Do you have a monitor so big it makes your screen looks empty when you only have one website opened in browser? This probably happens to those that uses wide screen monitors. Firefox browser comes with a sidebar that allows you to run web applications on it. So while doing the surfing on the right side, you too can have something running on the left sidebar. It greatly increases productivity if the entire browser is fully utilized.

Here is 20 Useful Web Applications you can place on Firefox Sidebars.

1. FaceBook Chat

   If you are using Firefox, you can place the Facebook Chat at the sidebar.

   

2. Online Video (YouTube, Metacafe, Dailymotion)

   YouPlayer is a video player with playlist which works on Firefox
   sidebar while you are surfing the Internet on the right.

   

3. Google Reader

   If you are a big fan of both Google Reader and Firefox, you’ll be interested to know that Google’s iPhone version of Reader is a perfect fit for the Firefox
   sidebar.

   

4. Gtalk

   Put the Google Talk client in the Firefox
   sidebar so it always stays in the foreground no matter what website you are on currently.

   

5. Google Notebook

   Take the Google personalized homepage widget for Google Notebook and add it to the
   sidebar of Firefox.

   

6. Meebo

   Browse away in Firefox, but Meebo follows along in a
   sidebar.

   

7. Google Calendar

   Now you can access your Google Calendar and upcoming events on your agenda without pulling up a new web page.

   

8. Twitter

   Quickly and easily send and receive messages via twitter in your firefox
   browser.

   

9. iGoogle

   View your Google Personalized Home page modules in the
   sidebar with an optimized layout.

   

10. FriendFeed

    Put Friendfeed into your firefox
    sidebar in two simple steps.

    

11. iPhone Applications – Facebook, goMoves and iZoho

    Even though you might not have an iPhone, there is still a chance that you can use them with Firefox’s
    sidebar.

    

12. Google Applications – Gmail and Google Docs

    Step-by-step how to embed every Google Application in your left
    sidebar in a matter of seconds.

    

13. Google Maps

    If you’re finding yourself switching between Google Maps and another
    browser window of non-mapped addresses, this Firefox add-on might be the answer!

    

14. Flickr

    Browse and search flickr photos in a
    sidebar.

    

15. LookWayUp Dictionary

    Look up a term in the dictionary in the
    sidebar by pressing Alt [.

    

16. Plurk

    The Plurk Mobile
    Sidebar comes complete with Firefox 2 & 3 support, a headless thing button for your toolbar and a keyboard shortcut.

    

17. WordPress Dot Com

    Get quick access to your wordpress.com account from your
    browser
    sidebar.

    

18. Gabbly Chat

    Chat using the AJAX application, gabbly.com from the
    sidebar.

    

19. Del.icio.us

    Access and maintain your del.icio.us account. Easily delete, edit and search your bookmarks from the
    sidebar.

    

20. Yoono

    In a single
    browser
    sidebar, Yoono users can interact with the best of the Web more than ever before by discovering, communicating, and sharing with friends across multiple networks and platforms all in one place.

    

Screen capture, or print screen is perhaps the most efficient way to share whatever appears on your desktop. They help tech users like us to share and communicate better with friends and peers. Major operating systems today comes with basic screen capture and print screen function, but if these can’t fulfill what you need from a screen capture then you are probably looking for a screen capturing tool.

Screen capturing tools do what the basic tool don’t. What these tools could do varies, including the ability to include sketches and text, instantly upload image online, audio capturing, dimension-specific capturing and more. Make your screen capture and sharing experience more interesting, here’s a showcase of 40+ Free Screen Capturing Tools and Related Techniques.  

Cross Platform

We love cross platform tools. No more worries when you are all too familiar with one tool and needs to get the job done on a different operating system.

• Jing Project

  A project of Techsmith, Jing has the ability to do instance image and video capturing. Aside from that, you can also do sketches on the image and share them online. Speaking from functionality point of view, being free tool is definetely a steal. [Download: Windows, Mac]

  

• Evernote

  Saying Evernote has cross platform supporting ability seems to be slightly inaccurate, instead it’s multi-platform. This awesome tool not only runs on Windows and Mac, it also supports iPhone, Windows Mobile and even websites. You’ve got to check out the video to see how great it is. [Download: Windows, Mac, more]

  

• WebKut

  Capture web pages in whole or parts. And because it’s developed with Adobe AIR, you bet it’s cross-platform. It captures web screenshots, the only problem is – it’s not attached to the browser. [Download]

  

• Websnapshot

  Yet another Adobe AIR application to take website snap shots. [Downloads]

  

Windows Only

By default, you can only do a full page and active window print screen on Windows. The following tools give you much more flexibility.

• ZScreen

  Open-source screen capture program that allows for region/window/full-screen screenshots. It can FTP screenshots and put the URL in your clipboard in a single keystroke. It supports automatic custom naming conventions with variables. [Download]

  

• Screenshot Captor

  Behave like most screen capture software. The most interesting part is – you can run it from a USB thumbdrive. Talking about print screen portability. [Download]

• Cropper

  Cropper is a screen capture utility written in C# on the Microsoft .Net platform. [Download]

• Capture

  Capture is a quick-and-easy screen capture utility for Windows (and NT), which allows you to capture the entire screen, at any color depth and resolution, and save it into a Bitmap file for editing. [Download]

• MWSnap

  Small yet powerful Windows program for snapping (capturing) images from selected parts of the screen. [Download]

  

• ScreenPrint32

  Free windows tool to print and/or capture to disk or clipboard, the full desktop, active window, predefined area, or user selected area of the screen. [Download]

• Snippy

  Useful free tool to copy webpage screenshot for sharing purposes. Interesting thing is that, when you cutting out a portion of an Internet Explorer window, the URL will also be copied to the clipboard; this makes it very convenient to select something interesting on a Web site and send it out in an email message. [Download]

