There are a number of resources available that have been created to make it easier for designers, developers, and website owners to quickly and easily create attractive, usable forms without the need to code. In this post we’ll look at some of the best options available.

The resources featured in this post include some free options and a number of paid options. Most of the paid options include a lot of features, and in many cases the ability to integrate your forms with PayPal or other payment gateways.

Resources for Creating Forms:

FormSpring

With FormSpring you can create standard contact forms, set up surveys, accept donations, manage event registrations and more. The form builder will allow you to easily create forms without the need for coding, and FormSpring helps you to manage the data that is collected through the forms (store in a database, export to Excel, or use the API). You can even use a payment integration feature. A free plan is available that allows 3 forms with 10 fields and 50 saved entries per month, and paid plans range from $14 – $159 per month.

Wufoo

Wufoo’s HTML form builder makes it easy to create contact forms, surveys, registrations, and online payments forms. You can choose from an existing template or customize it to meet your needs. Wufoo also includes some useful reporting tools to help you analyze the data that is being collected. A free plan is available that allows for 1 user, 3 forms, 3 reports, 10 fields, and 100 entries per month (with some limited features). Paid plans range from $9.95 – $199.95 per month.

Icebrrg

Icebrrg can be used to create contact forms, registration forms, surveys, application forms, and more. Setting up a new form is easy, and you can view data from submissions, export the data to Excel, and set up payment integration. No free plan or trial is available. Prices range from $9 per month (10 forms and 500 entries per month) to $199 per month.

FormSite

FormSite has over 100 pre-built forms that can easily be customized to meet your own needs. You can create contact forms, surveys, registration forms, order forms, and more. There is a free account available that allows you to manage 5 forms and 100 submissions per month. The lowest-priced ad-free plan costs $19.95 per month or $199.95 per year.

FormExperts

FormExperts includes more than 100 templates to help you create a variety of different types of forms. The online form builder allows to you easily create forms without any coding. You can set up autoresponders, custom “thank you” pages, format the emails that you’ll receive, and more. A free 10-day trial is available, and paid plans start at $7 per month. Plans that allow you to accept payments start at $17 per month.

MachForm

MachForm helps you to create PHP forms without the need to code. It is a self-hosted solution option that stores all form submissions in a MySQL database. A single-site license costs $39 and an unlimited license costs $199.

Email Me Form

Email Me Form is a free online service that helps you to create HTML and PHP forms. You can upgrade to a plus plan for $9.95 per form which means that you will not have to include a link back to Email Me Form, unlimited forms, and some other features.

FormLogix

FormLogix allows you to create a variety of types of forms (contact and feedback forms, surveys and polls, registrations, invitations, online payments, and more, without coding. A free trial is available for private use (only the account owner can submit forms) and paid plans are available in a few different types. You can pay per form ($3.99 per form per month for 12 months), per submission (starting at $50 for 100 submissions), or VIP ($125 for one month with unlimited use).

FormAssembly

FormAssembly allows you to create a wide variety of forms, including contact forms, registration forms, and order forms. There is a free ad-supported plan that will allow you to try out the service. Paid plans range from $9 – $34 per month, or you can choose a pay-as-you-go plan.

Visitor Contact

With Visitor Contact you can create contact forms with a sticky contact button. Features include auto responders, the option to show a map of your location on forms, and the ability to export form data. A WordPress plugin is also available. Visitor Contract is a free resource.

Contactable

Contactable is a jQuery plugin from theodin.co.uk that makes it simple to create contact and feedback forms.

WordPress Plugins:

For WordPress users and developers there are a number of plugins that will help you to create forms. Here is a look at some of the best.

Gravity Forms

Gravity Forms is a premium plugin for WordPress ($39 for single-site license) that makes it quick and easy to create forms for a variety of purposes. You can use the forms to create posts (for user-submitted content), create auto responders, and you can manage form submissions through the WordPress dashboard.

