Over the past few weeks, I have come across a couple tools that have helped me to really crank out my latest project. I can’t emphasize how much time these have saved me.

Open Source Web Design Templates - From elementary school on, I have been pretty much a failure at anything that involves an artistic sense. Open source templates are free, and I have been pleasantly surprised by the quality of some of the designs. After muddling through a number of template sites, my favorites are FreeCSSTemplates.org, OpenDesigns.org, OpenWebDesign.org, and OSWD.org. It may take some time to find a good design, but it is well worth it.

Firebug - I usually waste a ton of time screwing around with div’s and other CSS minutiae. For this project, I used the Firebug plugin for Firefox, and it was a great help. Firebug will let you highlight specific elements of your CSS code so that you can see what is really going on with your code. The plugin also lets you dissect javascript and look under the hood at load time of specific elements. If you are very hardcore about load times, you should check out the Yslow enhancement for Firebug.

These tools have been great for me, and hopefully they can help you out too.