This week is a real mixed bag of things. Very little order but they are all still good.

12 Resources for Free Open Source Software.This post contains links to great Firefox extensions, visual and video tutorials for Open Source tools, Free tools for web developers, and much more.

Generate cool web 2.0 stripes to use as a background here. Adjust a few values and you get your customized version or you can browse already created stripes and use those.

Create tiled backgrounds here. Instead of using stripes for your backgrounds, try this pattern making background generator. Again you can adjust a few settings for your own custom background or browse the backgrounds created by others. Add depth and warmth to your site with these backgrounds.

Try these great Photoshop tutorials. There are millions of Photoshop tutorials sites out there. Many are useful and many are not. This site has tutorials to show you how to make: Tattoos Come to Life, Electrifying Energy Beams, a Phoenix Hair Effect, and many others.

CSS Tricks is my new favorite site for CSS trickery. The most recent article shows you how to add a calendar icon to your WordPress blog that is visually appealing and also shows the number of comments on that post. Sure you can get a plug in but try designing it yourself using this tutorial.

WP Candy has made a fantastic WordPress Reference guide. It is indispensible for those trying to design their own themes for WordPress. It is downloadable and the printable form is a pleasure to look at and easy to use. Useful for learning basic PHP and the Loop of WordPress.

That’s all for now. Do you have some useful resources?

As I work online and discover new and useful resources for every aspect of web design I will include the most useful links I find here. If you find something useful that I might include you can send it to me through del.icio.us, I know that you can just write delicious.com now but I prefer the old school way. My delicious user name is okpeery, send it to me via network, maybe you have to add me as a friend first though. Here are this weeks web design links, loosely related counts too.

• How many HTML elements can you name? A fun online timed test. Try it out.
• Easily share blog posts with many social networking sites with Share This.
• Quickly access the wealth of info on Wikipedia without navigating the site with this Firefox add-on Wikilook, learn how to use it efficiently here at Mozdev.
• Are you starting a business, not just a web design business, see how to cut your startup costs at GigaOm.
• Want to see a more detailed description of how your favorite sites are coded? Firebug is a Firefox add-on that gives you much more than “View Source Code” can give you. You can see the CSS, HTML, DOM, and scripts associated with any given site. FirePHP lets you access the PHP files too. Want to duplicate some mind blowing effect you saw on your favorite site, let Firebug and FirePHP help you.