• SWBCapture

  Screen capture utility that allows you to quickly and easily capture an image of any window on your desktop, or the entire desktop. [Download]

• Screen Grab Pro

  Screen Grab Pro features one-click grab of any screen for ease of use, Timer operation, Current window selection list and more. [Download]

  

• Wisdom-Soft ScreenHunter

  Wisdom-Soft ScreenHunter is a free screen-capture tool for you to easily take screenshots. ScreenHunter can capture a full screen, an active window, the client window, or a rectangular area. [Download]

• Gadwin PrintScreen

  Capture screenshots with ease. [Download]

  

• FastStone Capture

  Light and powerful screen capture application with whole screen, object-selective and region screencapture ability. Save files in various formats, BMP, GIF, JPEG, PCX, PNG, TGA, TIFF and PDF. [Download]

  

Mac Only

Here are some of the most commonly used screen capturing tools for the Mac enthusiast.

• Capture Me

  Flexible screen capture and recording utility for Mac OS X which features a floating capture window, several saving options, and resize ability. [Download]

  

• Backdrop

  Simple utility to fill your screen with a giant blank window. Fill the window with a solid color or a custom image, your choice so you can take clean nice printscreen. [Download]

  

• Skitch

  Skitch is not solely a screen capture tool. It allows you to capture screen shots of any application, chat moments and the ability to sketch on the screen shots. You can then upload it to share with friends. A printscreen tool injected with some fun. [Download]

  

• InstantShot!

  InstantShot! offers classical screenshot functionality for capturing the whole screen, a portion of it or a window and also the option to make timed screenshots or to make delayed captures over time. It offers a wide range of preferences and options to fit everyone’s needs. [Download]

  

• Paparazzi!

  Written in Objective-C and the WebKit framework, this small utility is suitable for those who wants to do simple screen shots in their Mac. [Download]

  

• Screenshot Helper

  Screenshot Helper shows a full screen window with a solid color or a desktop picture so that you can take clean screenshots without having irrelevant windows and desktop icons in the background. [Download]

  

• SnapNDrag

  SnapNDrag lets you take a screenshot by just clicking a button and dragging the resulting screenshot off, perhaps one of the simplest and easiet to use Mac printscreen tool we’ve seen. [Download]

  

• About Timed Screenshot 1.1

  A light screen capturing tool that runs in background until you kill the process (in Terminal) or logout. [Download]

• Copernicus

  Mac application for speed screenshot taking and video capturing (no audio). It’s also a virtual photo gallery. [Download]

  

Linux

Screen capturing tools for Linux users.

• XscreenCapture

  XscreenCapture allows you to capture an X11 dump from any Linux client with X11 port open. It will also convert and save automatically the result picture in the desidered compress format (default PNG). [Download]

• Xvidcap

  Screen capture enabling you to capture videos off your X-Window desktop for illustration or documentation purposes. [Download]

Web Tools

These web tools go beyond screen capturing of your desktop. It allows you to print screen any website, all the way from header to footer.

• Browsershot

  Free web service that shows you how your website looks like in different browser of different version. A must tool for web developers on a browser compatibility check.

  

• ScreenShots.jp

  Similar to Browsershots, this free web services is for those who understand Japanese.

  

• Super Screenshot

  Simple web service for those who wants quick print screens. No compatibility check of different browser or versions available.

• Clip2Net

  Clip2Net allows you to capture, sketch and share screencaptures online instantly. Good tool to communicate ideas with peers. [Download]

  

• Websnapr

  As the name suggest, it snaps thumbnail screenshot of any webites. All you need to do is enter the URL and hit capture. Comes with plugins you to facilitate blogging and web publishing.

• Thumbalizr

  Yet another online web thumbnail generator. Comes with API.

• Browsrcamp

  Test the compatibility of your design with Mac OS X browsers. Free web screenshot tool build on Mac OSX Leopard.

Firefox Plugins

Screen capturing plugin for Firefox browser. They prints the lower fold screens you don’t see.

• Screengrab!

  Firefox plugin with the ability to printscreen entire upper-fold and lower-fold of any browsing websites. Instead of saving the screenshot to a file, you can copy it to clipboard. [Install]

• FireShot

  Firefox extension that creates screenshots of web pages. Comes with sets of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify web captures and insert text annotations and graphical annotations. Somehow it’s nota available for Firefox on Mac OSX [Install]

  

Further Readings

• Screen Shot Tips & Tricks!

  Five simple things you can do to make your screen shots look better on-screen.

• How to Create a Perfect Screenshot Painlessly

  How to create a screenshot of any web page or capture any screen event. Step by step instructions are given for Photoshop, but you could also use this tutorial with Corel PhotoPaint or Paint Shop Pro or even MS Paint.

• How To Capture a Screen Shot with the Snipping Tool

  Learn how to make screenshots in Vista with the build-in Snipping Tool.

Video editing could be very money consuming due to its requirements for large harddisks storage, high computer performance and expensive video editing software. It makes nearly impossible for end user like us to afford the fun of video editing.

At the point this articles created, Adobe After Effect CS3 still cost about USD 998 per copy while Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 costs about USD798 per copy. This point is, if you are not going to use them frequently, it is really not worth getting a copy for just couple of two video editing. There is tonnes of free tools that do the job fairly well. Here we brings you 30 free web services and tools for video editings. You do not pay a penny while enjoying the fun of video clips editing.  

Free Web Services

1. Eyespot

   Eyespot provides video editing and sharing software that can be easily embedded in any website. Eyespot allows you to apply special effects, transitions and even audio dubbing to your videos.

   

2. Jumpcut

   Jumpcut is an online video editing and remixing website that lets you edit your videos, create slideshows and post them on any webpage. You can add transitions, titles, effects, and audio dubbing.

