W3Schools.com

I started with w3schools.com, which is a favorite reference site of mine that contains tutorials on pretty much every web technology imaginable, including HTML, JavaScript, SQL, CSS, PHP, XML, SOAP, etc.

For the client side technologies they have a great “try it yourself” functionality where you can enter JavaScript, etc. and have it display the output for you.

The process is to edit in the window on the left, then click the “Edit and Click Me” button to view the output on the right. There is no debugging or error reports, you just see what comes out. Makes it really hard to track down JavaScript typos.

It would appear some of w3schools content isn’t completely accurate, so use with caution.

JSFiddle.net

If you are developing with HTML/CSS & JavaScript and one of the common public frameworks then check out JSFiddle. It offers a resizable split view where you can edit your HTML, JavaScript and CSS all independently, and then see the combined result. Additionally it offers the option to save, share and reload “fiddles”.

Other nice features include:

• Syntax highlighting
• TidyUp code formatting
• JSLint validation
• Access to a wide selection of JavaScript frameworks
• Discussion and forks of public fiddles

It is currently in Alpha with a limited number of public alpha accounts available

IDEone.com

This is an honest to goodness web based IDE and compiler. Type the code with syntax highlighting, compile it, provide input,

What is ideone?
Ideone is something more than a pastebin; it’s an online compiler and debugging tool which allows to compile and run code online in more than 40 programming languages, including Pascal.

How to use ideone?
Choose a programming language, enter your source code and input data into text boxes. Then check or uncheck run code (whether to execute your program) and private (whether not to list your code in the recent codes page) checkboxes, click the submit button and watch your snippet being executed.

jsbin.com

JS Bin is an open source collaborative JavaScript debugging tool.
Similar it offers HTML and JavaScript editing and previewing. It has a nice and clean user interface and also includes common JavaScript frameworks.

Error checking is provided by the JSHint project. Like JSLint with the addition of an API.

JSBin is completely open source, so you can download it and implement it on your own server.

Snipt.net

Snipt is your collection of frequently used commands or code snippets.

Because even Subversion gurus forget the ’svn merge’ syntax sometimes.

It’s good for storing small pieces of code or commands that you use rather frequently, and will probably forget.

Not really an IDE. No running or debugging. It will syntax highlight the code you upload though.

pastie.org

Pastie is a lot like Snipit. You can paste in bits of code and it will provide syntax highlighting and the ability to share it with others.

Pastie syntax highlights a number of different languages, but offers no execution, debugging, etc. Useful for sharing code. You can also search, but it is a plain text search and you don’t specific which language you are searching for, nor is there any useful meta information like description, title, etc.

A few others that I didn’t look to closely at include:

• csdesk.com – Similar to jsbin and jsfiddle, except focused on HTML and CSS.
• Cloud9IDE.com – JavaScript focused. Requires a sign up for a 30 day trial.
• CodeRun.com- I had high hopes, but it didn’t work in most browsers I tested it in. This one supports development in Silverlight, C#, PHP, ASP.NET and a number of other technologies, with syntax highlighting, debugging, etc. Will keep my eye on this one.

Joel was looking for a solution to his password storage and syncronization issue over at StackOverflow. So I sent him an MP3 quote and they played it on their podcast.  Joel liked the solution, Jeff not so much, but his solution is to just memorize a few passwords.

Their podcast is hosted by IT Conversations now.  They played at 57:14 – The audio quality isn’t great.

• Exceptional Exceptions
• Implementing Cryptography
• Class Helpers: Friend or Foe
• Delphi Robot Rage

They all went really well I thought. Unfortunately I pushed the deadline back too far on Delphi Robot Rage and my JIT Presentation didn’t happen on time. Sorry to everyone about that.

Check back often for updates (seriously), or let me know if I missed something you are looking for from my sessions.

Thanks!

Camtasia is a screen video capture tool. It produces a video (animated GIF, SWF, AVI, etc.) from a series of screen shots over a period of time, usually with audio. It has a lot of nice extras and a good editing system. DebugMode’s Wink is a great tool for free. While Camtasia is more like a video editor, Wink is more like a slide show editor. It will take a screen shot at a keypress, mouse click or automatically at specified intervals. Then the editor is based on individual screen frames instead of a sequence of video. While it some regards it competes with Camtasia, it serves a different purpose as well. Worth checking out, especially at the price.

SnagIt is a single frame screen capture tool. Typically I just use [Print-Screen] or [Alt] + [Print-Screen] to capture the whole screen, or just the current window respectively. Then I paste it into IrfanView (a great quick image viewer, editor and converter) to make any changes necessary. Honestly though, SnagIt offers a number of additional features that are worthwhile. However I have found that MWSnap has most of the features I need available free. I haven’t done a side by side comparison of the tool, but I imagine MWSnap would hold up quite nicely.

With free versions of SnagIt and Camtasia though, that provides some stiff competition to the other free versions. Granted these are previous versions, which is risky on Techsmith’s part, since the biggest competitor to most products is its previous version – why pay the upgrade fee when the old version still works?  If you want an older version of many freeware / shareware titles, check out OldVersion.com.

Camtasia Studio 5 (the version I have) is $300 and has a lot of nice feature upgrades from version 3.  You can still download version 3 and then get your free license straight from Techsmith.  It appears it was a promotion offered to PC Plus Magazine readers in the UK, but the form lets you specify any country and I don’t see anywhere it says “only” a limited group.  Not sure how long the promotion is good for either. [Source]

Check out Digital Inspiration Technology guide for the details on downloading and getting a free license for SnagIt 7.2.5 (current version is 8). It appears to be a free promotion for UK .NET Magazine.