Web Designers and IT Network

Thumb Drive Essentials For Web Developers, Web Designers and IT Network Administrators

This is the era of portable devices. With the ever increasing need for data–the ability to access it and use it whenever needed, the thumb drive has quickly become an essential part of a computer geek’s life.

Being small and sleek and offering multiple storage capacities ranging anywhere from 64MB to 2 GB (and more), thumb drives have gotten popular among the tech-savvy. It has even made the job of network administrators, web developers and web designers much easier.

This is because thumb drives are not only capable of carrying data and small programs securely, but are also rewritable, easy to use and can be used with most computers and operating systems. Thumb drives can store whatever resources are needed in a pinch.

Looking for the same tech-savvy applications and resources? Here’s a look at the best IT, web developer and web designer resources you can download onto a 2 GB thumb drive.

Network Administrators	Web Developers	Web Designers
Guides and Cheat SheetsLinux CommandsWindows Server Process Commands Network Tools	Guides and Cheat SheetsWeb developer Script resourcesWeb developer bookmarks Web Development Tutorials Online Tools And Web Development Softwares	Web Designer cheat sheetsBookmarks for Web DesignersWebsites Offering Free icons Web Design Communities Web Design Tutorials Web Design Tools

Must-Have Resources for IT Staff and Network Administrators

Network administrators and IT staff work in varied circumstances in order to carry out their jobs and responsibilities. Here are some of the most useful and portable resources that any network and IT staff member might need.

Guides and Cheat Sheets

1. Network Administration Exam Cheat sheet : A handy document containing the definitions and descriptions of all the major terms and day to day tasks of a network administrator. The document covers all the major terms related to network administration: printer pool setup, how to find performance bottlenecks, etc.
2. Internet Protocol Cheat Sheet: By having this document available on your thumb drive, you needn’t worry about remembering Internet protocol network masks and their classes.
3. Network Configuration and Diagnostics Tools Cheat Sheet: A list of useful commands and pathways to ensure proper settings of network configurations and diagnostic tools on various platforms including Windows, Mac and Linux.
4. File Fragmentation on Windows: This small guide explains the file fragmentation procedure used by Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Hence, it eradicates the need of using external defragmenters to do the job.
5. Networking Cheat Sheets : These cheat sheets are great if you’re looking for references related to TCP/IP configuration, Ethernet cables, IP addresses and other networking stuff.
6. Wireless  Cheat sheet: A handy collection of the key terms and basic software applications required to configure a Wireless LAN.
7. Network Management Planning Guide: This guide contains detailed information about network management issues like network monitoring, performance management, troubleshooting etc.

Linux Commands

8. Common Linux commands: A set of Linux commands to perform common operations like windows networking, file searching, and directory navigation.
9. A-Z Index of the Bash command line for Linux: Need an instant reference sheet to bash commands and their functions? Check out this list. It has them in alphabetical order.
10. Linux Commands for Server Administrators : Here you can find all the commands needed for daily server management and maintenance. These commands will help you become self sufficient in Linux server use.
11. Shortcuts and Commands for Newbie: As a newbie, it’s not easy to remember even the most common commands. This handy guide provides all the commonly used commands to perform functions like file compression, process controls and basic administration commands.
12. Common Linux Commands : A table containing all the Linux commands along with their descriptions for service console. You can find commands to change directories, adding files, copy files and others.

Windows Server Process Commands

13. Command Line Process Viewer/Killer/Suspender: A must-have small command line utility that can be used to kill processes, suspend processes and resume processes.
14. WASService command : The tool allows you to create a service for a product Java process on Linux and Windows operating systems. With this tool, you can create services for WebSphere® Application Server Java processes.
15. Taskkill Commands: A quick recipe to describe several uses of Taskkill commands. This gives you the ability to perform tasks from a system’s command line and allows those tasks to be used in batch files.
16. NetStat Commands: Netstat is one of a number of command-line tools available to check the functioning of a network. Here, is the list of all the basic Netstat commands and applications to check network and Internet connections.