   

3. VideoEgg

   VideoEgg is a video editing platform that lets you create a movie, edit it, while adding effects, making slide shows, create mash-ups, etc- all from withen your browser.

   

4. PhotoBucket

   Photobucket lets you edit your videos using Flash and lets you remix your photos, home videos with cool effects, video captions, transitions and other things.

   

5. YouTube Remixer

   YouTube Remixer lets you add effects and graphics, text and audio, overlays and transitions to your YoutTube Video, directly in your browser.

   

6. Movie Masher

   Movie masher allows you to sequence and trim clips, add effects, transitions, titles, and music, using a familiar timeline editor.

   

7. Cellsea

   Cellsea is a free
   online video editor. Cellsea allows you to add effects, change size, add sound or simply to convert their videos to another format—eg 3G for mobile use, MP4 for iPod or PSP etc.

   

8. JayCut

   JayCut is a flash-based
   online video editor. To add clips, music, transitions, or effects to the timeline you simply drag and drop them into place.

   

9. One True Media

   One True Media mixes your
   photos and videos with effects to create something wow-worthy.

   

10. MotionBox

    This service features the ability to link to a very specific point or “segment” within the clip itself.

    

11. Vidavee Graffiti

    Vidavee graffiti adds graphics and text into any video; the service is called a “legal form of artful vandalism” by the creators.

    

12. Stash Space

    Stash space allows you to upload, store and edit your videos online. You can also record videos directly from your camcorder or digital camera.

    

13. Kaltura

    Kaltura’s open source platform enables any site to seamlessly and cost–effectively integrate advanced interactive rich–media functionality, including video searching, uploading, importing, editing, annotating, remixing, and sharing.

    

14. Editor One

    With EditorOne, visitors can edit and publish their own videos on virtually any Website.

    

Free Downloadable Tools

1. Avidemux

   Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs.

   

2. Windows Movie Maker

   Windows Movie Maker is an equipment you need to make digital movies andget footage from your camera to your computer. You can create, edit and add special effects to your home movie and share them with friends and family.

   

3. Jahshaka

   Jahshaka lets you to edit with flexibility and create effects in real time. You can alsopaint and design on moving video.

   

4. VirtualDub

   VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for
   video editor with lots of features, including a choice of compression codecs, splitting, addition of audio tracks.

   

5. ZS4 Video Editor

   ZS4
   Video Editor is video editing and composting software which provides media experts with a facility to combine a variety of media types (currently
   photos, videos and audio files) into one (or more) output file(s).

   

6. Wax

   The idea for Wax is to be very general purpose and flexible in video compositing and effects, so that you can compose your dream video sequence with ease everytime.

   

7. Vivia

   Vivia is a video editing program for Linux and Windows that offers very user-friendly editing of DV video material.

   

8. AVIEdit

   AVIedit allows you to join and split avi files, extract frames and perform video warping, color restore, noise reduction and so on.

   

9. AVI Trimmer

   AVI Trimmer is a free
   video editor for fast and lossless AVI editing. This freeware AVI editor is small, smart, easy to use and involves no encoding/decoding processes.

   

10. VideoSpin

    VideoSpin is free
    video editing software that allows you to create your own movie clips in minutes using your own videos and pictures.

    

11. Zwei-Stein

    Zwei-Stein is a freeware non-linear, non-destructive video compositing and editing system which offers many advanced features

    

12. DVD Knife

    DVD Knife is a simple tool for extracting DVD clips from your DVD’s. This is the simplest and fastest tool in its category which has ability to extract long VOB clips in few seconds.

    

13. SuperDVD Video Editor

    SuperDVD
    Video Editor is a all-in-one solution for home video editing and authing.

    

14. VideoThang

    VideoThang enables you to mix video clips with images and background music (.mp3), and save the result as MPEG file for sharing via email, web upload or file on your local drive.

    

15. AVITricks Video Editor

    AviTricks is a non-linear, non-destructive AVI
    video editor with real-time preview. It makes cutting and joining footage easy and includes a wide range of built-in adjustable effects that can be used separately or in combination.

    

16. Mewa Film

    Mewa Film is an innovative editorial, effects and finishing video editing application.

    

A digital audio editor is defined as a computer application for manipulating digital audio. As a multimedia creator, we normally use audio editor for recording audio, edit the duration and timeline, mix multiple sound tracks, apply simple effects for audio enhancement and create conversion between different audio file formats.

There are countless ways that digital audio editor can be used, and fortunately there are plenty of good and free digital audio editors out there to help you with your own implementation. So if you’re thinking to purchase a license for Adobe Audition, Cool Edit or Soundforge, hold that thought first. Not to say they aren’t cool, but it’s always wiser to tryout free applications before going to the pay deal.

1. Audacity

   Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It allows you to record live audio, converts tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs, edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files. You also can cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together with Audacity. Built-in effects are given to remove static, hiss, hum or other constant background noises.

   

2. Power Sound Editor

   Power Sound Editor Free is a visual audio editing and recording software solution, which supports many advanced and powerful operations with audio data.

   You can use Power Sound Editor Free to record your own music, voice, or other audio files, edit it, mix it with other audio or musical parts, add effects like Reverb, Chorus, and Echo, and burn it on a CD, post it on the World Wide Web or e-mail it.

   

3. mp3DirectCut

   mp3DirectCut is a fast and extensive audio editor and recorder for compressed mp3. You can directly cut, copy, paste or change the volume with no need to decompress your files for audio editing. Using Cue sheets, pause detection or Auto cue you can easily divide long files.