CForms II

CForms II is a powerful contact form plugin that has a lot of features and options. You can use it to create “tell a friend” forms, set up auto responders and more.

Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is a very popular plugin and is a great choice for creating standard contact forms. It’s fairly easy to setup and create your own forms, and to insert them into a post or page. You can also customize the emails that you’ll receive when a visitor completes the form.

Fast and Secure Contact Form

Fast and Secure Contact Form will allow you to set up general contact forms and protect them from spammers with CAPTCHAs and Akismet support.

Any Suggestions?

How do you create web forms? Are there other resources that you use aside from those listed here?

Prototip 2
Allows you to easily create both simple and complex tooltips using the Prototype javascript framework.

Coda Popup Bubbles
Re-creates their ‘puff’ popup bubble used by Coda.

Advanced Tooltip
Demonstrates how you can use Taggify widget to enhance your blog with nice functionality showing popup tooltips for people on your photos.

Easiest Tooltip and Image Preview
Adds an element to the body when you roll over a certain object.

Easy Tooltip jQuery Plugin
By default this plugin will read the title attribute of the element and convert it into fade-in tooltip that you can style any way you want.

jTip
jTip pulls content into a tool tip using the HttpXMLRequest object. By adding a class attribute value of “jTip” to a link element you can create a tooltip from the content found in the file the href is pointing too.

Nice Titles
Gives links with the title attribute a “nice title” using a semi-transparent PNG.

Tooltip to Forms
Displays a tooltip next to form elements when the element receives focus.

jQuery Tooltips
This tool uses a simple and natural syntax and has an advanced programming API. You can extend it with callback methods or with your own plugins.

Ajax Tooltip
Content of the tooltip is retrieved by Ajax from external files.

Orbital Tooltip
With the Orbital Tooltip you can choose to position the tooltip on any object in a 360 degrees around it.

Balloon Tooltip
A tooltip with a speech bubble background.

Pure CSS Tooltips
Tooltip effects using only CSS and HTML.

JavaScript Tooltips
The code offers a variety of options for source and type of tooltip content and flexible control of positioning, formatting and display.

Hot Ajax Tooltip
Let’s you create mouse over tooltips to your content and allows you to show additional information.

CoolTips
A lightweight unobtrusive JavaScript web-browser tooltips replacement technique.

SuperNote
CSS/JS based “popup tooltip” script that dynamically converts regular footnotes in a document into tooltips that appear next to their triggering elements.

MooTools Tooltips
Tooltips using the MooTools framework.

Websnapr Tooltip
A simple, unobtrusive script used to display an overlay bubble showing a hyperlink target thumbnail using websnapr.

Tooltip with Transparent Shadow
Tooltip script with a nice transparent shadow.

DHTML JavaScript Tooltips
An easy to use cross-browser Tooltip JavaScript Library that creates tooltips.

Balloon Tooltips
Written in object-oriented JavaScript and allows you to add configurable balloon tooltips.

HelpBalloon
AJAX help balloons / tool tips / dialog balloons.

Form Field Hints
Instead of the input hints always showing and potentially cluttering a very simple form, only the hint for the currently focused input will show.

JavaScript Tooltip
Have you ever felt constrained by a lack of control over the browsers default tool tip? Wishing for something a little more customizable?

BoxOver
BoxOver uses javascript / DHTML to show tooltips on a website. Implementation of the tooltips, however, requires no knowledge of DHTML or javascript.

CSS Bubble Tooltips
Avoid cross-browser JavaScript when you can use CSS to make tooltips with less code.

qTip
qTip provides you with tons of features like rounded corners and speech bubble tips.

EZPZ Tooltip
A basic tooltip that offers some advanced options.

jQuery Input Floating Box Hint
Provide an automatic box hint in the right side of an input, when focus on that input, and disappear when focus go (blur).

