This is the first part of an ongoing series where we’ll be providing links to sites that provide useful information for helping you build your website. We welcome your suggestions for additional resources in the comments. Today, we’re focusing on site-building tools (web browsers and extensions) and HTML/CSS.

Site-building Tools

• Firefox – “The award-winning Web browser is now faster, more secure, and fully customizable to your online life.”
• Firebug – “Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.”
• The Web Developer extension – “The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools. It is designed for Firefox, Flock, Mozilla and Seamonkey, and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.”

HTML/CSS

• W3Schools – “At W3Schools you will find all the Web-building tutorials you need, from basic HTML and XHTML to advanced XML, SQL, Database, Multimedia and WAP.”
• HTML Code Tutorial – “Our goal is to provide the most helpful and complete guide to creating web pages anywhere.”
• The Complete Reference HTML & XHTML – website supporting the fourth edition of the eponymous book
• URL Decoder/Encoder – “Handy for turning encoded JavaScript URLs from complete gibberish into readable gibberish.”
• CSS Formatter and Optimiser – “CleanCSS is a powerful CSS optimizer and formatter. Basically, it takes your CSS code and makes it cleaner and more concise.”
• CSS Panic Guide – a guide for the unglued. – “This is not a complete resource, this is a fast resource.”
• Tizag – “Tizag was designed to teach beginner web programmers how to use HTML and CSS.”
• Free Webmaster Help – “Everything a webmaster needs – for free. Here you will find many high quality tutorials and articles dealing with some of the most popular and important issues and technologies surrounding web development.”
• Web Form Factory – “Web Form Factory is an open source web form generator which automatically generates the necessary backend code to tie your form to a database.”

Do you have a site-building or HTML/CSS recommendation you would like to share? Please tell us about it in the comments.

Related Articles:

• Resource Links (Part 2) – PHP and Javascript
• Resource Links (Part 3) – Statistics and Graphics/Design
• Resource Links (Part 4) – Business/Financial
• Resource Links (Part 5) – Design/Usability

2Checkout.com strives to provide vendors with detailed stat tracking to assist in monitoring the financial history of their accounts.

A key aspect of this information is active tracking of refund and bank dispute amounts and percentages. These percentages play a key role in 2Checkout account evaluations, as well as determining the level of the rolling reserve that is applied to accounts.

2Checkout maintains the following criteria for acceptable refund and bank dispute percentages:

• Refund amounts should not exceed our acceptable limit of 10%.
• Bank Assisted dispute levels should not exceed our acceptable limit of 1%.

Percentages above these levels may lead to reserve increases, and can be detrimental to the overall profitability of your company.

Refunds and Bank Assisted Disputes that are deemed fraud related are weighted differently than those issued for service related issues, yet these stats should be monitored as well.

2Checkout encourages all vendors stay current on their account statistics and are proactive in using these tools to ensure the overall health and good standing of their accounts.

Over the last couple days, a lot of web sites have been discussing the $150 Medison Celebrity laptop.

A member of our Prevention and Solutions team has responded to the concerns and questions of many potential customers in our forum.

“We have received an enormous amount of feedback, both positive and negative relating to the Medison Celebrity Notebook. We would like to take this time to address customer concerns relating to our handling of the product, the buyer protection we offer, and our own capacity and vigilance relating to the situation.”

Continue reading…

Just a few of the articles we’ve seen:

• The $150 laptop saga: Checking out 2Checkout and Medison
• Medison Celebrity, the $150 Laptop
• Meet the cheapest laptop in the world

The time is here! I know that you have all been waiting patiently, and now all of your questions can be answered. I think that you will find that using Payoneer is a lot easier than you thought it would be. Today is July 11th and Payoneer has been added as a payment method. As soon as payments have finished running, the wizard will be unlocked and you will be able to sign up with Payoneer.

All you have to do is go into the banking wizard. The first two pages will be the regular information that you are already familiar with, on the third page you will have the option to sign up with Payoneer. Once you have signed up with Payoneer, you will be redirected to the 2Checkout.com wizard where you will have to click on the button that says that you wish to be paid using the Payoneer card. You do not have to do this right away; you can continue being paid by a prior method until you have received your card. This card is available to all vendors worldwide!

This is a new and exciting option, and 2Checkout.com along with Payoneer are very happy to be able to offer this option to you.

As new blog posts are added, older posts roll off the homepage*, but we still want to hear from you!

Here’s a roundup of recent blog discussions and forum threads where 2CO is asking for your feedback:

• Affiliate Signup Program Update
• 2CO’s New Affiliate Program
• Possible Integrated Affiliate Network?
• Beta Project: Beta RC 7.5 (discuss the new purchase routine before it’s released)

If you want to get really involved, 2Checkout is still hiring! (all openings)

*As always, an extended list of all blog posts can be found in the 2Checkout Blog category.