   

4. Music Editor Free

   Music Editor Free (MEF) is a multi-award winning music editor software tool. MEF helps you to record and edit music and sounds. It lets you make and edit music, voice and other audio recordings. When editing audio files you can cut, copy and paste parts of recordings and, if required, add effects like echo, amplification and noise reduction.

   

5. Wavosaur

   Wavosaur is a free sound editor, audio editor, wav editor software for editing, processing and recording sounds, wav and mp3 files. Wavosaur has all the features to edit audio (cut, copy, paste, etc.) produce music loops, analyze, record, batch convert. Wavosaur supports VST plugins, ASIO driver, multichannel wav files, real time effect processing. The program has no installer and doesn’t write in the registry. Use it as a free mp3 editor, for mastering, sound design.

   

6. Traverso DAW

   Traverso DAW is a GPL licensed, cross platform multitrack audio recording and editing suite, with an innovative and easy to master User Interface. It’s suited for both the professional and home user, who needs a robust and solid DAW. Adding and removal of effects plugins, moving Audio Clips and creating new Tracks during playback are all perfectly safe, giving you instant feedback on your work!

   

7. Ardour

   Ardour is a digital audio workstation. You can use it to record, edit and mix multi-track audio. You can produce your own CDs, mix video soundtracks, or just experiment with new ideas about music and sound. Ardour capabilities include: multichannel recording, non-destructive editing with unlimited undo/redo, full automation support, a powerful mixer, unlimited tracks/busses/plugins, timecode synchronization, and hardware control from surfaces like the Mackie Control Universal. If you’ve been looking for a tool similar to ProTools, Nuendo, Pyramix, or Sequoia, you might have found it.

   

8. Rosegarden

   Rosegarden is a well-rounded audio and MIDI sequencer, score editor, and general-purpose music composition and editing environment. Rosegarden is an easy-to-learn, attractive application that runs on Linux, ideal for composers, musicians, music students, and small studio or home recording environments.

   

9. Hydrogen

   Hydrogen is an advanced drum machine for GNU/Linux. It’s main goal is to bring professional yet simple and intuitive pattern-based drum programming.

   

10. WavePad Sound Editor

    WavePad Sound Editor lets you make and edit music, voice and other audio recordings. When editing audio files you can cut, copy and paste parts of recordings and, if required, add effects like echo, amplification and noise reduction. WavePad works as a wav editor or mp3 editor but it also supports a number of other file formats including vox, gsm, real audio, au, aif, flac, ogg and more.

    

11. Sound Engine

    SoundEngine is the best tool for personal use, because it enables you to easily edit a wave data while it has many functions required for a mastering process.

    

12. Expstudio Audio Editor

    Expstudio Audio Editor is a visual music file editor that has many different options and a multiple functionality to edit your music files like editing text files. With a given audio data it can perform many different operations such as displaying a waveform image of an audio file, filtering, applying various audio effects, format conversion and more.

    

13. DJ Audio Editor

    DJ Audio Editor is easy-to-use and well-organized audio application which allows you to perform various operations with audio data. You can create and edit audio files professionally, also displaying a waveform image of audio file makes your work faster.

    

14. Eisenkraut

    Eisenkraut is a cross-platform audio file editor. It requires Java 1.4+ and SuperCollider 3. It supports multi-channel and multi-mono files and floating-point encoding. An OSC scripting interface and experimental sonagramme functionality are provided.

    

15. FREE WAVE MP3 Editor

    Free Wave MP3 Editor is a sound editor program for Windows. This software lets you make and edit voice and other audio recordings. You can cut, copy and paste parts of recording and, if required, add effects like echo, amplification and noise reduction.

    

16. Kangas Sound Editor

    Fun Kangaroo-themed program that allows the user to create music and sound effects. It uses a system of frequency ratios for pitch control, rather than conventional music notation and equal temperament. It allows instruments, both musical and percussion, to be created.

    

17. Ecawave

    Ecawave is a simple graphical audio file editor. The user-interface is based on Qt libraries, while almost all audio functionality is taken directly from ecasound libraries. As ecawave is designed for editing large audio files, all processing is done direct-to-disk. Simple waveform caching is used to speed-up file operations. Ecawave supports all audio file formats and effect algorithms provided by ecasound libraries. This includes JACK, ALSA, OSS, aRts, over 20 file formats, over 30 effect types, LADSPA plugins and multi-operator effect presets.

    

18. Audiobook Cutter

    Audiobook Cutter splits your MP3 audio books and podcasts in a fast and user friendly way. The split files can easily be used on mobile MP3 players because of their small-size. Their duration allows smooth navigation through the book. The split points are determined automatically based on silence detection.

    

19. Jokosher

    Jokosher is a simple yet powerful multi-track studio. With it you can create and record music, podcasts and more, all from an integrated simple environment.

    

20. LMMS

    LMMS is a free cross-platform alternative to commercial programs like FL Studio, which allow you to produce music with your computer. This includes the creation of melodies and beats, the synthesis and mixing of sounds, and arranging of samples. You can have fun with your MIDI-keyboard and much more; all in a user-friendly and modern interface.

    

21. Mp3Splt

    Mp3Splt-project is a utility to split mp3 and ogg files selecting a begin and an end time position, without decoding. It’s very useful to split large mp3/ogg to make smaller files or to split entire albums to obtain original tracks. If you want to split an album, you can select split points and filenames manually or you can get them automatically from CDDB (internet or a local file) or from .cue files. Supports also automatic silence split, that can be used also to adjust cddb/cue splitpoints. You can extract tracks from Mp3Wrap or AlbumWrap files in few seconds.

    

22. Qtractor

    Qtractor is an Audio/MIDI multi-track sequencer application written in C++ with the Qt4 framework. Target platform is Linux, where the Jack Audio Connection Kit (JACK) for audio, and the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA) for MIDI, are the main infrastructures to evolve as a fairly-featured Linux desktop audio workstation GUI, specially dedicated to the personal home-studio.