Network Tools

17. BWMeter -727KB: BWMeter monitors, measures and displays all the traffic on your network. Unlike other products, it can analyze the data packets (where they come from, where they go, which port and protocol they use).
18. 10-Strike Network Inventory Explorer – 5.2 MB: The application displays hardware and software configurations and allows finding and adding network computers to the inventory database.
19. Comodo Internet Security-60MB: A desktop firewall and antivirus solution that defends a computer from Internet attacks and prevents unauthorized applications from accessing the Internet.
20. RealVNC 4.1.3– 724KB: The application allows you to control desktop via a network connection, and is compatible with firewalls and VPNs as well.
21. Total Network Inventory: The software collects the information about all remote computers on a network with the click of a button. No on-site visits are necessary.
22. Xenon File Manager Portable –: A portable file manager that can be placed on a USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive or a CD and can be used on any computer, without leaving any personal information behind.
23. Driver Magician Lite : A handy application, that identifies all the hardware in a computer, extracts the associated drivers from the hard disk and backs them up to a location of your choice.
24. Macrium Reflect –: This tool is a complete backup and disaster recovery solution. It can backup files and folders into a compressed mountable archive file, or even entire PC into a single image.
25. IPNetInfo – 64.9KB: A small utility that allows you to easily find all the available information about an IP address including the owner of the IP address, the country/state name, IP addresses range, contact information (address, phone, fax, and email), and more.
26. NetSetMan –: A powerful, easy-to-use interface to manage all your network settings at a glance. All settings and changes are saved automatically in a separate file (settings.ini) so a backup, transfer or upgrade to another version is absolutely no problem.

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 Must-Have Resources for Web Developers

Usually web developers require big resident applications and softwares to develop the web applications. Still, they need many small tools, guides and cheat codes as well, to assist them with their tasks. Here are the most helpful ones.

Guides and Cheat Sheets

27. ADDED BYTES: A website that is full of downloadable cheat sheets. Select whatever you need and carry it with you on your thumb drive. The most popular cheat sheets include subversion cheat sheet, regular expressions cheat sheet and python cheat sheet.
28. Cheat Sheet Roundup: Quick references to the most commonly forgotten things on a range of topics. You can print them out and hang them on your wall, or just keep them handy in your bookmarks for quick reference.
29. Cheat Sheet Index by Scott Klarr: A referenced index of cheat sheets for HTML, XHTML, Apache, Color chart, XML, PHP, JavaScript, CSS etc.
30. Web Developer Lists: Contains top links, resources, services and tools for web developers and web designers. There are cheat sheets for Latex, Firefox, JSP, MySQL, etc.
31. Lorenzo Alberton Cheat Sheets : A good collection of HTML, CSS, PHP, and other Cheat Sheets. If you are into tweaking your WordPress Theme or designing one from scratch, then you might want to add these to your resources.
32.  Cheat Sheets List: A very useful resource containing almost hundred cheat sheets for web developers and programmers. There are cheat sheets for blogging, CSS, PHP and other programming languages.
33. Best Cheat Sheets For Web Developers: A set of best cheat sheets for web developers. There are cheat sheets for popular web programming languages, e.g. jQuery, Mootools, Prototype, PHP, MySQL etc.
34. Tech Cheat Sheets: A collection of handpicked cheat sheets and quick reference guides related to a large number of web development languages.
35. HTML/XHTML Tags Quick Reference Guide: Quick and handy reference guide for HTML and XHTML tags. Keep it on your thumb drive for quick reference and eliminate the need to carry books for references.

Web developer Script resources

36. Hot Scripts: This website lists over forty thousand resources in over a thousand categories. You can find a variety of top rated and most popular scripts on this site. Just download the ones you need and save them on your thumb drive for later use.
37. Java Script Source: An excellent JavaScript resource with tons of “cut and paste” JavaScript examples, snippets, eBooks and tools for your Web pages. All for free!
38. scripts.com: This website contains a huge collection of scripts in a large number of categories including ASP scripts, java scripts and PHP scripts.
39. SiteScripts: SiteScripts provide easy to use carts and shopping systems along with PHP Scripts, CGI Scripts, free Java Scripts and ASP Scripts. You just need to copy and paste those scripts to activate carts on your website.
40. 25 Code Snippets For Web Developers: Handy pieces of HTML, Ajax and CSS that you can incorporate into your web designs to enhance the functionality of the web pages.

Web developer bookmarks

41. WebResourcesDept: Fifteen must-have bookmarklets for web designers and developers. There are bookmarks for learning the colors use, inserting a ruler on a webpage, reloading CSS without reloading the whole site and more.
42. Web Developer’s Bookmarks – 44KB: A variety of bookmarks for all sorts of web development tasks. Here you can find bookmarks for CSS, W3C, web browsers and other related categories.
43. Webdistoration: More than a hundred JavaScript / Ajax bookmarks for web developers that can ease the job of adding and creating widgets, forms, mappings etc.
44. Six Revision Web Development Bookmark : This bookmark provides a good collection of websites that can help you to become a better web developer.

