Smashing magazine wrote a great article detailing why you should not be working alone.  However, some of us have no choice but to work alone. It could be that you are doing a solo project that no one believes in, or you simply do not have enough funding to get anyone else on board.  Fear not, this article will show you where to go to get some helpful feedback.

1. Stack Overflow
   This is my personal favorite for websites to turn to when you are stuck in a bind.  As a developer on your own you will eventually run into programming problems that you need to get some outside advice on.  Whether it be a MySQL scalability issue or how to parse JSON in PHP.  You are free to post about whatever problem you are having, even newbie questions are often given great responses.  Questions are mostly geared towards programing, but can occasionally touch on server configuration or just plain old HTML questions.

   Best part about the site?  The community is friendly, extremely knowledgeable, and eager to help.  I’ve asked questions on that site that directly and indirectly led to answers.  I can’t say enough good things about this site and suggest anyone who is involved in coding to sign up and participate.   You’ll feel compelled to help others and try to be the first one to get selected as “Best Answer” to rack up points.

2. Forrst
   Forrst is a site that can be used for networking with like-minded individuals and provide a spot to ask a wide range of questions that usually don’t pop up on Stack Overflow.  This site isn’t specifically limited to questions.  You have the option to post code snippets, screenshots of projects, to gain feedback.  You can even post useful links that you think can be beneficial to others.  Your posts can be private or made public, it’s completely up to you.

   If you are looking for feedback on a blog layout, design mockups, or coding then Forrst can be a great spot to check out.  I do not have much experience here, but from what I’ve seen thus far the community seems helpful and eager to help.  Getting started on Forrst you may feel a bit isolated, since it has a social aspect to it.  The site requires you to apply for it, but after waiting a week or so then you will recieve your invite code in your mail.  However, if you are helpful and engaged in the site then you should gain quite a few followers and get the feedback your looking for.

3. Dribbble
   Dribbble’s sole focus is to post your designs and try to gain feedback from it’s userbase.  The site is invite only and is fairly difficult to become a member of without getting lucky or knowing someone already on the site.  I am not a member of Dribbble, but a designer friend is and told me the site is less about feedback and more about showing off your awesomeness.  Egos abound.

   So should Dribbble be on this list of helpful sites?  Yes and no. It’s still a great spot to post your designs and get feedback, but if you aren’t up to par then expect to hear about it.  That isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you are a pro, but amateurs beware.

4. Web Hosting Talk
   Here we have a throwback site that you probably heard of.  Unlike the other sites mention, this is a forum and is geared towards web hosting questions.  Being a developer on your own means making web hosting decisions as well, so this site is a must to learn which places to avoid.

   It may not look the best, but the forum is loaded with people who have lots of experience with multiple web hosts and it even has employees from dozens of hosting companies.  Ask your questions about domain registrars, VPS’s, cPanel, or Plesk and you’ll get lots of great feedback

5. Webmasterworld

   Another blast from the past, webmasterworld is the place to go for questions related to your server and SEO.  This is a fantastic place to go to learn about harmful webbots that should be blocked and the latest rumors/news about search engines.  Users on this site are anonymous, and for good reason.

   This site is about  asking questions that you probably wouldn’t ask elsewhere.  For example, if you plan to partake in questionable practices such as cloaking content for Googlebot.  The community is helpful and there is a large mix of newbies and experts on the topic of SEO.

   This list is far from perfect and I have a feeling I’ve missed quite a few useful sites.  Be sure and leave comments to other helpful websites to go to for feedback.

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Over the last few years it seems like Prototype development has slowed down a lot, while jQuery is making huge headway.  Every tutorial I see is using jQuery.  So I FINALLY decided to buy a book and learn it.  They are vastly different to say the least.  My prototype code had an awful lot of onclick=”" kinda stuff inside the HTML, while jQuery let’s your code appear more transparent and natural.  I love being able to pass my own variables using html attributes.

I went through a lot of WTF, why isn’t this working moments during my first attempts at coding using jQuery techniques.  However, overall I love jQuery.  Now my code is optimized, cleaner, and I feel as though I am not limited in what I want to do.  If I can dream it, I can code it with jQuery.  Not a small feat for someone like myself.

For example, with Prototype I simply didn’t know how to show a loading gif when an ajax command was in use.  It sounds simple and a lot of you are probably thinking what an idiot.  I turn to jQuery and my first attempt I find that it’s so simple to achieve.  Not only that but I can easily manipulate form values, check their validity,and pass them along with no problem at all.

To learn jQuery I completely rewrote all of my javascript code for FantasySP.  It took me about 2 LONG weeks, but now I feel as though I can code just about anything I want.  My code is a mere 7kb in size now, compared to 49kb in Prototype.  I am actually making reusable functions now and you can too.

My only quibble with jQuery is that coding an advanced autocomplete function is a huge pain in the ass.  Prototype let me customize it from the backend (PHP), whereas jQuery forced me to use JSON and adding extra javascript code.

So for those of you who haven’t used a framework before, or are still using Prototype, give jQuery a try.  You won’t be disappointed.

Related posts:

1. jQuery 1.3+ Autocomplete, The Newbie Guide
2. How to Create Page Load Animations Using jQuery
3. Web Developers, You’re Not Alone

First download the XML-API PHP class.

Next, follow the code example below:

include("xmlapi.php");

$ip = "127.0.0.1";
$root_pass = "somepass";

$xmlapi = new xmlapi($ip);
$xmlapi->password_auth("root",$root_pass);

$xmlapi->set_debug(1);

print $xmlapi->restartsrv('httpd');

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