Building a Web Site For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Testing Your Site with NetMechanic

Although the tightly focused Web tool sites are very popular and extremely useful, you can find some really nice places on the World Wide Web that are like smorgasbords of Web tools. Sites like these are mostly fond of automotive metaphors — NetMechanic and the Web Site Garage, for instance. The Web Site Garage also includes GIF Lube. You get the idea. You won’t find much of anything along the lines of The Site Garden or The Page Salon. Well, whatever these sites are called, go to them, bookmark them, and return to them often. You’ll be glad to have them handy.

NetMechanic (www.netmechanic.com) does a whole bunch of things for you, all in one simple move. Or with a bit of effort, you can customize the process — using a custom dictionary for the spell-checker, for example. NetMechanic has both a free version and a paid one. The freebie is limited to a maximum of 5 pages with a maximum of 25 links per page, although the paid version handles up to 400 pages or 5,000 links on one site.

NetMechanic will run these five tests on the page or site you choose:

✓	Link Check
✓	HTML Check & Repair
✓	Browser Compatibility
✓	Load Time Check
✓	Spell Check

To run the site test with all the default settings, follow these steps:

1.	Go to www.netmechanic.com/products/HTML_Toolbox_FreeSample.shtml. NetMechanic’s HTML Toolbox Free Sample page appears, as shown in Figure 18-8. Figure 18-8. Running the basic Net Mechanic free tests. [View full size image]
2.	Enter the URL ...