title: Tools for faster, better web development
body: <p>Over the years most web developers will have built an arsenal of tools or "tools of the trade". Recently I discovered rsync and I am surprised how I managed to live without it all these years. What tools do you consider to be the most compelling? Please stick to the ones you use on a regular basis and swear by. They can also be frameworks, platforms, editors and whatever else you think web developers ought to be using (jquery, joomla, xdebug, vi, notepad++, etc).</p>
  
  <p>I'll start off with a couple:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><a href="http://samba.anu.edu.au/ftp/rsync/rsync.html" rel="noreferrer">rsync</a> - 'One click' sync to live servers or vice-versa</li>
  <li><a href="http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/mysqldump.html" rel="noreferrer">mysqldump</a> - used alongside rsync to sync the databases</li>
  <li><a href="https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/webdevel.html" rel="noreferrer">test styles bookmarklet</a> - live css editor bookmarklet which beats the heck out of the 'edit > save > reload' cycle by allowing live editing.</li>
  <li><a href="https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/webdevel.html" rel="noreferrer">javascript shell</a> - javascript shell window attached to a window</li>
  <li><a href="http://www.getfirebug.com/" rel="noreferrer">firebug</a> - advanced javascript/css/dom debugger</li>
  <li><a href="http://pear.php.net/package/PHP_Shell/" rel="noreferrer">php-shell</a> - I use this regularly for quickly testing statements, functions, classes or scripts</li>
  <li><a href="http://css-discuss.incutio.com/" rel="noreferrer">CSS-Discuss Wiki</a> - I'd be surprised if you couldn't find a solution to your CSS problem on this wiki (in which case you should add it)</li>
  <li><a href="http://media.24ways.org/2007/17/fontmatrix.html" rel="noreferrer">Font Matrix</a> - Helps me choose font stacks</li>
  <li><a href="http://www.phpmyadmin.net/" rel="noreferrer">PHPMyAdmin</a> - I'm certain everyone uses this for managing their MySQL databases but thought I'd add it to the list for good measure</li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>Even though I have highlighted tools in the LAMP environment, you may mention tools you use in your environment.</p>