Recommended sites and web resources
Web test links
🌐 Google LightSpeed Insights
(I score close to or at 100 for mobile and desktop tests).
This Google link now redirects to web.dev, just below)
🌐 Debug Bear website speed test
🌐 GTMatrix
🌐 Pingdom
🌐 Mail tester: test the spammyness of your emails
🌐 💀 Sucuri: Free website malware and security checker
🌐 Another you can try is IsItWP
This site offers a range of free tests, including this one focused on WordPress page speed. (I scored a respectable 99)
Also recommended: 🌐 TOPTAL: Colourblind Web Page Filter:
“See your web site through colorblind eyes with the colorblind web page filter.”
Also handy to know:
🌐 📊 Statcounter: Understand your visitors with Statcounter
Do you want to know what resolution most people use on desktop, tablet and mobile? Which browser or social media platform has the greatest market share? Which mobile provider hogs the market? (e.g. As at Oct 2022 Samsung and Apple are almost equal with about 28.5% of the market each. Poor LG is under 1%, while Sony don’t even get a mention)
🌐 Is it down right now?: Whether the ‘it’ in question it Twitter, Facebook, Google or your personal site.
🌐 It is down for everyone, or just me?: Another site to check the status of your favourite site.
Web design and related
👉 W3 Schools: emoji Unicode Ref.
👉 Unicode Table (Useful alternative)
Emoji notes:
Old school gif Smileys such as this one whistling are better for accessibility.
HTML from decimal: 🙂 🙂
HTML from hexadecimal: 🙂 🙂
Using in CSS: /1F642
e.g.
ul ::marker {
/* color: green; */
/* would make the bullets green */
font-size: 1.2em;
content: “\1F642”;
/* replace bullets with an emoji, such as a smiley face */
}
👉 Wayback Machine: Internet archives 💬
Looking for how things used to be back in the day? Unrecoverably lost your site and backups!? 😱 “Oh no!”. All may not be lost; if it’s archived here and not too massive, you may be able to recover the content and start over. Phew!
🖌 Lorum Ipsum De facto Latin filler content for test pages
🖌 Dummy text generator Like Lorum Ipsum, but without the Latin.
(Their SSL needs work, as at the time of writing).
🖌 Can I use? Details desktop and mobile browser support for HTML and CSS. Now also covers some API’s and HTTP/3 WebTransport support.
Codefetti (LLC), based in Michigan, has a very useful blog. They also offer web design, audits, training and more.
Stock photos and related
🎨 Pixabay My recommended and goto place.
📸 Unsplash Another goto place of mine.
🎨 Pexels are worth a look if the above two don’t turn up what to are looking for.
🎨 Not linking to them, but at the higher (“Fair enough, I guess”) to “HOW MUCH!?” end are iStock and Getty Images. (Quality and exclusivity come at a price!)
🎨 Canva: “an online design and publishing tool with a mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere.” Free, with Pro (£100 a year) option. It’s worth exploring.
📸 Rare historical photos. More specialised but might interest some. Not sure on the copyright, but they say:
“Each photo is accompanied by its historical description, the circumstances, the date the photo was taken, the photographer’s name, and the copyright holder.”
“You’re free to share our blog or our articles. Please provide a link to our website or to that specific article.”
Game Development
Nature
🦇 🐭 🦔 Help Wildlife (UK)
Online Comics
Breast cancer support, Merseyside
For developers, gamers and readers
🎮 Humble developer support page: If you are an indie, check this page out!
🎮 Humble bundle: software. Unity assets, sound packs, and more
🎮 Humble bundle: books. From comic collections to Wiley UX/UI, and more
“Humble Bundle, Inc. is a digital storefront for video games, which grew out of its original offering of Humble Bundles, collections of games sold at a price determined by the purchaser and with a portion of the price going towards charity and the rest split between the game developers.”
🎮 Fanatical., Similar to Humble, bundling game, software and books.
“Fanatical is a United Kingdom-based online video game retailer. It has sold more than 80 million officially authorised game keys to over two million customers globally. Fanatical has a catalogue of over 8,000 games from more than 1,000 game publishers and developers.”
Educational
Other
🎮 Kinthdom games reviews. Steam games curator.