The term network monitoring describes the use of a system that constantly monitors a computer network for slow or failing components and that notifies the network administrator (via email, sms or other alarms) in case of outages. It is a subset of the functions involved in network management.

In today’s cut throat competition, where only the fittest can survive, an organization can’t be called professional, if it lacks network monitoring tools. When almost every company is trying hard to make its online existence more visible and strong, a slight mistake can cost it huge losses. When a visitor comes to a shop or office, he doesn’t mind waiting for few seconds. But in the virtual world, people really don’t have the patience to wait and revisit a down site, unless its their preferred one. A down time of few seconds can cause your loss of reputation as a worthy company.

Thus its highly crucial to invest wisely in network monitoring tools. This list comprises of some free and some paid but all desirable network monitoring tools. You can opt for customized package or an open source tool as per your organization’s requirements, but investment in it is a must. Network monitoring tools gives you both short term benefits and long term yields and you will never regret investing in this.

If you like this article, you might be interested in some of our older articles on Web Analytics Tools, Server Monitoring Tools, Best Twitter Tools, Twitter Tools, and Tools to Make a Web Designer’s Life a Little Easier.

Most designers on a tight budget can get an uncontrolled rapid heartbeat by considering what an investment in a Photoshop license will do to their economy. While it is difficult to argue against Photoshop being the top pick for nearly any photo manipulation, non vector design job etc. there are actually some pretty OK alternatives you can use without spending a single dollar. Question is of course which alternative to use and to help you out I have collected a set of Open Source Photoshop Alternatives you need to be aware of. One of the serious disadvantages you face when not using Photoshop is that you can’t learn and self study using the huge number of excellent free tutorials you can find for Photoshop online. Depending on what alternative you pick there may be some tutorials available, but it will never really match Photoshop. Another thing to be aware of is file formats. Adobe PSD, the Photoshop file type is almost an industry standard for exchanging layered designs e.g. in the web design niche. In GIMP, one of the tools covered below it is possible to save layered files to PSD in stead of the GIMP native format XCF which is useful. Make sure you consider stuff like this when you evaluate your free Open Source Photoshop Alternatives.

WordPress is most popular platform for bloggers and developers. This is infographic is dedicated to all wordpress lovers that can easily edit wordpress themes. WordPress Cheat Sheet is designed by testking team all credit goes to them for presenting a wonderful learning for users.

I should have been an artist.

Unless you are like these guys, before you start working on a brand new website or on a redesign, you must put all your ideas on paper starting from how will the main menu look like and all the way to page interactions or usage scenarios.

As the technology evolves, these days you have more than a simple piece of paper and a pen. You have sketchbooks, mockups, paper browsers and so on. If you are not familiar with this tools then this article it’s a great knowledge base for you.

loupe.js 2.0 allows you to add photorealistic loupes (magnifier) to images on your webpages. The design is changeable by use of an image editing program. It uses unobtrusive javascript to keep your code clean.

It works in all the major browsers - Mozilla Firefox 1.5+, Opera 9+, Safari, Chrome and IE6+. On older browsers, it'll degrade and your visitors won't notice a thing.

In doing research for this post I discovered that DevCheatSheet.com has an awesome collection of 22 HTML5 Cheat Sheets. I didn’t want to needlessly repost what they already have so I cross-checked my collection with theirs and I’ve only shared below the ones you won’t find there.

CSS3 brings to life countless new possibilities to make better web forms. In this article, I have compiled a list of the best 10 tutorials to make great forms using this new and amazing technology.

CSS drop-shadows without images

Google Web Fonts lets you browse all the fonts available via the Google Web Fonts API. All fonts in the directory are available for use on your website under an open source license and are served by Google servers.

Cheat Sheets are useful because web-developers need to remember more things. It is hard to memorize syntax for web developers and designers since they are always evolving and rising. In this process, Cheat Sheet is always come in handy. These cheat sheets are designed to be printer friendly and you can use as reference cards.
Here is a collection of useful cheat sheet specially for front end web developer and manage effectively. It would helpful for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc. I hope you will find this article useful, lets get started!

There are a great number of fans of 3 Dimensional wallpapers out there. 3D wallpapers are always been a great source of inspiration. 3D images always become a master piece of art when any expert put his creativity and experience in these. There are different software and tools to create 3D artwork like Maya, 3D Max, Blender, Caligair and photoshop. it’s time to have an advanced type of wallpaper to stare at while every windows is down and refreshing your mind and resting your arms not to have a carpal tunnel syndrome and have yourself travel to the future, because this time, 65 High Resolution 3D Wallpapers is available for you choose.

Reflection.js allows you to add reflections to images on your webpages. It uses unobtrusive javascript to keep your code clean.

It works in all the major browsers - Internet Explorer 5.5+, Mozilla Firefox 1.5+, Safari, Google Chrome and Opera 9+. On older browsers, it'll degrade and your visitors won't notice a thing. Best of all, it's under 5KB.

Having the right code snippet at the right time can definitely be a life saver for web developers. Today, I’ve compiled 10 really awesome PHP code snippets that will, I hope, be very helpful in your forthcomming developments.
Super simple page caching
Calculate distances in PHP
Convert seconds to time (years, months, days, hours…)
Force file download
Get current weather using Google API
Basic PHP whois
Get latitude and longitude from an adress
Get domain favicon using PHP and Google
Calculate Paypal fees

No their is your typical graffiti that is just an eyesore and their is art….this is art.

Swiftfox is an optimized build of Mozilla Firefox. Swiftfox has builds for both AMD and Intel processors and is based on the most cutting edge Firefox source code available.

Help is available in the Swiftfox Forum. If you have questions or are having difficulty with any aspect of using Swiftfox please leave a post on the forum and I or one of the forum members will provide assistance.

There is now an installer available that is distro independent. It is a script that downloads and installs Swiftfox in the /opt directory and attempts to use existing Firefox plugins. The installer is probably the best way for most users to install Swiftfox. If your distro is Debian based you will want to install using the deb files as the apt repository will provide automatic updating. More info is available at the deb file page.

Existing Firefox plugins should work with no additional configuration if you use the installer or deb file. If you install using the tarball or your plugins are not working you will want to make sure plugins are located in the directory ~/.mozilla/plugins or swiftfox/plugins. If you need any help please visit the Swiftfox Forum.