    

23. ReZound

    ReZound aims to be a stable, open source, and graphical audio file editor primarily for.

    

24. Sweep

    Sweep is an audio editor and live playback tool for GNU/Linux, BSD and compatible systems. It supports many music and voice formats including WAV, AIFF, Ogg Vorbis, Speex and MP3, with multichannel editing and LADSPA effects plugins.

    

25. Wavesurfer

    WaveSurfer is an Open Source tool for sound visualization and manipulation. It has been designed to suit both novice and advanced users. WaveSurfer has a simple and logical user interface that provides functionality in an intuitive way and which can be adapted to different tasks.

    

Let us face it, you cannot be monitoring your website 24-7 but still for webmasters who are generating revenue from their website, you need to be there as soon as possible to fix thing up when there is a downtime, or else you will potentially suffer a revenue lost. For those who are not making money from their websites, there is still a hit on reputation if the site has gone down for hours  and the owner wasn’t aware. You could lose visitors, or worst, loyal followers.

Fortunately, there are web services that check your website from time to time and notifies you so you can get your hands on it when there is a downtime. Here’s a compilation of various Web Services and Tools to Monitor Website Uptime and Downtime.  

Free Web Monitoring

If you have not done this before, it is good to start with a free tracker. There are plenty of web services that track your website status without needing to pay a penny. That of course, comes with some limitation and it varies between service providers. Together with the list compiled, we highlight some information you might want to know:

1. Mon.itor.us

   

   Not only they monitors more than 120,000 sites, Mon.itor.us also offer services like Internal Monitoring and Visitors Tracking. [Read more]

   Frequency: 5 mins
   Premium Services: Yes
   upported Protocols: HTTP/HTTPS, POP3, IMAP, FTP, TCP/IP, more

2. Site Uptime

   

   SiteUptime is a
   website monitoring service that checks
   your website at regular intervals and notifies you via email or SMS if it becomes unavailable. [Read more]

   Frequency: 30 mins
   Premium Services: Yes
   upported Protocols: N/A
   Alert via: Email, SMS
   

3. Internet Seer

   

   Perhaps one of the largest web monitoring service available. Services include Availability Monitoring, Performance Monitoring, Link and Image Checking, Transaction Monitoring, Historical and Detailed Check and Alert Reporting. [Read more]

   Frequency: 5 mins
   Premium Services: Yes
   upported Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP. POP3 and other Ports
   

4. Site 24×7

   

   Site24×7 is the easier, faster and more effective way to monitor the uptime and performance of your web sites, online services and servers. [Read more]

   Frequency: 60 mins
   Premium Services: Yes
   upported Protocols: HTTP, DNS,
   Alert via: Email, SMS, RSS
   

5. HyperSpin

   

   
   Website monitoring, web server monitoring & server monitoring from worldwide locations. [Read more]

   Frequency: 1 Hour
   Premium Services: Yes
   upported Protocols: Ping, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SSH, SMTP, DNS, POP3, IMAP, MySQL, and any arbitrary services running on TCP/IP
   Alert via: Email, SMS
   

6. HostTracker

   

   
   Web monitoring service that allows you to do an instant site check. [Read more]

   Frequency: 30 mins
   Premium Services: Yes
   upported Protocols: HTTP
   Alert via: Email, ICQ, GTalk, SMS
   

7. Dotcom Monitors

   

   Services include Web Site Monitoring, Web Application and Business Transaction, Monitoring, Network Device Monitoring, Reporting, Analysis and Graphs, Alerts, Notifications and Escalation, Web Load Stress Test, Multi-User Support. [Read more]

   Frequency: 60 mins
   upported Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SMTP, POP3, DNS, FTP, SOAP, Video, Audio
   Premium Services: Yes
   

8. Site Probe

   

   SiteProbe is a tool that checks the status of
   your website hourly, 24
   hours a day, 7 days a week. This gives the webmaster more time to be creative and improve his/her content instead of constantly worrying about whether or not the site is “up”. [Read more]

   Frequency: 60 mins
   Premium Services: Yes
   upported Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, SMTP, and POP3
   

9. FreeBackup.info

   

   Enjoy the security of always having
   your website watched! [Read more]

   Frequency: N/A
   Premium Services: No
   upported Protocols: HTTP
   Alert via: Email, SMS
   

10. Killer Website Monitor

    

    The Killer Web site Monitor is FREE and easy to set up – you can be up and running in less than a minute! [Read more]

    Frequency: 1 Hour
    Premium Services: Yes
    upported Protocols: HTTP
    

11. Vertain

    Monitor the uptime and performance of
    your website, get alerted on all problems that effect users, such as availability, timeouts and content changes, before your users see them. No setup or maintenance cost, no scripts to record or maintain, no intrusive agents to install on your server. [Read more]

    Frequency: N/A
    Premium Services: No
    upported Protocols: HTTP
    Alert via: Email, SMS, Phone
    

12. Uptrends

    

    Uptrends was founded by the founders of OneStat.com, one of the largest global real-time web analytics providers with clients such as Cornell University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Thomas Cook, HP and FujiFilm. [Read more]

    Frequency: 30 mins
    Premium Services: Yes
    upported Protocols: N/A
    Alert via: Email, SMS, RSS
    

13. Uptime Party

    

    Server monitoring for your small business or personal web sites has never been easier. [Read more]

    Frequency: 60 mins
    Premium Services: Yes
    upported Protocols: HTTP
    

14. Service Uptime

    

    ServiceUptime is free remote website uptime monitoring designed to help you detect website downtime which can mean lost revenue and profits. [Read more]

    Frequency: 60 mins
    Premium Services: Yes
    upported Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, POP3, DNS, IMAP, SMTP, IMAP, more
    