Tipsy
A jQuery plugin for creating a Facebook-like tooltips effect based on an anchor tag’s title attribute.

clueTip
The clueTip plugin allows you to easily show a fancy tooltip when the user’s mouse hovers over (or, optionally, clicks on) any element you designate in your script. If the element includes a title attribute, its text becomes the heading of the clueTip.

vTip
Designed to quickly provide very lightweight tooltips to users of jQuery.

jQuery and CSS Tooltip
The code to implementing these tooltips is extremely simple and concise, and this allows you to incorporate tooltips into your application without unnecessary bloat and hassle.

Lightweight JavaScript Tooltip
A tutorial from SixRevisions with source code available for download.

For more web development resources please see:

• 37 Shopping Cart Options for Developers
• Style Switchers Showcase and Resources
• 25 jQuery Image Gallery/Slider Tutorials and Plugins
• 14 Options for Managing Membership Websites

jQuery Multi Level CSS Menu #1

jQuery Multi Level CSS Menu #2

All Levels Navigation Menu

Smooth Navigation Menu

Simple CSS Vertical Menu Digg-Like

Professional Dropdown #1

Professional Dropline #1

Jim’s DHTML Menu v5.7

Drop Down Tabs

Suckertree Vertical Menu

Superfish

jQuery SuckerFish

Ultimate Drop Down Menu

JavaScript Dropdown Menu with Multi Levels

MenuMatic

Sliding JavaScript Dropdown Menu

jGlide Menu

Dropdown Menu Made with Scriptalicious/Prototype

Chrome CSS Drop Down Menu

Professional Dropdown #2

Hover Drop #2

Skeleton Dropdown

HV Menu v5.5

Simple Drop Down Menu v2.0

Horizontal Drop Down Menu Script

For more web design tools and resources, please see:

• 23 Resources for Clean and Compressed CSS
  
• 71 Gradient Resources for Web Design
• 77 Resources to Simplify Your Life as a Web Designer

For web designers and graphic designers, gradients provide almost unlimited options for creating the perfect look. This list is a collection of excellent tutorials and resources for effectively using gradients. Some of the tutorials and resources are specific to Photoshop and Illustrator, and others are general. Regardless of whether you use gradients every day or if you’ve never used a gradient, there should be something here for you.

Photoshop Tutorials:

Using Photoshop Gradient Tool from FreeTimeFoto.

Photoshop 101 – The Gradient Tool from Shape Shed.

A Gradient Tutorial from 9rules.

Creating Web 2.0 Effects with Photoshop – Part 1 from SitePoint.

Smooth Gradient Header Photoshop Tutorial from Tutorial Blog.

How to Create a Transparent Gradient in Photoshop from MediaCollege.com.

Creating Stylish Gradient Buttons from Wipeout44.

Jazzed Up Text With Gradient Effects from Wipeout44.

Become a Gradient Junkie from Wipeout44.

Gradient Mapping Effect in Photoshop from Wipeout44.

Web 2.0 Badge Photoshop Tutorial from Ajax Lessons.

Create a Shiny Badge Photoshop Tutorial from Tutorial Blog.

Tutorial: Rays of Light from Bartelme Design.

Sleek and Spicy Website Header Tutorial “Web 2.0 Style” from Photoshopit.

Gradient Text with Photoshop from Depiction.net.

Underwater Scene with Gradients from Heathrowe.com.

Warm Gradient Sunsets with Gradient Maps from Photoshop Essentials.

Using Gradients to Make Light and Shadow – and a Coffee Cup! from PSDTUTS.

Illustrator Tutorials:

Create Realistic Illustrations Using Illustrator’s Gradient Mesh from Veerle’s Blog.

Colorful Gradient Effects in Illustrator from Veerle’s Blog.

Transparent Gradients in Illustrator from CreativeTechs.

Adobe Illustrator – Gradient Mesh Tool, Gradients and Blends from Kevin Hulsey.

Transparent Gradient in Illustrator from Creative Bits.

Create Abstract Backgorunds in Illustrator from Vectips.

Illustrator 101: One Gradient Across Multiple Paths from BittBox.

