This was a help article I wrote that appeared on another site that went down. Now I put it here to help you.
I have used most of these services on my blogs or sites.
All of these listed are free or in the case of Bravenet, you can purchase a no ad account. However, recent postings around the net have indicated that some pop up ads on meters at Bravenet are inappropriate.
HTML Codes
HTML Goodies Step by step tutorials.Web-Source Love the convienent code charts!!! Hex color chart and other goodies here.
HyperGurl Free HTML and Java Scripts, tutorials, and helpful articles on how to promote and list your site.
HTML Help This is set up with questions and quick direct answers. Covers quite a bit.
W3Schools -- always a favorite. Also has CSS tutorials.
CSS Help
KillerSites -- has video CSS tutorials
Site in an Hour -- a walk through of basic CSS -- click the arrow on the bottom right to begin.
WestCiv Style Masters Academy -- a quick course with practice sheets, you can download for reference.
Top Ten CSS Tutorials -- lots of interesting extras plus all the comments to give you more ideas.
Multitude of Free Tools and Generators
Rainbow Arch Scriptmania - CSS/HTML code generators, a nifty color chart, marquee, keyword, meta tag code generators, a clock you can add to your site, rainbow text generator, drop down menus, scroll bars, lots of free stuff!
Check Your site's appearance in various browsers:
Browser Shots
Down for everyone or just me? -- Check to see if your site is down -- put your URL in and find out if it is just you or your server.
Create a Site Map
XLM Sitemaps - indexes up to 500 pages. Remember your URL cannot be private or the crawlers cannot get to it. You can generate sitemaps in various extentions.
FREE Copy and Paste HTML Templates (for Webpages like MSN Groups or Zoomshare)
Steve's Templates Steve has worked hard to put together these web page copy and paste templates. You should be able to read HTML code to use them. Notes are on the templates to help you.2 Create a Website A nice selection of basic HTML templates with or without navigation bars.
WinStart There are 30+ pages of them from easy and plain to very complex. Download zip files for them.
Hex Color Charts
Color Schemer is great for seeing what colors go with what colors. I have also used this chart to figure out a color by putting the HEX number in the box then bringing up the color.
Crayola Colors - have a favorite, then you can color your blog with you favorite Crayola color Hex number
Color Combo lets you select a color and comes up with matching colors in the "combo tester". On the main page, click on the color, scroll down the page, and select a range (Color Combo ###). You can also do a generic template (under Options java box) using a range of colors you choose by clicking the boxes. Click on View --> Source, and copy then paste the code.
Color Calculator allows you to play. Select colors, light or dark, saturation factor, and must move the pointers around to see how the colors look with each other.
Java Script Copy and Paste Codes
Java Script KitJava Script Source
Java File
Dynamic Drive -- they have a FavIcon generator here.
Create a Page Curl Content Box
Otutorials -- for a bottom right curl - code provided you just tweak to your delight.
(Not a page peel, where you have one upper corner of a webpage/blog peel down or you mouse over and it peels down. Sometimes found to be annoying. I have not found a free code for one yet.)
Backgrounds
Absolute Backgrounds My favorite site to get backgrounds and other goodies.Watercolor Backgrounds at Brownie Locks
Background Archives - backgrounds and free desktops, quite a variety.
Web Sets By Donna -- quite a variety and themes
Citrus Moon -- some very classic backgrounds
Emma's Triples Copy and paste the code onto your WYSIWYG page (like MSN or Zoomshare). Emma hosts the images! (Works at MSN Groups)
Guest Books
A note here --These guestbooks are remotely hosted (off your site but on another when you link it up). If you can edit out emails and site URLs boxes you will not get as much spam.
If your blog allows comments by visitors, you can just make a regular blog post for that purpose and link it to your sidebar.
UltraGuest -- very nice and allows customization and filters
EFree Guestbooks -- customize to your content, many great features offered.
Sunshine Guestbooks -- they say no ads -- you can put in a banner, limited hex color backgrounds. Verification codes for posters.
Guest City customize to your content and some other great features. Easy to use.
Bravenet now has ads inbetween guest book entries.
Buttons
Button Generator -- free buttons and menu maker with no software downloads.
Blinkie Generators
Free Blinkie Maker -- basic generator - 5 styles - no frills
Blink You -- over 50 backgrounds to choose from plus fonts/sizes and customized colors!
Banners
Absolute Backgrounds I love this banner or button maker. The font size expands the box so you don't have to figure out the pixel size for the box. Choose from fonts and backgrounds or use your own on their generator. Also a nifty menu generator too.3D Textmaker Easy to use but you have to play with it a bit since you need to know your box size.
Flaming Text Make banners. They have an icon library too.
Cool Archive - you can make banners and buttons, lots more free stuff there, including buttons.
Flash Banner Now -- they have a free section (with ads) and then they have a section where you can purchase one for around $15.00.
Pixel Ruler -- free download -- you may need one for creating a banner if you don't know the size. Also handy to change your blog width.
Images
StockExchange - register for a free account, get free images to use to create your banner.
Image Hosting and Linking
Photobucket a great place to host your website images without using up any of your web space for storage. Linking URLs provided and also you can get a few programs for a slide shows or photostamp presentation. You can also create banners with their editing tools.