Web Development Tutorials

45. NextEdit: Useful video tutorials to help you with many web development tasks like adding PayPal to a web page, adding news feed to a website, inserting Adsense, etc. The website also provides a web based website editor.
46. w3schools.com: The best website that provides you full web building tutorials and keep you updated about the new changes in the field of web development. You can download tutorials and carry them in your thumb drive for reference.
47. Dev Shed: Open source web development tutorials to assist you with the web development tasks. There is huge database of tutorials for web developers on a variety of subjects like AJAX, JavaScript, ASP, etc.
48. Developer Tutorial: A collection of web development tutorials for newbies to advanced level programmers. The website also presents a forum in order to assist you with your queries and problems related to web development.
49. Reconn.us: Valuable resources and advices for creating an internet based business, tutorials and free scripts. There are tutorials for JavaScript, PHP and other web programming languages.
50. Web Development Tutorials.com: A collection of HTML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript and PHP tutorials and many free tools.
51. Web development tutorials: These tutorials are designed for beginners in web development and provide introduction to various web development topics to give newbies a good head start.

Online Tools And Web Development Softwares

52. SlickEdit 2008 : Handy code editor that provides support for more than forty programming languages including: HTML, Java, JavaScript, JCL, Perl, PHP, Python, SAS, VBScript, XML and YACC. SlickEdit enables programmers to create, navigate, modify, and debug code faster and accurately.
53. 1st Page HTML Editor – 9.8 MB: A professional HTML editor and website builder which lets you create great websites fast. The editor gives you freedom to create and edit web pages with absolute code control.
54. Web Page Maker : An easy-to-use design tool that allows you to create and upload a professional web page in minutes without having to know HTML. Isn’t that great?
55. A4DeskPro Flash Website Builder : Helps you create Flash websites and presentations, with multiple menus and sub-menus, stunning flash animation effects and colors.
56. phpDesigner –  This application is a powerful and lightning fast PHP IDE, full-featured HTML, CSS and JavaScript editor–for both beginners and professional developers.
57. XAMPP Server -220MB: This is a preconfigured, integrated server package of Apache, MySQL, PHP and Perl (the AMPP in XAMPP) that runs from a removable drive.
58. FireFox Portable – 77MB: An application that launches the web browser from a thumb drive, so that you could take your bookmarks, extensions and saved passwords with you.

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 Must-Have Resources for Web Designers

No other field is more versatile than the web designing field. The job of a web designer is creative, interesting and tough at the same time. To make the tough part easier, most resources that are available can be stored on a thumb drive.

Web Designer cheat sheets

59. Useful Cheat Sheets for Web Designers : A good resource of excellent and useful cheat sheets related to Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Typography, and other web-design related topics.
60. 10 CSS Tricks: Using CSS allows developers and designers to describe a common style for the website, in terms of colors, fonts and layouts. Trenton Moss, shares some of his top tips to help you get the most out of your CSS.
61. 100 Terrific Web Design Cheat Sheets: Most web designers know that cheat sheets are incredibly useful. You can use them for quick reference, easy learning, and more. You can find an incredible collection of best and useful cheat sheets for web designers on this website.
62. WEB Design ledger: Good collection of Adobe, Photoshop, HTML/XHTML, CSS and Flash cheat sheets to make the job of a web designer easier.
63. Digital Labs: If you are a web designer/web developer looking for reference sheets on HTML, XHTML, CSS, PHP, JAVASCRIPT, PHOTOSHOP, COLORS & HTACCESS, this is the list for you. The list contains more than seventy cheat sheet resources for web designers.
64. 30+ CSS Style Cheat Sheets and Reference Guides: These cheat sheets allow you to find quick references and instant guidance while carrying out your styling and web designing tasks.

Bookmarks for Web Designers

65. bookmarkbliss.com: Fifty resources of web design inspirations. This list helps you eliminate “designer’s block” and gives you the inspiration you need to come up with the perfect design for your next blog, community portal, social networking hub, or corporate e-commerce resource.
66. ebizzMBA: A helpful page that contains a list of top 15 website design & development sites. The websites are ranked by a combination of Inbound Links, Google Page Rank, Alexa Rank, and U.S. traffic data from Compete and Quantcast.
67. Zen Web Design – Bookmarks: Huge collection of bookmarks for a number of fields including web design and development. The web designer in you can find bookmarks for fonts, patterns, templates, CSS and more.
68. Kelie resources: A must-have bookmarklets directory for a web designer, where new bookmarks are added regularly. You can even submit a link of a resource to this directory.
69. ReEncoded: Whether you are a newbie or a seasoned veteran, these tools, tutorials, lists and other resources are great for you. The bookmark includes index of resources for inspiration, designs, colors, fonts and more.