Gradient Mesh – The Adobe Illustrator Video Podcast.

Gradient Meshes Introduction from Biorust.

How to Create Gradient Text in Illustrator from Wow Web Design.

GIMP Tutorials:

GIMP Gradient Tutorial from TankedUp Imaging.

GIMP Gradient Tutorial at YouTube.

General Tutorials:

Gradient Text Effect from Web Designer Wall.

Super-Easy Blendy Backgrounds from A List Apart.

Pure CSS Text Gradients from CSS Tricks.

Span-Free Gradient Text Effect from Sam Rayner.

Cross-Browser Gradient Backgrounds Without Images from Slayer Office.

Web 2.0 Design Kit from Photoshop Lab.

Gradients – The Web 2.0 How-to Design Guide from Web Design from Scratch.

Gradient Tiles with Shadow from Projectseven.

CSS Gradient Background from DMXzone.

Background Gradients and CSS from TankedUp Imaging.

CSS Web 2.0 Glossy Text from Just Talk About Web.

Creating Gradient Fills with ActionScript from Lukamaras.com.

The Push vs. Pull Gradient from Blogoscoped.

Gradient Generators:

Gradient Image Maker from Dynamic Drive.

Gradient Text Generator.

CSS Gradients Demo.

The Amazing Gradient Generator.

Online Gradient Image Maker.

RoundedCornr – Create a rounded corner with a gradient.

Form Style Generator – Includes a gradient generator.

Gradient Generator.

secretGeeks Gradient Maker.

Gradient Resources:

CSS Text Gradient from CSS Globe.

CSS Gradient Shadow from Dynamic Drive.

Tabs Generator – Create Gradient Tabs.

Dynamic Gradient Background.

Color Blender.

Ultimate Web 2.0 Gradients – Free Downloads from Deziner Folio.

Ultimate Web 2.0 Gradients – Volume 2 from Deziner Folio.

Ultimate Web 2.0 Gradients – Volume 3 from Deziner Folio.

130 Web 2.0 Gradient Swatches for Illustrator from Deziner Folio.

Ultimate Web 2.0 Layer Styles – Free Download from Deziner Folio.

Some Gradients to Save Some Time from GoSquared.

Free Photoshop Gradients Download from Euphorish.

Gradient Progress Bar from Slayer Office.

Lose the Images: How to Get Rounded Corners, Gradients, Drop Shadows and More Using CSS from DesignVitality.

The Gradient Green Navigation Bar from Listamatic.

130 Ultimate Web 2.0 Gradients for Gimp from Gimp-Tutorials.net.

GIMP Gradients from Gimp.org.

Inspiration:

Yukio Miyamoto – Master of Adobe Illustrator Gradient Mesh Tool.

Color Inspiration: Blends, Gradients, Steps, Oh My! from COLOURlovers.

One of the most productive ways to use BuzzBoost is to publish links to your blog posts from somewhere outside of your blog. In the example that we’ll be looking at here, I wanted to include links to the most recent blog posts from our website’s home page, which is outside of the blog. (See the end result in the image below.)

If you’ve looked around the portfolios of other designers you have probably seen the same thing in action. A growing number of designers are including a blog as a part of their portfolio sites, so it makes sense to promote the most recent posts from the home page. In this tutorial I’ll quickly take you through the process of getting the links from your feed displayed on a static HTML page.

Step 1 – Login to FeedBurner

If you already have a FeedBurner account set up, login and click on your feed.

Step 2 – Activate BuzzBoost

Click on the “Publicize” tab, and then click on “BuzzBoost” in the list at the left side of the screen (see image below). At this point BuzzBoost will give you a number of different options. You can choose how many items (posts) you want to be displayed, if you want the links to open in the same window or a new window, displaying the feed title, displaying the date, and several others. One of the options is “display item content.” If this box is not checked all that will be displayed is the title of the blog post (which is what I will be using), and if that box is checked you can choose to display the entire post or a brief excerpt in plain text or HTML. For my purposes I have chosen to show 5 posts, have them open in the same window, and everything is left unchecked. Once you have everything set the way you want it, click “Activate” at the bottom of the page (you can easily change these settings later). If you’ve already activated BuzzBoost you’ll see the option to save instead of activate.

