If, like me, you like to play around with the code on your site and in fact, HAVE to play around with the code on your site to get the damn thing to work, then I think you’re going to love this little list I put together.

While I don’t quite consider myself a web master (master the ways of of the Java you will. Keep you awake at night it shall) I have learnt a phenomenal amount in a very short space of time and I get really excited when I discover something that helps make my web life that little bit easier!

The list is in no particular order and I welcome any feedback you’ve got on any of the tools. Maybe you’ve got a better one? Maybe you’ve got a bigger list? Let’s hear it!

1. Woorank

Woorank is a free website analysis tool that is so completely awesome that I don’t know how I hadn’t heard of it before I did. Which was about two months ago. Anyway, Woorank basically scans your site and generates a very comprehensive report on what’s good and what’s not about each element of your site such as indexed pages, text/HTML ratio and W3C validity.  Helpfully, it also provides links to those services that help you improve the areas that need attention. Go and check it out now!   woorank.com Do it. Go.

2. Serversiders

This is a nice little tool that displays data about your site such as global traffic rank, traffic ranking within .com (or whatever domain extension you have) and Compete rank chart. There’s also a link to allow you to create a domain wiki for your site. There’s even a bit of code you can add to your site to display the info above.   Serversiders.com

3. iwebtool

Not just one tool, but dozens! Too many to list, but my personal favourites are the keyword density checker and the backlink checker. Perhaps not as practically useful as some of the others, but useful nonetheless!  iwebtool.com

4. Big Huge Labs Colour Palette Generator

The site says you can “automatically create a colour palette from any photo” but I’ve used it to find out what colours are on a particular site and to colour match sidebar widgets in Wordpress to header images etc. Absolutely brilliant as sometimes it’s difficult to find the colour in the code!    Big Huge Labs Colour Palette Generator

5. IcoFX

If you need to create an icon for anything, be it for a favicon, gravatar or whatever, THIS is your huckleberry! You can create icons from any image on your machine using a variety of effects and even convert Mac icons to Windows icons with a range of sizes form 16 x 16 to 256 x 256 or your own custom sizes. Very cool.     IcoFX.ro

6. Firebug

Ok so this is not new and you probably did know about it but it is excellent and I had to include it! I’ve been getting to grips with it much more lately and it’s so useful for narrowing down that elusive bit of code that just won’t behave. I strongly recommend this if you need to change any bit of code at any time as you can make your changes within the user window and see what effect they’ll have without actually changing the code for real, then realising you can’t find it again to change it back. or is that just me? Oh, and the YSlow function that’s incorporated into it is excellent for analyzing the various elements of your page in a hurry.       Firebug.com

Have fun playing with these!

After some fundamental operational issues (it didn’t work properly) Onlywire has returned and is a fully functional social network sharing and bookmarking service. Well, almost.

When I wrote about Onlywire back in November last year, I was raving about what a fantastic service it was. And to be honest it was a brilliant idea. By simply clicking on the button that you download to your Firefox toolbar, you can auto-submit your content to several social networking and bookmarking sites at the same time. There is NO other service online that can claim that crown right now.

However, there were two main problems with the service that I found.

Firstly, if you wanted to syndicate your content to a service you had to join that service first. So what you say? Well, personally I find that joining around 30 different sites and creating usernames, passwords and clicking confirmation links is a tad tedious to say the least.

Secondly, there was a serious issue with auto-submitting your content over and over again to the same sites. Not ideal if you’re trying to create any kind of brand image. At one point I was getting comments accusing me of spamming. In the end, I had to stop using the service for fear of being banished to the annals of spam history.

However, as it turned out, I did spend the time joining a host of networking sites so the hard part is now over. Furthermore, it doesn’t really matter if I join them or not, what matters is that whoever reads my content has joined at least some of the sites available so they can submit my content for me.

The multiple submission problem appeared to be an issue with the Wordpress plugin that forced it submit my blog posts after every autosave. A major ball ache I’m sure you’ll agree!

I’m happy to report though, that these problems appear to have been fixed so I have no problem recommending the service to you. Again.

Using Onlywire, I’ve managed to grow my back links and it’s exceptionally easy to use.

There does seem to be a wee issue with content not being submitted to a couple of sites but I suspect it’s not a major one and I’ll update this post when I find out more. In the meantime, I strongly suggest you go and check it out!

Oh, and there’s an iPhone app coming soon!

Well it looks like Facebook has taken great offense to the recent Facebook Purity Script, written by a guy who calls himself Steeev. If you haven’t seen or heard of it, you check it out here.

Basically, the script stopped any crappy quizzes and horoscopes etc. appearing in your Facebook home feed. Not surprising then that Facebook’s owners weren’t happy about it and took action. Personally I think that it was a brilliant idea and rather than penalize Steeev for his erstwhile efforts, they should be asking him to work with them and develop better apps that don’t annoy the shit out of everyone!

All is not lost though. You can still download Facebook Purity here. This version is the newest version and apparently circumvents the recent home page code change rolled out by Facebook so it should still work.

I like Facebook by the way. I’m not a Social Network Guerilla, bent on undermining the very fabric of social media through underground scripts and armchair resistance.  I do, however, hate the amount of spammy crap that appears in my Twitter/Facebook/Friendfeed home feeds so anything that helps keep that at bay is alright by me!

If you’d like to become a fan of Facebook Purity, on Facebook, you can do so here.  Become a fan.