Flickr -- get badges for your sidebar, they give stats for your image views.
Picture Trail -- free accounts limited, many styles of slide shows, stats, guest book, you get a blog also. You can customize your look/backgrounds.
Image Cave -- you get 10MBs and unlimited bandwidth as long as they note you are not abusing their system. One account per ISP.
Image Shack a great place to host your website images without using up any of your web space for storage. Linking URLs provided.
Webshots -- free is limited but still worth it. Stats only for three albums on a free account.
Social URL - you get a page and also a button. You can link up all your sites. Anyone can post your image since all pictures come with linking URLs.
Album Town -- plain and simple, people can comment and you get a stat meter for each picture. 10MBs of free storage.
Fotki -- 50/60MBs of space and photosharing, journal, forum, link page, stats (simple), badges, and more.
Fotopics -- 250MBs of space, some bandwidth limitations, stats, commenting, free accounts can have two galleries with as many sub-galleries as possible. They do not encourage photosharing on other sites so read the TOS/COC carefully. You can customize your pages with your own backgrounds.
Slide Shows
As previously mentioned PhotoBucket, Webshots, Picture Trail offer slide shows. Here are a few others:
RockYou
Flip
Flector
BubbleShare
Slideroll
Slide
Pickle shut down 5/15/08 (I got the official "shut down" email.)
With RockYou, Flip, and Flector (what PhotoBucket now uses), you can customize using drop and drag, add music and add video to your online scrapbook sort of album.
With any of these, just upload, tweak, then copy the code and paste it into your media or HTML/source box.
Copy and Paste Midi Codes
Emma's Midi Codes Emma not only has copy and paste background codes but Midi codes also.Counters/Meters
Sitemeter One meter per free account. Counts last 100 visits. Find out where your visitors are coming from. You need the javascript code for this information. Complaints: Sitemeter is adding more cookies to your computer.eWebcounter Five meters per email account if you have more than one site but up to 5 on one account. Counts last 200 visits. Java code.
StatCounter Nice stats but I had trouble with the stats working correctly. Liked the weekly email chart.
Amazing Counters Lots of decorative counters but they do come with an advert that you cannot remove.
Extreme Tracking - free stats are public
SiteCounterPro offers over a 1000 different counter styles. Easy to sign up for.
Feedjit Free no account necessary! This just tells you where people are coming from and where they are going when they leave your site. Widget is customizable.
HiStats -- includes a java free code for MSN, LiveSpaces and Google Pages. You can have multiple accounts.
ShinyStats -- includes java free codes for MSN, LiveSpaces, and Google Pages. Many counters, includes visitors online. One account per email.
**Just a note: Wordpress does not allow java scripting at all. You can use a meter with an HTML code, or any one that is compatable with MSN Groups, GooglePageCreator, Live Spaces pages. You will not be able to get full reports as with the javascripting meters but you do get a bit more info than the stats Wordpress provides.**
Updates
Change Detection Have visitors voluntarily subscribe to your index/content page and recieve notice.Bravenet Lots of freebies here to use on you site but they do include ads.
Note: Many people have been complaining about the inappropriate content of popup ads using this service.
FeedBlitz -- free - a mailing list so your friends can sign up and get your posts in their email accounts.
Avatars -- have a photo you wish to reduce to avatar size -- here are some online generators to help you. Upload a photo, select the size, crop, and create instantly.
MyPictr
ReducePhoto
SnipShot
Avatars - copy and save to your own puter file then upload -- do not hotlink
Jurko -- a note about this: If you see something you like, take it right away as the pages reload differently each time. A page may look one way one minute but the next, all the images may be different.Avatarity
All Avatars
Avatator
Hot Avatars
Let's Talk -- audio recordings
Gabcast
TalkShoe
Contact Forms
Contactify -- add one of these to an old post or post date a post so it is buried in your blog keeping off the main pages then link the URL of that post to your sidebar. Your email does not show, if someone uses the form, it gets sent to you without them knowing your email.
You can also create a contact form using Google Documents and use the embed code to put it on your blog/website. This does not work with Wordpress.
Let's Chat -- add a chatroom to your site
Chatango -- lets people know you are online. Click link to go to the chatroom. You can also get a shoutbox with the same account. Link can be included in your emails also.
ChatMaker -- easy to create and use.
Chatzy -- easy to use and create. You can have a private chat or a room.
Allows you to customize in many ways and who is allowed in your chat. You must use the account or it is self-deleting.
ShoutMix -- allows you to embed a chatbox on your sidebar or a separate page if you wish a private chat.
Favicons -- little icons that appear in your address bar -- online generators to create one for yourself. Easy to use.
Copy and paste the code into your HTML box:
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://yoursiteURL.com/favicon.ico" />
Degraeve
Favicon
Favicon Generator
Genfavicon
HTML Kit
Scroll Boxes -- type in attributes, copy and paste the code provided.
Scroll boxes take up less space -- you can add text, pictures, links, or HTML codes. 100 wide by 150 high fits onto a sidebar.
Scroll Box Generator (@killerkiwi)
Scroll Box Generator (@quackit)
Scroll Box Generator (@free code source) -- allows you to add URLs of images to their scroll box copy and paste text.