Step 3 – Copy and Paste the Code

Once you choose your settings and activate BuzzBoost you will be provided with the piece of code. Copy the code provided by FeedBurner and paste it into your page wherever you want it to be displayed.

Step 4 – Customize

Now that you have pasted the code into your page, BuzzBoost should be completely functional. Most likely though, you’ll want to make some customizations to the appearance of the output to fit with the rest of your page. Fortunately, this is a pretty simple process that can easily be done by editing your style sheet. FeedBurner/Google provides some Common BuzzBoost Styling Tricks that gives you a good starting point for making your customizations.

In my case, I wanted to put BuzzBoost into the sidebar of the home page and display the blog posts in a list, very similar to a blog showing a list of recent posts in the sidebar (in this case, the home page is outside of WordPress, so simply using the standard method of displaying recent posts is not possible). I wanted to style the list a little bit to get rid of the bullets, change the link colors, set padding and borders, and remove the FeedBurner image at the end of the list.

Earlier I said that I left all of the boxes unchecked in the BuzzBoost settings, including the option to display the feed title. Instead of displaying the feed title I simply inserted a link directly above the BuzzBoost code that says “From Our Blog”, which serves as the title. You can do it either way, use BuzzBoost to include the title, or simply enter it yourself.

FeedBurner uses divs and classes for everything produced by BuzzBoost, so it’s pretty simple to style it however you like. The CSS code that I am using is shown below.

And this is what the finished product looks like.

Possible Uses

As you can see from this example, this is a very simple way to display the most recent posts from your blog on another page. In this case the page is on the same domain, but it doesn’t have to be. If you run a few different blogs you could set up a one-page bio site that uses BuzzBoost to display your most recent posts from all of your blogs. Additionally, you could use it to put a list of your recent posts from one blog on another blog that you own. For example, I could use BuzzBoost to show links from this blog at my other blog, Traffikd. There are a number of different things you can do with BuzzBoost, so I hope this tutorial helped to show you how easy and how useful it can be.

AlertSite

AlertSite offers a variety of products, including website performance monitoring. With their service you’ll not only be able to track downtime, but you’ll also get a variety of reports on the performance of your site from different spots around the world. There is a 30 day free trial for this service, but the price after the free trial is not listed.

Pingdom

Pingdom provides their basic service for $9.95 per month. They monitor your site from every continent, and of course you’ll receive notifications of any problems. Pingdom also provides some nice, easy to understand reports to look at the data they gather. They also offer a 30 day free trial.

Alertra

Alertra claims to detect outages quicker and more effectively than any other monitoring service. They have monitoring stations set up throughout the world and you can set the time interval that you want your website to be checked. Their prices vary greatly depending on exactly what you want, but there is a minimum monthly charge of $7.50. They also offer a 30 day free trial.

Dot-Com Monitor

Dot-Com Monitor offers website monitoring and network monitoring. The website monitoring service includes certificate verification, content check, accessibility check, performance check, cookie support, and more. Services start at $9.99 per month and go up from there. They also offer a 30 day free trial.

Uptime Auditor

Uptime Auditor also offers some different option in terms of how frequently you want your website to be checked and the number of sites you want to monitor. Prices start at $7 per month for monitoring up to 3 websites in 5 minute intervals.

NetworkSolutions WatchDog

WatchDog will do much more than just monitor your site’s downtime. It will provide you with security scanning to check for vulnerability to hackers. The performance monitoring services will watch your website around the clock and notify you when something is not right. The price for WatchDog is $17.95 per month.

