As a Web Designer I know the value of keyboard/mouse shortcut key in every design industry software. Photoshop being the most popular graphic/web design software is used by millions of Designers around the world and these people always look for the help to improve their selves. I think Keyboard Shortcuts can really helps to build up working speed using them in your workflow.

There are huge amount of keyboard shortcuts available in Photoshop but I have complied a list of useful keyboard shortcuts which I think are useful for everyone using Photoshop. The list also includes some shortcuts where combination of mouse is used with keyboard. Continue Reading

Colorzilla – Colorzilla allows you to capture the hex code (e.g #FFF000) of any color you see on the web. This allows you to match colors and grab the exact code of colors you like on other sites. When also used in combination with Adobe Kuler, Colorzilla cures Kuler’s problem of not displaying HTML codes for the selected colors.

Foxmarks – Foxmarks replaces your traditional bookmarking capabilities with synchronized bookmarks. Foxmarks synchronizes your bookmarks with an online account and any computer you install the addon to automatically whenever you close your browser. It takes about two seconds and guarantees that you’ll never be without your bookmarks, whether at a public computer or at home.

Google Toolbar – Google Toolbar is rather simplistic but adds some much needed features to my browser. First, it can replace the standard Firefox search with Google search which is a bit cleaner to look at. Second, it adds a Gmail notifier that lets me know whenever I have new mail with a simple icon. It also adds quick links to some Google services I use often such as Google maps.

Window Resizer – Working as a web developer, it’s important to view my sites in different browsers and different screen resolutions. Window Resizer emulates different screen resolutions be resizing the browser window to different sizes (e.g. 800×600).

Firebug – Firebug is, in my opinion, the most useful addon for a Firefox-based web developer. You can edit your HTML from Firebug, find errors, change your CSS and many more options all from one console. I cannot describe Firebug as well as they can, so please take a look at the Firebug site at http://getfirebug.com/

YSlow – YSlow is not an addition to firebug but is integrated with it for information exchange. YSlow analyzes any web page and generates a grade for each rule and an overall grade. If a page can be improved, YSlow lists the specific changes to be made. YSlow is especially useful on high traffic sites where limiting the number of HTTP requests makes more of a difference but has great suggestions for smaller sites as well.

Colorful Tabs – Colorful tabs doesn’t have any big use in web development but it speeds up my overall surfing. Tabs can be colored by many different options allowing you to find important sites at a glance or just to differentiate between tabs easier.

What addons are indispensable to you?

I recently purchased a music streaming website, powered by MySQL database full of links to the musical content. In order to transfer the website to my hosting I was going to need to import the database. Unfortunately, I host with GoDaddy.com. GoDaddy offers phpMyAdmin to control your databases which is a great program but it limits imports to 2MBs. My database was over 70MB. I tried it anyways with my fingers crossed but as expected, it wasn’t going to work.

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As a freelance web developer, time is money. I use many different tricks to increase my productivity and these are my top selections for saving time. Please make you own suggestions for other time savers in the comments.

Drop Down Menus :: All Web Menus (http://www.likno.com/allwebmenusinfo.html )
Whenever I need to add a complex drop-down menu to a site, I turn to All Web Menus. This program styles a complex multi level menu in less time then it takes to type the text. All websites need menus and for detailed menus, you should try All Web Menus.

Time saved: 1 Hour per menu.

Image Capture :: Gadwin Printscreen (http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/)
Gadwin Printscreen utility replaces windows standard printscreen keyboard button with more options and flexibility. It loads on windows startup and runs silently in the background without consuming system resources but it’s always there when you need it. Instead of just capturing the entire screen view, Gadwin allows you to select a rectangular area very precisely with the help of a built in magnifying window. This tool is invaluable to my work. I often use it to grab different pieces to mock up a design.

Time saved: 2 Minutes per screen capture.

Batch Image Resizing :: Multiple Image Resizer .NET (http://www.multipleimageresizer.net/ )
I tried 10-15 different batch resizing programs before setting on Multiple Image Resizer .NET. This program’s ease of use in unparalleled and it has absolutely any function you could desire. Simply select a folder of images you want resized, determine whether to resize, add border, add text, overlay images, crop, rotate or flip them as a whole and save time editing the images one by one. I often use it to add small watermarks to a group of images I’m uploading to a clients website.

Time saved: 20 Minutes for a group of 20 images to an hour or more for a group of 100+. Continue Reading

Tab Effect is an unusual Firefox add-on that takes tab control to new levels. Continue reading for a list of the Firefox add-ons that you must have!

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