I have talked plenty of times with you before on free forum scripts you can easily setup and run from your web hosting account.  By far, the most unique one I have seen is Vanilla.  The Vanilla Forums script is a great open-source, standards compliant forum script.  However, that is not what impresses me.  The thing that impresses me the most is the fact that is stands out from the rest of the crowd and refreshes the idea of what a set of forums should look like.

What Makes Vanilla Special?

Now a simple audio podcast can not do justice to how graphically different this forum script looks and feels.  Rather than having a list of subforums, and within those having threads, right from the start you are seeing all of the most recent threads that have been posted on.  That brings you the proverbial meat and potatoes right off the bat.  You can categorize your posts into different subforums, but that is a secondary option rather than the first.  When you visit a forum, you want to see the new stuff first.  The fact that Vanilla-powered forums do that right off the bat is just amazing.  I wish more forum scripts would try this different approach.

You have full support for themes and add-ons, so you can really get down and dirty when it comes to customizing the look and feel you want your forums to have.  The documentation is lacking in a few areas, but overall it does get the job done.

Here are a few more amazing features that  I am sure you will enjoy:

• Embed Vanilla – You can very simply embed your set of Vanilla forums within your website.
• Social Connect – Let users sign into your forums with their login details from OpenID, Google, Twitter or Facebook.
• Vanilla Connect – quickly embed details about your Vanilla forum in your WordPress blog.

You can also import your forum posts from just about any other forum script into Vanilla with their easy import option too.

Overall, Vanilla amazes me, plain and simple.  If more script developers out there thought outside of the box like these guys do, we would have a wider selection of great looking websites.

You can go download Vanilla and install it yourself at vanillaforums.org.

When it comes to extensions, Firefox is king – with thousands upon thousands to choose from.  However, Google Chrome is just now starting to gain ground with the idea of having an extendable interface, so how many good web development extensions are there for this alternative browser from Google?  I did my search and found five of the best web development related extensions for the browser.

Speed Tracer

Speed Tracer is a tool to help you identify and fix performance problems in your web applications. It visualizes metrics that are taken from low level instrumentation points inside of the browser and analyzes them as your application runs.

Lorem Ipsum Generator

Chrome Extension that generates random dummy text.It uses a minimalist and well looking design. Many other extensions of this type – in other browsers – simply complicate this task, using really extensive code, XHR, etc. The main purpose of this one, is to use the less amount of code (and also memory) and help the developer/user to get the job done.

Kuber PageRank Checker

This handy SEO tool shows you the Google PageRank of web pages beside the address box. If the PageRank of the page in current tab is not available, the tool shows the PageRank of the domain instead, prefixed with ‘S’.

Chrome SEO

The Google Chrome SEO extension provides easy access to Search Engine Optimization Tools that can help you with Competitive Analysis, Keyword Research, Backlink Checks and other daily SEO tasks.

IE Tab

Use Internet Explorer to display web pages in a Chrome tab. Some sites can only be displayed using IE, and with this extension you can now see those sites without leaving Chrome.

Know of any more that I might have missed? Be sure to drop then in via the comments, and help us all learn a little more about the web development tools the Google Chrome browser provides.

Like This Article? Listen to it and more like it on podcast #201 of the Web Hosting Show!

Need to take a screen shot of a web site to show off to somebody?  By far, one of my favorite programs to take screenshots is WebShot.  It is almost the perfect screenshot and web page thumbnail generator utility.  How do you use it?  You put the web site address you want to get the capture of in the URL text box, and then hit the button labeled, “Start”.

Diving deeper into the download you can also set it up to capture multiple URLs, a specific size image, edit the default browser sizes and more.  For most people the free version should get the job done – however if you want even more features you might look into getting the personal or server edition.

To pick it up, or get more help on how to use it – go visit WebSiteScreenshots.com.

After installing, all you have to do is grab your log files from your hosting account in question.  WebLog Expert Lite supports IIS and Apache logs, can automatically detect the log format and can read GZ and ZIP compressed logs.  It will then crunch away at the numbers and export an HTML page for you to view to see how your web page is doing stats-wise.  You get numbers, links, stats and graphs.  It is a beautiful thing.

The free version however should be sufficient for most personal web sites and provides a nice overview of general traffic activity.

If you want to see what you are missing out on, you can see a comparison list of the professional, standard and lite versions of the program here:

http://www.weblogexpert.com/comparison.htm

It might not have all the bells and whistles down, but WebLog Expert Lite has enough to keep me happy.

FileZilla!