Internet Supervision

Internet Supervision offers a free website monitoring service, plus several different paid options. With the free service your site will be checked every 15 minutes for the first 90 days and every 24 hours after 90 days. To get the free service you’ll also have to link to their site from yours. The paid plans start for as little as $2.95 per month.

Montastic

Montastic is a free service that offers basic monitoring. If you’re just getting started with monitoring your site and not completely sure what your needs are, Montastic is a safe place to start. For businesses that depend on their website to make sales and communicate with customers, a more complex option might be preferred. Montastic will check your site every 10 minutes and there are no stupid requirements like making you link back to them.

Mon.itor.us

Mon.itor.us is another nice choice if you’re looking for a free service. Get instant alerts and reports on your site’s performance, plus they also offer website statistics on your visitors.

Have You Used Any of These?

If you have any experience with any of these services (or other similar services) please take a minute to share your thoughts in the comments.

An HTML sitemap can be used effectively to increase the usability of a website by providing a page that links out to every page on the site (or at least to the major pages, depending on the size of the site). Navigation is of course one of the most important aspects to creating a user-friendly site, and when visitors aren’t able to easily find what they are looking for, many will turn to a sitemap. As a result, the HTML sitemap can help to keep visitors on your site by showing them where to find specific information. Additionally, because the sitemap links to all of the other pages on the website, they can be helpful to search engine spiders as they are crawling through the site.

XML sitemaps are created especially for search engines, and they’re not useful to human visitors like an HTML sitemap would be. Most of the major search engines are now using XML sitemaps to find and index all of the appropriate pages on a website that provides an XML sitemap. For website owners that want to be sure that Google is aware of all of their pages, this is the best option. A number of the tools that we’ll look at below can help you to easily create an XML sitemap automatically, and some of them will even update the sitemap as new pages are added to the site.

Sitemap Tools and Resources

Sitemaps.org – If you’re still looking for more information on XML sitemaps, check here.

Google Webmaster Tools Sitemap Generator – Google Webmaster Tools can help you to generate your XML sitemap, and then you’ll want to verify the sitemap through Webmaster Tools so Google knows it exists.

XML-Sitemaps.com – Probably the easiest way to get your own XML sitemap (and it’s free). With this tool all you need to do is enter your URL and wait for a few moments. You’ll then have an XML file that you can upload to your server. This tool even gives you the option of how frequently you want the sitemap to be updated. I have used this one myself on a few occasions.

AutoSitemap – This tool is similar to XML-Sitemaps.com. With AutoSitemap you can create an XML sitemap for very large sites (up to 50,000 pages). This a free version and a paid version that offers a few more features.

Sitemaps-Builder.com – This is a simple (and free) online tool for quickly creating an XML sitemap.

XMLSitemap.com – Another free online sitemap generator. This one also lets you set a frequency for it to be updated.

Google Sitemap Validator – Smart IT Consulting offers a free validator for XML sitemaps. Simply enter the URL of your sitemap and give it a minute to process.

Sitemapgen – SourceForge has a downloadable sitemap generator. I haven’t personally used this tool because of the other online options that don’t require a download.

SitemapDoc – At this site you can create both an XML sitemap and an HTML sitemap.

WriteMaps – Create, edit, and share your sitemaps online.

Simple Map – A free tool for creating XML or HTML sitemaps.

Online Sitemap Creator – This tool will create an HTML sitemap. I tried it and it did a pretty good job for the static part of the website, but not for the blog.

AutoMapIt.com – This website will create XML and HTML sitemaps, and it has a few other tools as well. To use the tools you’ll have to create an account and link back to them.

WordPress Sitemap Tools

Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator – A simple plugin that will create an XML sitemap and update it with your new posts.

Sitemap Generator Plugin – This plugin from Dagon Design will create a nice HTML sitemap that includes links to all of your posts and pages.

Drupal

XML Sitemap – An easy way for Drupal users to create an XML sitemap.

