404: I hate that.  Well, this is where the Way Back Machine comes in beautifully to save the day.  Just go to the site, type in the URL and bang!  It offers up, by date, a list of archived dates for that site.  Click on the month you were there and voila – instant access.  There are in excess of 85 billion Web pages archived since 1996 for your viewing pleasure.

Browsershots ^[2]

Browsershots lets you test how your site looks in different browsers; Firefox, Opera, IE, Safari, running on different operating systems; Linux, Windows, Mac.  Just visit the site, type in the URL of the site you want tested, and your request will be placed in a queue.  Processing time is dependent on the number of requests at the time, but I’ve never had to wait more than an hour.

Media Convert ^[3]

You upload a file and Media Convert will convert it to another file format.  Works with most formats of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, video and audio.  It’s fantastic for inserting a PDF into your Web page by converting it to an SWF Flash file, or converting WMV into MOV. Hundreds of formats are supported.  Media Convert also lists mobile phones and the type of formats each supports for easy reference.

I Love Jack Daniels – Cheat Sheets ^[4]

Dave Child provides the best in cheat sheets, particularly useful for developers, but more and more becoming important for bloggers.  His cheat sheets include quick references for: RGB HEX Color Chart, PHP, CSS, MySQL, mod_rewrite,  JavaScript, HTML, HTML Character codes, ASP/VBScript, and more.

Google Advanced Operator Cheat Sheet ^[5]

The Google Guide is an online interactive tutorial and reference for experienced users, novices, and everyone in between. Visit the site and learn if you need to, but at a minimum, keep the Google advanced operator cheat sheet close to hand.

Rex Swain’s HTTP Viewer ^[6]

Rex Swain wrote his HTTP Viewer to see exactly what an HTTP request returns to a browser; it lets you see your site as search engines do. 

To use this free tool, type in your URL and voila!

Web site Grader ^[7]

Website Grader measures your site’s marketing effectiveness.  It gives you a score that incorporates information from Alexa, PageRank, Technorati, Del.icio.us, and offers information about the health of your site (how many links in, from where, etc).  It will generate a report and offer basic advice on how you can improve your site from a marketing POV.

Colour Lovers ^[8]

This is one of the greatest sites to get color inspiration for your site.  With thousands of color palettes to choose from, it is useful when you need the hex or RGB codes for specific and unusual colors.

Automated Gif Generator ^[9]

Easily create a loading or waiting animated click by selecting the indicator you want from a choice of 40 (ish), selecting a background and foreground color, and pressing “Generate.”  Free, easy, very Web 2.0.

Validator and Link Checker at  W3C

The W3C mainly produces specifications, but also provides some useful tools for folks of the Web.  All are easy to use, usually all you do is type in a URL and you will be given a list of issues with your site; then it’s up to you to fix them. 

HTML Validator ^[10]

CSS Validator ^[11]

RSS/Atom Feeds Validator ^[12]

Link Checker ^[13] (helps you find broken links)

Plus: One cool tip!

World Time Server ^[14]

Fellow Aussie, Darren Rowse ^[15] has a simple, yet really useful link on his contact page that takes you to the World Time Server, so you can tell what time it is in Melbourne before you ring him.  If you want to have conversations with people from around the world, consider setting up a link to your location on your contact page.  It’s just a nice thing to do.