Sites geekgirl loves and uses

sites geekgirl loves & uses

Tutorials, tips & troubleshooting

It’s such a pleasure to come across a site like Home and Learn. This site provides dozens of free computer tutorials on everything from saving files and customising the Windows desktop to beginner’s PHP and Visual Basic .NET. The tutorials come in easy-to-digest pieces with downloadable resource files where appropriate. The tutorials are clearly written with plenty of screenshots and there’s even an Exam Section so you can test your knowledge.

The best thing is the site is almost entirely devoid of the advertising which seems to swamp most sites containing free material. I’m not averse to advertising on sites (I have advertising here on geekgirl’s – it’s the only way I can afford to run the site), but when the site’s content takes a back seat to the advertising, as happens on oh so many sites, things have gotten out of hand.

On Home and Learn, the content is front and centre. The company makes money by selling PDF book versions of the tutorials, so if you find one course particularly interesting or helpful, you can get your own copy of the whole thing for a few bucks.

experts-exchange

Looking for urgent answers to really knotty computer questions? Try Experts Exchange. You’ve probably already seen this site appear in Google results, when you’ve been doing some troubleshooting research on your own. It is, without a doubt, one of the best problem-solving sites on the Internet.

Without being a member, though, all the answers will remain invisible to you. You’ll need to pay for the privilege of using it, although there’s a one-month free trial. Still, if the experts there can solve one or two problems for you, you’ll feel like its money well spent. A one-year subscription costs $US100, or you can pay $13/month.

What do you get for your money? A massive database of answers to almost every type of computer problem, plus experts hungry to answer your specific question. When you post a problem, you’ll usually get a response within an hour, because experts earn free membership for answering your questions quickly, fully and accurately.

better solutions

Need some Microsoft Excel help? Visit Better Solutions. It provides a set of tutorials which provide a good introduction to basic Exceling, plus several more advanced articles and some useful tips for Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. This simply-presented site is a refreshing break from the usual advertising-plagued tech sites.

Database design & programming

database answers

I love this site. Database Answers is a collection of data models you can use as the basis for designing your own application.

Need a database to track archeological digs? Or to handle apartment rentals? Or car servicing? How about nursing home management or a clown registry?

These and well over a hundred more models are offered up free to all comers by Barry Williams. If you can't find just the right model, ask Barry to create one for you. But take a good look around first; chances are that one of the existing models will work perfectly, with just a little tweaking.

functionx

FunctionX’s Access Fundamentals provides an excellent grounding in all aspects of Access, from data analysis and design to action queries and reports.

They’ve started cluttering up the site with a lot of ads - and I really don’t like the way they’ve slipped the Google links into the navigation pane, it seems deceptive to me - but if you focus on the content you’ll find a lot of useful information. They’ve updated their tutorials, too, so whether you use Access 2003 or 2007, you’ll find them helpful.

Web design & coding

a list apart	A List Apart is a beautifully understated site, full of thoughtful articles about web design, content, culture and coding. Its contributors list includes some of the best-known names in web design, including Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer. Worth visiting often.
digital web magazine	Digital Web Magazine is a must-read resource for Web developers. Its tutorials, features and columns provide both commonsense and highly opinionated articles about content, design and the business of Web publishing. If you want to make your site more attractive, become a regular reader. Best of all, it's free.
w3schools.com	If you want to learn about almost any of the important Web languages and technologies – HTML, DHTML, XHTML, CSS, XML, WML, DTD, WAP, SOAP, ASP, JavaScript, you name it! – then w3schools is the place to visit. This is a wonderful resource, with extensive tutorials on all the abovementioned topics and more.
jakob nielsen’s alertbox	Jakob Nielsen's site may not look like much, but if you want to know more about how to make your web site usable and get practical examples of good and bad site design, he's a must read. Nielsen speaks incredibly good sense about practical Web issues, such as bandwidth, how users read Web pages, and Web page design.

home