There are a number of methods to go about backing up a hard drive, and there are almost countless online services that can help you with this task. Some are free and others charge on a monthly or yearly basis. Personally, I would stay away from free services. If your data is important enough to backup continually, isn’t it worth paying a few dollars a month for a better service and peace of mind?

In this article we’ll take a quick look at some of the leading options for backing up your hard drive online, as well as link out to a few tutorials for doing things on your own. Many of the services listed here are extremely similar. Most offer automatic backups at time intervals that you can set and adjust. Free trial offers are very common, and they have been listed here whenever possible. Some of the free trials don’t even require you to enter any credit card information until after the trial period is over. In a few cases, I could not find prices on their website, which makes me a bit leery. The services and prices are most likely competitive, but with so many other options available, I doubt I would ever sign up for a free trial of a service not knowing what the full service will cost on an ongoing basis.

Mozy

Award winning online backup from PC Magazine. License is $3.95 per month with storage costs of $0.50 per GB.

FirstBackup

Prices as low as $39 per year for 100 MB and go up to $90 per year for 1 GB. There are other options for corporate accounts, multiple computers, etc.

Intronis

30 day free trial. Home plans starting at $9.95 per month and business plans at $24.95 per month.

Data Protection Services

30 day free trial. Starting at $89 per month. Specializes in dealing with businesses.

Carbonite

$49.95 per year no matter how much you need to backup. 15 day free trial.

IBackup

Prices start at $9.95 per month for 10 GB and go up to $299.95 per month for 300 GB. Free trial. Award winning service.

Data Deposit Box

$2 per GB per month. Free trial.

MirrorDisk

30 day free trial. Plans start at 10 GB for $14.95 per month.

Spare Backup

14 day free trial, no credit card needed. Plans start at $6.99 per month for 50 GB.

Athena Backup

14 day free trial. $4.95 per month or $54.45 for one year.

Drive HQ

Starts free. $2.99 per month for 2 GB.

Remote Data Backups

30 day free trial. Prices start at $19.95 for 100 MB.

ZoomBackup

Prices start at $5.95 per month for 1 GB.

HyperOffice

Secure Online hard drive 30 days free, starts at $431.90 for 5 users.

OnlineBackupVault

30 day free trial. Residential and business packages. Residential starts at $4 per month for 3 GB and business packages start at $20 per month for 10 GB.

U.S. Data Trust

Targets businesses, prices start at $75 per month for 5GB.

Angel Backup

Free 30 day trial. Prices start at $1.95 per month for 2 GB.

LXRBS

Prices start at $19.95 per month for 4 GB.

IDrive

2 GB free. For $4.95 per month or $49.50 per year you get unlimited backups and storage space.

Iron Mountain

Pricing not given.

Net Standard

30 day free trial. Price not listed.

ConnectMyFiles

Free trial, no mention of pricing.

Storage Guardian

30 Day free trial. I don’t see pricing anywhere on their website.

Technology Business Solutions

Remote data backup $35 per machine per month.

XDrive

5 GB for free, 50 GB for $9.95 per month.

BuddyBackup

Stores backups of your data on the computers of your “buddies”. Free.

(Addition) Backup Technology

Offers online backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity. Prices are not listed on the site, but you can contact them for a quote or to request a trial.

Tutorials for Backing Up Your Hard Drive Yourself:

Lifehacker – Automatically backup your hard drive

A tutorial by Gina Trapani for Windows PC users. This method uses an external hard drive, an FTP server, and SyncBack freeware.

Mac OS X – How to backup and restore files

Mac users can get instructions here. There are a few different methods explained, including the .Mac backup application, third-party backup applications, and the manual method.

Lifehack – 4 ways to automatically backup your hard drive

A tutorial for creating your own script to backup your hard drive.

What’s Your Experience?

Have you used any of the services listed here, or others? Do you use some other method for backing up your hard drive?

What’s Its Color is a simple online tool that will analyze a photograph and provide you with the html numbers for the main colors that appear in the photo. You can either upload an image from your compter, or you can give the URL of a photo online.

