SiteSpinner

SiteSpinner is a user-friendly web site development tool that includes many advanced features such as drag-and-drop positioning, built in FTP to publish directly to your web site, an image editor and graphics creation all in one. With SiteSpinner, objects can be placed wherever you want them with your mouse. Not only that, you can place objects so they are always centered, or automatically scale to fit your visitors browser. The Text Editor works like a word processor, allowing you to change font, size and color. Add links and spell-check your work. Add titles and you have a professional page. The drag-and-drop Table Editor lets you quickly organize your information. Text, pictures, or any object can easily be dragged into position, and your table’s properties can be set the way you want them.

Full review posted at
http://www.deprice.com/sitespinner.htm

NoteTab Pro

NoteTab Pro is a leading-edge text editor and HTML coding tool, and an ideal Notepad replacement. Winner of top shareware industry awards since 1998, this elegant application does it all: you can handle multiple large files with a simple tabbed interface, use a spell-checker and thesaurus, format text, use multiple undo, and bookmark documents. You can build templates, use powerful system-wide searches, and do global multi-line replacements.

Full review posted at
http://www.deprice.com/notetabpro.htm

CoffeeCup HTML Editor

The CoffeeCup HTML Editor is 2 Editors in 1. If you know HTML or want to learn more use the powerful and easy Code Editor that has set the standard since 1996. To make pages fast, or without knowing HTML use the drag and drop WYSIWYG Visual Editor. You can also go back and forth between the Code and Visual Editors to create remarkable Websites in a snap. CoffeeCup comes with more than 100 DHTML & Javascripts, a DHTML Menu wizard, 25,000 Graphics and Photos including over 1,000 XP Style Icons and access to over 500 Free Website Templates. It also has Built-in FTP Uploading and easy to use Table, Frame, Font, and Form Designers.

Full review posted at http://www.deprice.com/coffeecuphtmleditor.htm

CodeLock 2.0

Codelock encrypts PHP and any HTML generated by your PHP scripts.
You can password protect your scripts, create an expiry time or unlock key, lock to IP or URL and more. The Encryptor software works with any install of PHP4.x or better. Requires no additional software to be installed (on your server or on your clients server) – Codelock V2 is ISP friendly. Works both on your ‘localhost’ server OR online via HTTP Works on Linux, Windows and FreeBSD operating systems. Requires no changes to the web server (with default PHP installation). Works in PHP safe mode and with globals off (except when encrypting from zip files). Encrypts PHP or HTML files (including HTML or javascript embedded into PHP). Encrypts HTML web pages as an added extra Offers ZLIB compression as part of the encryption. Your PHP pages can be compressed to approximately 1/3 of their file size.

Full review available at
http://www.deprice.com/codelock.htm

John Deprice is a self-taught webmaster. The tools he uses to create websites are available at http://www.deprice.com/utilities.htm

Over the past several months, readers of this column have been exposed to many justifications for, and advantages of, creating and maintaining an effective internet strategy for virtually any business of any size. The general focus has been, for the most part, on marketing your business, attracting, serving, and keeping customers; all in the name of increasing revenues. True, an effective internet strategy brings in eager customers from far, and increasingly, near but a study done by a major research firm in the United States a few years ago found that typically it takes 8 dollars in revenues to have the same effect on a company’s bottom line as just 1 dollar in cost savings. Although your own numbers may vary slightly, it should be of interest to every business owner who has resources invested in the internet, how that investment can be used to save operating costs as well as bring in more sales.

In the early days of computerizing the workplace, there was a lot of buzz about the possibilities of a paperless office; of eliminating the use of postal mail, faxes and all paper based documents in the office environment. Well it didn’t exactly happen then, and some would argue with the proliferation of inexpensive desktop printers and copiers, that today we are using more paper than ever before. Why were we not able to achieve or even approach these goals by taking advantage of the computer displays we sit in front of every day? For one thing, company networks were isolated, and complicated to access. It was tedious if not impossible to access information stored on company network from any remote location, and too often even from another department or office in the same building. Well, most of those issues have slowly gone away because the internet has provided the platform to change all that, and a company with a website has the basis to take advantage of a new reality. Savvy businesses have realized this and are enjoying considerable cost savings and efficiencies.

What these companies have found is that their websites designed and maintained with good intention to broadly appeal to customers, suppliers, business partners and community, are inhibiting opportunities to provide specific and cost effective utility to each group individually. The content designed to portray who a company is and what they produce, for example, has little value to the employees of that company on a daily basis, yet other information such as policies, procedures, and training considered inappropriate for mass consumption is invaluable to the internal organization. By simply partitioning off an area of your existing website and controlling access via login you can provide the same convenience to your employees that you have worked hard to provide to your customers. Managing convenience to employees translates to efficiency and cost reduction, opening up a whole new world of cost saving opportunities. The concept of an “intranet” is probably older than that of the “internet” itself, but the two are now able to come together in a way that can provide efficiencies previously only dreamed of. Remote offices accessing up-to-date forms, files, procedures, and training materials via their internet connection; Human Resources, Financial Reports, Employee Feedback, Document Management, and Online Training provide just a few examples of internal company operational areas that can be managed more efficiently and effectively using a web-based intranet. Customers can view operations manuals, maintenance tips, account status, and even multimedia training sessions all online. Suppliers can view purchase specifications, design changes, inventory levels, and all can be organized in ways that best serve each individual audience using convenient search and other database tools which streamline posting and access. The resulting efficiencies save considerable costs in administration and productivity loss and the potential platform already exists for all for all of this in the existing website. Whether an Intranet for employees, or an Extranet for those outside your organization, expanding the utility of your website by adding well managed and access controlled areas can allow for a wide variety of cost saving applications and tools. Providing enormous opportunity for better collaboration, coordination and effectiveness of your overall operations and communications will affect your bottom line, and remembering the formula at the beginning of this article, these are dollars worth chasing.