Websites Offering Free icons

70. websitetips.com: Consult this website to get photographs, illustrations, clipart and free icons for websites and blogs. In addition to a wide range of icon styles, colors, sizes, and formats, you’ll find commercial and free individual graphic icons for immediate download as well as complete icon sets with dozens of matching, coordinating website icons.
71. Maxpower: Find some amazing artistic work (icons) by various artists who have made their work available to the general public. Each artist has a link to their homepage, the license of the released work, and an attached sample of what you can download by following the named link.
72. Icon Archive: A categorized collection of high quality desktop & web icon sets that can be used for Windows (XP, Vista, etc.), Macintosh (OSX, OS) and Linux (as PNG Files).
73. Cool archive: One of the biggest collections of icons on the net. All the icons are available in both .ico (for your computer) and .gif (for your web page) formats.
74. ABBSoft: You can find huge collection of desktop icon sets at this website. You need to get registered to download the icons.
75. Fawnt: A font resource for designers, developers, and anyone that appreciates the web’s highest quality fonts. You must visit this website to look and appreciate these fonts.
76. SketchPad Icons: The website provides icons that are categorized alphabetically along with the detailed descriptions about the type of the icons, i.e. freeware, shareware or email-ware.

Web Design Communities

77. OPENDESIGN: This community is a hub for open source website designers from around the world providing thousands of downloadable web design templates.
78. Web Development Forums: A good place to discuss and take guidance of professionals for all the issues related to web design, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Graphic Design and web development.
79. CSS globe: Here’s a great website to keep updated about all the new changes and gaining inspirations in the world of web designing. The website also presents CSS templates and a blog.
80. 9RULES: Up to date and informative, this resource has great discussions, tips and tricks for the web designers, graphic artists and other related industries. Join today, to become the part of this helpful community.
81. BHS-Design: Here, you can find free downloads and resources for your website, including web templates, LDU skins, custom and unique designs and much more.
82. Web design tools and resources: A constantly updated list of bookmarks containing the content, tools and resources that can be used to design and create websites.

Web Design Tutorials

83. Web Design Tutorials: Simple tutorials and tips to help you design your website easily. From website design tips and ideas to CSS Styles, Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks, you’ll find all you need to know about web design on this website.
84. DESIGN VITALITY: The Open Source resource that provides you with huge collection of web design templates, CSS layouts, tutorials, tools and other resources.
85. VANDELAYDESIGN: A good selection of tutorials for web designers. These tutorials help you with designing badges, icons, logos, gradient images, speech bubbles and more.

Web Design Tools

86. Site Studio 6– 26 MB: Complete desktop application for building rich content Web sites, with no HTML skills required. With Site Studio Pro you can easily edit your website and keep it up to date. Just as easy as using any word processing tool.
87. Web Piston Site Builder 8.0.1– 7.68 MB: Here’s a site builder for small business users. The application uses patent pending technology to help you build a search engine friendly professional looking website in no time.
88. Flash Gallery 1.0 – 1.1 MB: A web application that allows you to create a slideshow on your website easily. Just embed it into your website and script will automatically form a slideshow from a specified folder or from Flickr photo stream.
89. Visual Site Designer– 12.27 MB: A WYSIWYG website creator and editor, that lets you make web pages with no experience or HTML knowledge. Visual Site Designer comes with more than 50 Webpage templates to start you off, and you can make Websites with multiple pages, text fields, graphics, animations, and more.
90. GIMP Image Editing Tool – 21.67 MB: A very handy tool that helps you in photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It can be used as a simple paint program, expert quality photo retouching program, online batch processing system, mass production image renderer or image format converter.

All the above mentioned resources are full of helpful tips, ideas and solutions to solve the day to day problems of a network administrator, web developer and web designer. Whether you’re saving bookmarks to access on other computers or storing applications to install on your home computer, thumb drives can save your day.

Just pick out and download or save the ones you need, and no matter what computer or laptop you use, you’ll have them with you for quick and easy reference.