15. Internet Vista

    

    InternetVista is a monitoring infrastructure that watches over
    your website 24
    hours a day and 7 days a week. If it is unavailable or malfunctioning, you are immediately notified by email and by SMS. [Read more]

    Frequency: 60 mins
    Premium Services: Yes
    upported Protocols: HTTP
    Alert via: Email, SMS
    

16. EControlPortal.Net

    Free web-based monitoring service that keeps a constant watch over your Internet services. [Read more]

    Frequency: 5 mins
    Premium Services: No
    upported Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, PING, DNS, IMAP, POP3, RADIUS, NNTP, WEB CONTENT, AUTHORIZATION
    Alert via: Email
    

17. ServerMojo

    

    ServerMojo provides free monitoring service that will monitor your servers web, ping, dns, mysql and more and our system will check each one approximately every 15 minutes. [Read more]

    Frequency: 15 mins
    Premium Services: No
    upported Protocols: HTTP, DNS, MySQL, Ping
    Alert via: Email, SMS, Twitter, Jabber
    

18. UpPanel

    

    upPanel.com is a
    website monitoring service that watches your websites and alert you if one becomes unavailable. [Read more]

    Frequency: 30 mins
    Premium Services: Yes
    upported Protocols: HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, SSH, SMTP, MySQL, PING, more
    

19. WebsitePulse

    

    WebSitePulse is a web-based monitoring service that keeps a
    constant watch over your web site 24
    hours per day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks per year. When it detects that your web site is not responding, it will send notifications to you at all of your designated “contacts” for that sites. [Read more]

    Frequency: 60 mins
    Premium Services: Yes
    upported Protocols:HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, SSH, SMTP, MySQL, PING, more
    

20. Basic State

    

    Free web site uptime monitor service that alerts you in 15 minutes. [Read more]

    Frequency: 15 mins
    Premium Services: No
    upported Protocols: HTTP, DNS, Server

Free Tools

Not too keen depending on Internet Services? Try monitor
your website status with these desktop applications.

• SDL Website Monitor – A collection of scripts that allow a website to be monitored and/or tested. The monitor allows you to record pages by clicking through your site from your browser. These can then be periodically checked to ensure they are available and correct.
• Zabbix – enterprise-class open source distributed monitoring solution.
  
• Website Monitoring – Monitor all your websites with this free website monitoring application. Sits in the system tray, alerts you with an icon notification and an email if
  your website is down or running slowly. Runs as a windows service so it will run even if not logged onto the machine.
• Google Desktop Gadget Website Monitor – Watch
  your website uptime/downtime right on your desktop.
  
• Nagios – Open Source host, service and network monitoring program.

Paid Services

Free is good, but paid services guarantees more options and checks
your website more frequent. If you are serious and want to get close to real-time getting notification when your site is down, we recommend these following services.

• Wormly – Trusted by notable clients like Nokia, SitePoints, etc. Wormly gets you started in less than 10 minutes with price as low as 9.00 monthly.
• AlertSite – Get a comprehensive view of your web site’s performance and availability, with detailed breakdowns of DNS resolution, TCP connect, content download, redirect times and more.
• Pingdom – Monitor
  your website and servers and let you know right away when anything goes wrong. Get the facts and stay on top of things with Pingdom.
• OpenTracker – Opentracker is a web site tracking tool built for website analysis. Analyze website statistics and monitor visitors online & ‘real time’.
• WatchMouse – WatchMouse performs all server checks from a customer perspective, thus ensuring that your customers don’t experience problems accessing your servers or services.

Other Solutions

Miscellaneous ways to track website downtime.

• Build a C# Web Site Monitor Service with Email and MSN Messenger Notification – If you prefer to develop the monitoring service instead of signing up with the above mentioned providers, this article is for you.
• Down For Everyone or Just Me? – An interestingly simple site to check if the website is down, or it’s just you.

Due to the popularity of digital camera, image editing program are readily available. We believe Adobe Photoshop is still the most powerful program on market which perform a large variety of advanced image manipulations. However, not everyone will afford to get a copy for popular raster-based digital image editors like Adobe Photoshops if all one need to do is just basic image editing.

 We have previously published 11 Free Adobe Photoshop Alternatives, and we encourage that you check it out too.

Photobie

1. Photobie is image editing software that combines features amateurs can use with advanced tools professionals will appreciate. Photobie is free for personal use with no Pro upgrade to pay for - all features are free.

   

2. Photo! Editor

   Photo! Editor is powerful multifunctional software offering a complete set of image editing tools. It contains anything a digital camera owner might need to correct or enhance their photos. You will enjoy the ultimate convenience and professional approach provided by each of the tools. With Photo! Editor, you can remove red eye instantly, enhance the color of the image, make funny caricatures, add astonishing lighting effects, straighten, resample and crop images. The Denoise tool is one of the world’s best to effectively remove luminance and color noise from digital images made under poor lighting conditions. You will also appreciate the Make Up tool that offers a complete set of retouching filters to make the best of your portrait photos.

   

3. Phantasmagoria

   Phantasmagoria is a fun, light-weight image editing application. The main focus is to apply effects to images, along with the basic editing that might be required after a sub-par shoot. In other words, what most of us actually need.

   

4. Image Analyzer

   Image Analyzer is an advanced image editing, enhancement and analysis software. The program contains both most image enhancement features found in conventional image editors plus a number of advanced features not even available in professional photo suites.

   

5. Artweaver

   Artweaver is a Windows Freeware program to simulate natural brush tools. It is therefore suitable to leave your creativity free run. Artweaver offers you a clear program window, which can be used without training immediately.

