I know I have been on this big kick lately with these handy little web development tools, but they are just so helpful in my daily life that I have to talk about them.  I figure it is best to share them with everyone, just in case someone has not seen them before.

The tool I am covering today is Firebug.  A lot of times I will finish up a site and be pretty happy with it, with the exception of page load times.  This is the best tool I have found to help me cut down on those load times.  It breaks down every element on the page in a graph and lists out the load times for each individual item as well as the entire page’s items all together.  From there I can see what is taking the most time, and work out the kinks in individual items.  

Basically, Firebug is just a handy tool to help break your site down into pieces to analyze it, without actually breaking it down at all.  It is a Firefox add-on, so you will need to have Firefox in order to use it. [But honestly, who doesn't have Firefox already?]

There are many more uses for this great tool, but site optimization is where I have found the most use out of Firebug.  I recommend anyone who has a use for an application like this, should check it out.  You will not be disappointed.  And if you are in fact not happy with it, you can’t really complain seeing as it’s free.

Check out Firebug.