More Cool Resources for Web Designers

These are a couple of cool websites that have helped me in my web design projects. I am constantly looking around for good resources to make my creative life easier.

CSS Layouts - Great collection of CSS layouts. The layouts are designed to work in all browsers and use pure CSS without tables.

Color Pallette Generator - A clickable pallette generator, which makes a website color pallette based on the primary colors of the image you supply.

Website Launch Checklist - A nice list of items that should be checked against before any website is launched.

PDF Magazines - Free resource of hundreds of PDF magazines on a number of topics, including design.

1001 Free Fonts - Awesome website for all things font related.

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Online Resources for Web Designers

Here are a couple of online resources for all you web designers out there. These are all free to use and have become quite useful in my day to day weaving ;)

Adobe Connect - Adobe ConnectNow is a great way to share ideas, discuss details, and complete work together — all online. Reduce travel costs, save time, and increase productivity with a web conferencing solution that is easy to access and simple to use. Best of all it's totally free!

Taggify - Taggify is a web widget which allows bloggers and publishers enhance their sites by adding visual tags to any site's images.

PDFescape - PDFescape is your free, online PDF reader, editor, form filler, & form designer.

Blue Vertigo - Huge design resource that includes stock images, fonts, textures, icons, etc.

CSS Mania - Tons of links, references and educational content on CSS.

Typetester - The Typetester is an online application for comparison of the fonts for the screen. Its primary role is to make web designer’s life easier.

Web Developer/Design Project Estimator - The Web Development Project Estimator is a simple tool that allows web designers and site developers to quickly and thoroughly estimate the time and materials required for a proposed web project.

Preloaders - An awesome collection of preloaders for all your development projects.

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Online Auction Sites Besides Ebay

In this bleak economy we could all use a little extra cash these days.  It is a very good time to clean out our closets, attics and crawlspaces of junk we no longer use, but could sell for a profit.  Spring cleaning should be done all year long.  Here is a listing of good auction websites other than Ebay that one can use to get rid of unwanted stuff.

Auction.com

Bidtopia.com

Bonanzle.com

eBid.net

ePier.com

iOffer.com

OnlineAuction.com

Overstock.com

SalvageSale.com

TheSOCExchange.com

Webidz.com

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Great sites for Watching TV & Movies Online

I love anything free especially movies and internet video.  Here is a short list of some great sites out there that allow you to watch movies and tv either by downloading them first or thru streaming.

Quick Silver Screen

Hulu

Alluc

WizMovies

Openflv

Joox

Nabolister

Joost

Channelchooser

Freetube

OVGuide

Project - Free TV

Beeline TV

TV-video

Steamick

Channelking

SurfTheChannel

WatchNewFilms

NBC.com

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9 Useful Adobe Flex / AIR Applications

Adobe's Flex framework and the AIR component have brought allot of versitility to both websites and the desktop.  Here is a small collection of some of the best applications out there currently.

1. Mediamaster - is an application that will save your entire song library so you don't have to rip/download/buy them all over again if you ever lose them due to a computer crash.  You can also share your playlist with other users and browse their music selections.
   
2. Acrobat.com - Is an application to help you get thru your next project.  It contains a document creator called Buzzword, a desktop sharing app for collaboration and meetings, and Adobe share which gives you 5gb of file storage.
   
3. Finetune - This is a awesome internet radio application which allows users to create and share playlists.
   
4. Mooflair - This application is one of the best video delivery system around.  It allows you to browse through videos, create playlists, and download them to your desktop so you can easily drop them onto your iPod.
   
5. Photoshop Express - This application from Adobe, combines the photo editing capabilities of Photoshop Elements in a Flex RIA. You get 2 gigs of online photo storage, and a free URL to host all your pictures and albums. It can also be integrated with other social websites, like flickr, facebook, and  picassa.
   