   

6. Active Pixels

   Active Pixels resembles Photoshop in many aspects, from the way menus and windows are laid out on its interface to the keyboard shortcuts used for many actions. It also includes similar tools, like the magic wand, the gradient, the polygonal lasso and others. What’s more, it supports working with layers. Active Pixels also includes some extra embedded apps, such as a red-eye fixer, a picture browser and a screen capture tool – although it only grabs full-screen images.

   

7. Photoscape

   Photoscape is the fun and easy photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance photos. Photoscape has a very powerful editor for you to perform resizing, brightness and color adjustment, white balance, backlight correction, frames, balloons, mosaic mode, adding text, drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red eye removal and blooming.

   

8. VCW VicMan’s Photo Editor

   VCW VicMan’s Photo Editor is a versatile image editor with an intuitive interface and a wide variety of features. This powerful application is user friendly, offering simple image editing, high productivity and easy customization.

   

9. PaintStar

   PaintStar is a versatile digital image processing software suitable for such tasks as retouching of photographs, composing and authoring images, image morphing, screen capture, and displaying image thumbnail in Windows Explorer context menu. It supports alpha, layer, path ,and the most common editing techniques.

   

10. Helicon Filter

    Helicon Filter is a complete image editing solution for the digital photographer. Its easy and intuitive interface, live preview feature, and in context help ensure an easy start for beginners. The program is built as step by step workflow guiding you through all post processing stages.

    

11. Evan’s Image Editor

    Evan’s Image Editor (EIE) is a free image editor that allows for editing and creation of animated or still images. It contains several GPU-powered image modifiers that take advantage of modern graphics hardware, giving you an instant preview of the effect while you adjust parameters.

    

12. Free Image Editor

    Free Image Editor is a bitmap image-editing application that lets you retouch existing photos or create original graphics. Free Image Editor provides a rich graphics toolset for digital photography, print production and Web design.

    

13. Photo Pos Lite

    Photo Pos Lite is a free lite version of the award-wining photo editor Photo Pos Pro. Using the Lite version you can edit, enhance and manipulate your pictures easily. You can edit and optimize your pictures, print it, resize it, convert it to another format and much more. The editor also includes some great drawing and painting tools for creating computer graphics. Support of scanners and digital cameras, Various of Image Enhancing and editing tools and functions, Paint Brush Tool, Shapes Tool, Clone Brush Tool, Rich Text Tools, Special Effects, Selection Tools, Simple Gradients and more.

    

14. MAGIX Xtreme Photo Designer

    In MAGIX Xtreme Graphic Designer your photos will be edited quickly and precisely. Its comprehensive set of features gives your less successful shots a helping hand and assists in transforming your photo ideas into reality. An intelligent Task Wizard explains simple and complex editing steps, resulting in successful image editing, fast!

    

Portable Document Format (PDF) has been widely used for electronic documents in our daily life, either in work or personal file exchange. According to Adobe, PDF has been around for more than 15 years, with more than 250 million circulating on the Internet. But why PDF, and not the typical text files, docs, etc? Adobe has a good answer for that – Multiplatform, Extensible, Trusted and reliable, Rich in file integrity, More secure, Searchable and Accessible.

We present you 80+ Free Tools, Tips and Resources to help you master and get the best out of PDF documents. Full list after jump.

PDF Converters

Online Tools

1. PDFTextOnline – Extract text from PDF and makes these text copy-able.
2. ShowPDF – A PDF-to-HTML converter.
3. FreePDFConvert – Convert MS Office, Images, Web Pages, Vector Graphic Formats files to PDF or Convert PDF to Word (doc) or Excel (xls) document, extract Images from PDF.
   
4. Document Converter eXPress – Convert files to PDF or Image without the need of installing special software.
   
5. Web2PDF Online – A free HTML to PDF Conversion service for your websites that allows your visitors to quickly save useful information in your blogs and websites to PDF files.
   
6. Lettos – DOC to ODT & PDF, ODT to PDF a DOC, PDF to TXT
7. PDFIt – A Firefox extension that allows you to convert any page into a PDF through a online service provided by Touchpdf.com.
8. htm2PDF – A service to convert your webpages to PDF
9. Zamzar – A free online file conversion that able to convert PDF to many document formats.
   
10. PDFOnline – Convert documents to PDF, PDF service for iPhone, web to PDF and PDF to word.
11. KoolWire – Just send your documents to pdf@koolwire.com, then you will receive a converted file in PDF format.
    
12. HTML2PDF.BIZ – Web Service & API that converts your Website into PDF.
13. ExpressPDF – ExpressPDF is an online service that lets you convert your Microsoft Office documents to PDF.
14. Online PDF Converter – You can convert you PDF file to text or image (JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF) absolutely free.
15. PDFText – Converts your PDF (Acrobat) file to plain text.
16. RSS2PDF – Free Online RSS, Atom or OPML to PDF Generator.
17. PDF-o-matic – A simple PHP script that uses HTMLDOC to convert the web page of your choice.
18. LOOP – A free web-based service that allows you to convert and combine files to PDF.
19. FeedJournal – Convert RSS and Atom feeds into PDF newspaper.
20. BookletCreator – A free online tool that allows to create a booklet from a PDF document.

Offline Tools

1. doPDF – With one click you can convert your Microsoft Excel, Word or PowerPoint documents or your emails and favorite web sites to PDF files.
   
2. PDF995 -  Pdf995 makes it easy and affordable to create professional-quality documents in the popular PDF file format.
3. BullZip -  BullZip PDF Printer works as a Microsoft Windows printer and allows you to write
   PDF documents from virtually any Microsoft Windows application.
4. PrimoPDF -  Create PDF files from 300+ file types and optimized for print, screen, ebook, or prepress.
   