Now I have used my fair share of crappy FTP programs, and all of them seem to be lacking in one area or the next.  FileZilla though, is almost perfect from head to toe.  Here are some of the best features it provides:

• Easy to use
• Available in many languages
• Supports resume and transfer of large files >4GB
• Powerful Site Manager and transfer queue
• Drag & drop support

So can I come up with anything negative to say about FileZilla?  Well, if there was one thing that bugs me it is the fact it is not a very pretty program.  Then again, just about every FTP client out there today is ugly as sin – so can’t fault it for too long there.

Want to try it yourself?  They have versions for Macs, Windows and Linux – so pick the version that is right for you on filezilla-project.com.  Know of an FTP client that is better than FileZilla?  Go ahead and leave a comment.

I would love to be proved wrong.

ShowIP, an add-on for the Firefox browser, will deliver you not only the current IP address of a web site but a lot more helpful tools as well.  By left-clicking on the IP address in your status bar, you can select to:

• copy to clipboard
• whois lookup at whois.sc and dnsstuff.com
• test timing
• traceroutes
• trace the IP to the country of origin

Additionally you can copy the IP address to the clipboard.  If you need a tool to help you work with IP addresses and locations (as I know many web hosting workers out there do) this might be a good extension for Firefox to try.

You can pick it up on the Firefox add-on’s web site (just search for ShowIP).

This program is a very light, simple yet robust utility which manages your uploads in the way of a spooler.  It also is so small you can load it up on a USB device too.  You don’t even have to worry about getting it installed.  All you do is double click the .exe file and it is ready.

To use, just create or select a server you wish to connect to then drag and drop the file you wish to upload into the white box.  You also have the option to zip each file you upload too.  Another neat feature is that you can create a “locked” version of DropUpLoad, which limits connections to a single server and hides and encrypts login information inside the generated executable.

If you feel like you don’t need a full FTP program like Filezilla and the like to get the job done DropUpLoad is undoubtedly the simplest alternative program you could have in your web hosting tool belt.

Windows Live Writer is great. All you do is plug in your WordPress (or any other CMS or blogging service you use) information, and it figures out and does that rest of the work for you. Then you can write you posts as you would in any other word processor-type program. You also can format images, save drafts, edit tags and categories and more.

Video: 2: Basic Authoring – Windows Live Writer

Download Windows Live Writer and give it a shot.  The icing on the cake is the various previews you can generate. You can edit and write via the standard interface or via an interface that gives the appearance that you are writing there on your own web site.  The Web Preview feature is also good to show you what the post’s format will look like once it goes live.  This is by far one of the best software packages to come out of Microsoft.

Not every web host out there has a multi-million dollar budget to spend on software, so I have come up with a few free alternatives for you to pass around your office next time your searching for the right tool for the job.

Foxit Reader (for PDF viewing) – Out of all the PDF reader programs out there, Foxit gets the job done and is not half as annoying as Adobe is.  If you want a PDF viewer that will not ask that you download updates for 20 other programs you do not have, Foxit is the best.

OpenOffice.org (for word processing, spreadsheets and more) – Microsoft Office is a program I have never really used.  Why?  I have always been a fan of the free alternative, OpenOffice.org.  This bundle of a word processor, spreadsheet, drawing and more might even be better than the expensive Microsoft bundle.

AutoHotkey (for helping with those quick responses) – In my bag of tricks, AutoHotkey is most likely to be the most used one of them all.  Thanks to a little simple script writing I can now type in a few characters instead of a two paragraphed e-mail each time I answer a customer’s question.

Thunderbird (for e-mail management) – I have tried a number of different e-mail clients and Mozilla’s Thunderbird wins out head over heels each and every time.  Manage multiple e-mail accounts and with the add-ons, you can build onto the functionality of the product.

Google Calendar (for dates and appointments) – Can’t tell you what I did for a calendar before Google’s came around because Google was the one who turned me onto using it.  Before Google Calendar I was stuck with ripped off sheets of paper with notes scribbled down.  After Google Calendar, I can quickly click a date, add a note and I’m done.

Now sure, those big web hosts might have the thousands of dollars to spend on programs but the budget web hosts out there have to count their pennies.  If you have any other suggestions feel free to leave a comment or drop me an e-mail.

Once installed the addon to your browser gives you access to one click domain name searches at your favorite register. All you do is select some text in your Firefox window and hit the keyboard combination (Ctrl + Shift + D) or select it from the right-click menu. One of the really neat features of this extension is that it will strip out any non-standard characters and triggers for a domain search and also will work with GoDaddy, Moniker, Network Solutions and over 30 more.

Simply put, it is one of the best domain name lookup add-ons you can install for Firefox.

You can download this addon right from the developer’s web site at DomainLookup.org.