6. IExpenseOnline - This financial application helps you track what you spend vs. what you make, and it also has tips on how to cut down your expenses and save your money.
   
7. Tweetdeck - This application lets you seamlessly read and write tweets for Twitter, outside of your browser.
   
8. Craig's List Desktop - This application makes searching thru listings on Craig's List much easier.  There are multiple searching options, and pictures are included in the results.  You can save your searches, and all of the listings update in real time.
   
9. Timetoast - A handy appliaction to organize numerous dates.  Add the dates you need to remember along with a description and Timetoast will chart them on a timeline for you.  Picturs can also be added and you can share your timeline with other users.
   

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List of New Cool Websites

I am always looking for cool and interesting new websites on a variety of topics.  Here is a short list of some of those that I have come across recently.

Surf the Channel - this is a site that indexes "all videos, everywhere" and lists them in easy to navigate pages. Think of it as an agrregator for video sites across the net.  It combines Youtube, Hulu, and other video websites.

Mygazines - this website that allows you to browse, share, archive and customize unlimited magazine articles uploaded by hundreds of users.

Soundunwound - think of this website as a sort of Wikipedia for music.  It is part music store, part wiki, and designed to be the resource of choice for all music fans that need information about their favorite artists.  It is still in Beta, and pairs together two web giants Amazon and IMDB.

Stormpulse - this website tracks current storms as well as provides detailed historical information on past weather mischief.  It uses rich media interactive maps and statistics.

Quarkbase - is a free web application that allows you to find complete information about a website.  It is a mashup of over 30 data sources and gathers information from all over Internet on topics like social popularity, traffic, associated people, etc.

Indeed - this is a search engine for jobs - with a radically different approach to job search. It spans job Web sites, newspapers, and company career pages by keyword and location to fit your needs.

Diaroogle - this site helps you find quality public toilets from your mobile phone.  This is only useful in NYC at the moment, but with more cities to follow. 

getmooh - (Get Me Out of Here) is a website that will ring your phone at a specified time and playback a message, this is useful to send a b-day wish to a friend, annoy someone ;), get out of a horrible date, or cut out of a meeting early.

Vyew - this is a free desktop sharing application similar to GoTo Meeting or Webex but with more features and best of all it doesn't cost anything ;)

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Diablo III

Ever since Blizzard introduced the first Diablo game many moons ago I have been hooked. I recall countless hours slashing skeletons and picking up gold piles as I trudged thru the many haunted corridors in the various dungeons. Seeking new weapons and armor, as I battled the forces of evil. So I was very excited when they announced that they would be releasing Diablo 3.

The story picks up two decades later, and the worlds are rendered in stunning 3d detail. There are two character classes already revealed: The Barbarian and the Witchdoctor, but in the finished game there will be a total of 5 to choose from, both male and female. The environment is also new, and it allows players to set traps and use the destructible objects against your foes. It is based on the powerful Havok physics system. Blizzard has also stated that Battle.Net has been enhanced making it more enjoyable for cooperative online play. There is no release date as of yet, and I will be jonesing till this game comes out. ;)

Check out the 20 minute Gameplay trailer here.

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Useful Online Web Design Tools

Here is a nice little online collection of useful tools for any web designer.

Golden Ratio
This tools calculates the golden ratio for your designs.

Grid Calculator
Very handy tool for the designer who uses grids to mock-up site layouts.

Reflection Maker
A tool with creates a reflection for any image.

Table Generator
A tool for creating tables with column classes applied.

CSS Type Set
A tool for testing out CSS styles on your web content.

Markup Generator
Markup Generator is a simple tool created for xhtml/css coders. It’s main purpose is to speed up your work by generating xhtml markup and a css frame out of very intuitive, shortened syntax so you can jump directly to the elements styling.

Vector Magic
A tool that generates Vector artwork from a bitmap image. It is allot like Illustrator's live trace.

YAML Builder
An interactive code-generating tool for authoring custom CSS layouts.

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