5. PDFConverter Desktop – PDFConverter Desktop is Windows software which allow to convert your files to PDF directly from your desktop.
6. OmniFormat -  A free document conversion utility which allows dynamic conversion and image manipulation of over 75 file formats.
7. PDF to JPG – A complete solution for the conversion of
   PDF documents into JPG, TIFF or other graphical files.
   
8. PDF Image Converter – An easy-to-use application that converts PDF pages to image files with excellent quality.
9. PDF to Text Converter – Easy PDF to Text Converter can extract text from pdf files — it does NOT need Adobe Acrobat software.
10. PDF Ripper – Extract image, text, chart, formula from PDF files.
    
11. PDF to Word Doc Converter – A desktop document conversion tool to convert Adobe PDF file to Microsoft Word Doc file.
12. PDF Creator – An application for creating
    PDF documents from almost any windows application that is capable of printing.
13. Some PDF Convert Tools – Convert PDFs to DOC competently and in batch.
14. SWF Printer PRO –Convert documents (DOC,XLS, HTML etc) into both standalone flash movie (.swf) presentations with navigation and/or PDF document format with security options support.

PDF Creator & Editor

Online Tools

1. Google Docs – Google Docs is a free, Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation application offered by Google. It allows you to download file as PDF.
2. FreePDF.org – A PDF creator which is free and create your own pdf file with editor facility. Registration is required.
3. PDF Hammer – With PDF Hammer you can quickly and easily edit PDF files online, without the need to install anything.
   
4. PrimoPDFOnline – Free Online PDF Creator
   
5. PDFfiller – Online PDF Form Editor-Writer works on any form.
6. PDFescape – Your online PDF reader, editor, form filler and form designer.
7. gOffice Web Word Wizard – gOffice Web Word Wizard is a wrapper around Microsoft Word 2007. This means you can implement a subset of the features found in Word on your website.
   
8. Arcobat.com – Acrobat.com organizer for sharing files and creating PDFs and storing files.
9. PDFsharp–An Open Source library that easily creates
   PDF documents from any .NET language.
10. Zoho Tools – Zoho writer allows you to create a document online and save as PDF format.
11. O!pdf – Online PDF creator
12. Online PDF Creator – A very complete online PDF creator, comes with WYSIWYG editor.
    

Offline Tools

1. CutePDF Writer -  Create PDF for free, free PDF utilities, edit PDF easily.
2. OpenOffice.org -  A free and open productivity suite that allows you to save a document into PDF.
3. A-PDF INFO Changer -  A very simple tool, that lets you edit the properties of a PDF file, including author, title, subject and keywords. It does not require Adobe Acrobat.
   
4. Skim -  Skim is a PDF reader and note-taker for OS X. It is designed to help you read and annotate scientific papers in PDF.
   
5. PDFTools 1.3 – PDFTools is a PDF management application. It can encrypt, decrypt, join, split, stamp, create and rearrange a PDF file.
6. FPDF – FPDF is a PHP class which allows to generate PDF files with pure PHP.
7. PDF Text Reader – Convert PDF files to text or PDF to TXT.
    

PDF Readers

Online Tools

1. PDFMeNot – A free online PDF viewer.
   
2. Samurajdata – An online viewer, with which you can view PDF and PostScript files as browsable images and Word documents as web pages.

Offline Tools

1. Sumatra -  Sumatra PDF Portable is the lightweight Sumatra PDF packaged as a portable app, so you can view PDF files on the go.
   
2. Foxit Reader -  A free PDF document viewer, with incredible small size (only 2.55 M download size), breezing-fast launch speed and rich feature set.
3. Adobe Reader -  Easily view, print, and collaborate on PDF files with free Adobe Reader 9 software
4. Cool PDF Reader – The world’s smallest PDF viewer/reader to view, print, and convert PDF files to TXT, BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, WMF, EMF, EPS.
   
5. eXPert PDF Reader – A free pdf viewer software that lets you view and print
   pdf documents on windows operating systems.
6. PDF-XChange Viewer -  A smaller, faster and more feature rich than the Adobe Reader which has until now been the Reader of choice for PDF files.

PDF Tips & Related Tools

1. Insert a PDF into Powerpoint 
2. How to convert a PDF file to Word, Excel or JPG format
3. How to convert Powerpoint To PDF
4. How to capture links and embed in PDF
5. How to add Save as PDF button to your website or blog
6. How to Remove Watermarks from PDF Files
7. Docmetrics – Track Statistics for Your PDFs
8. Adobe Reader Speed-Up -  Allows you to significantly speed-up the time it takes to load the Adobe reader application.
9. A-PDF Number  – Add numbers to PDF pages
10. Scan2PDF – Enables you to scan paper documents and save them to PDF format on your computer for digital archiving or backup.
    
11. Combine PDFs – Merges multiple PDF files into one. (Mac only)
12. PDF Filler – PDFfiller lets you fill PDF Forms on-line
13. PDF Image Grabber – Allows you to take embedded images out of PDF Files.

PDF Resources

1. Issuu – A place for online publications: Magazines, catalogs, documents, and stuff you’d normally find on print.
   
2. Data-Sheet – A search engine specially designed for searching PDF files, powered by Google.
3. PDF Search Engine – PDF Search Engine allows you to search web for e-books with relative ease.
4. Scribd – Scribd is a free, web-based, document sharing community and self-publishing platform that enables anyone to easily publish, distribute, share, and discover documents of all kinds.
   
5. Calameo – A new publishing method that has an incredibly wide variety of options and is simple to use. From a PDF file, you create magazines, brochures, sales catalogs, annual reports, presentation brochures and etc.
6. Yudu Freedom – YUDU is a free online publishing service that lets you share your work with the world!
   
7. PlanetPDF – PDF user community – PDF softwares, events and newsletters.
   
8. VeryPDF- A Fascinating Entry To The PDF World