90 D-I-Y webmaster resources
As a professional in the web design and development field there are a vast number of sites that I glean knowledge from on a regular basis. The infomration shared on these sites is like taking a never ending series of mini-classes from the trade school of web development and design. Without the vast ocean of knowledge freely available, no one in our industry would be able to learn as quickly or as easily as we do.
As a website owner part of your responsibility is to be educated on anything needed to run your websites, update them as nessesary, and every once in a while to give them a good overhaul. This list has the sites you need to get the information you want. Enjoy!
Sites About Design
Logos
The Philosophy of Good Logo Design – What makes a logo great? What doyou need to make sure you have in your logo?
Fee Logo Templates – These need some work to act as a finished logo, but are a great place for inspiration.
The Web 2.0 Logo Collection – Want to see what the big names on the net are doing, check these out!
Stock Images
Getty Images – A collection of professional stock photography
Corbis – High Quality stock photos, high end = high price
Shutterstock – Membership based site with photos from nearly 200,000 photographers.
Stockvault – A free version of Shutterstock and iStock. Lower quality, lesser selection, but free!
Photos.com – Subscription based site
iStockPhoto – My personal favorite Stock Photo Site
Architecture
Website Architecture 101 – A good read for anyone about to undergo a re-design
Understanding Web Design – Great Alistapart article!
Inspiration
The CSS Zen Garden – a Classic on using CSS, read the book if you want to understand what CSS is all about!
StyleGala – A Resource of great designs, (May not be around long, so take a look while its still up!)
Learn CSS
W3 Schools CSS Course - This is another classic course on understanding how CSS works. CSS is nearly an art in itself, but this will get you started in the right direction.
Sitepoint CSS – There are a lot of good CSS resources on sitepoint
Color
Adobe Kuler – Find, Create, and Share color pallets. This is a great starting point for any design!
Colour Lovers - A Color Social Network
Sites About Development
HTML / XHTML
W3 Schools Tutorials – Learn about what HTML is and how to use it.
HTML Cheat Sheet – A handy PDF
For Developers
What is Ajax – This is a good explanation of what Ajax is, and what it does
HTML Validator – Make sure your site has good code, you can validate it here
Browser Testing – See your site in multiple browsers
Dreamweaver – One of the most popular HTML editors available
Learn Ruby on Rails – A beginners guide to the greatest framework ever developed!
MySQL Cheat Sheet – A useful cheat sheet for database development in MySQL.
Blog Platforms and Content Management Systems
Wordpress – Often used as a blog platform, and more recently a content management system, wordpress is where its at
TypePad – More robust than wordpress, this is the blogging platform often used by professionals.
Drupal - One of the most popular content management platforms
Expression Engine – This is an industry insider favorite CMS.
CMS Made Simple – My personal favorite when it comes to Content Management. Flexible, simple, and powerful enough for serious websites! This one is a little less turn key than applications like Drupal, but far better at being a simple search engine friendly website.
Joomla – Another popular CMS
That’s it for part one, check back in 24 hours for part 2!
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Aaron Mills is a Project Manager for Jailbreak Creative. He has many years of experience working in the web industry and regularly works with local and national clients on a variety of web projects.
Aaron has extensive experience working in both PHP and Ruby on Rails Projects. Aaron also does work with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and web marketing. 