Let’s take a look at a few examples.

By uploading this picture, I get the the color scheme shown below.

And from this picture, I get the colors shown below.

There are some other similar tools, including the Color Palette Generator at DeGraeve.com and the Color Palette Generator at JRM.cc.

Another useful tool is I Like Your Colors. Have you seen another website that uses a color scheme tht you especially like? With I Like Your Colors you can enter the URL of a page and it will show you the html numbers of the colors that are used on the page (by scanning the html and css code). Of course, you won’t want to copy the color schemes of other sites, but this can be a good tool for inspiration and for getting started. Let’s look at an example. When I enter the URL for Web Designer Wall (screen shot below), I Like Your Colors produces the following report (screen shot further below).

What other tools and resources do you find to be useful when developing color schemes?

The domain name that you purchase may or may not have a history, and that is what you need to know about. It’s possible that the domain has been penalized by Google or other search engines for the practices of previous owners, which is certainly something that you will want to avoid. A domain with a negative history can carry over when you start hosting your site on that domain.

On the other hand, the domain may have some valuable elements as a result of a previous owner, such as Google PageRank, Alexa rank, inbound links, etc. In these situations the domain will typically be for sale by the owner or through some type or re-seller service, but not always.

Here are 10 tools that can help you with your research:

Whois.net – One of the first places most people look, Whois will give you some basic information about the owner of the domain and where it is hosted. If the domain name isn’t currently registered you’ll simplify have the option to purchase it. The SEO Egghead Whois Search is another option to get the same information.

URL Trends – If the domain is existing, URL Trends will show some valuable information such as the PageRank, Alexa rank, and the number of incoming links recognized by search engines. The current data does not appear to be completely up-to-date.

Archive.org Way Back Machine – The most useful feature of the Way Back Machine is that it can show you when the domain was being used. Older domains benefit by having more trust from search engines (assuming they haven’t been penalized).

Domain History from Domain Tools – If you want to see if a domain name has any type of history, this is a good tool. Enter the domain and you’ll see dates in which the history is recorded. In order to see details you’ll have to upgrade, although it is free. If the domain has no history, you’ll see a message that there is no recorded history.

dnScoop – dnScoop has some different features than the other tools here, although it will also give you some of the same information. When you enter a domain it will tell you the age of the domain, the PageRank and Alexa rank, and the number of inbound links. One of the most useful features is that it will show you what other domains are hosted on the same IP address. Although if you purchase the domain you will be free to host it anywhere you choose.

dnScoop also gives you an idea of how much money a domain could make each month on Text Link Ads, which is obviously either an advertisement or an affiliate link. It will also calculate a value for the domain based on all of the information that it gathers. I would put too much weight into this value when deciding the price you should be willing to pay for a domain, but it can be helpful for comparing domains against each other.

Marketleap.com Link Popularity Tool – If you’re interested in seeing how many inbound links a domain has, this is a great tool. It will let you compare up to 4 different domains at one time. The report will produce the number of links being recognized by Google, MSN and Yahoo.

Google Banned Checker – You’ll want to avoid buying a domain that is banned by Google, unless you’re willing to work to get the ban removed. This tool will tell you is a domain has any pages indexed by Google. It is somewhat useful. If a domain has no pages indexed it is either new or banned. So, if you are buying a new domain this tool won’t have any value for you. Also, a domain can be penalized by Google without being completely removed from the index. This tool will not detect that penalty, it will simply tell you that a page is indexed.

SEOmoz Page Strength Tool – The page strength tool can be very helpful if you are evaluating a domain that has some history. It will show you a number of factors including PageRank, age of the domain, inbound links, and more.

Popuri.us – This is another tool for finding inbound links, rankings, and PageRank. It also includes a link to Whois and DNS info.

Number of Pages Indexed – If you are not sure whether a domain has a history or not, try this tool. It will show how many pages on this domain are indexed by the major search engines. If any pages are indexed there is some kind of history.