Updated!!!
I’ll keep updating this page as I find more tools since this seems to be one of the more popular pages on this blog.
Thanks,
Jason
One thing programmers don’t generally know is good design techniques. You can usually tell when a programmer has created a UI because they’re ugly and difficult to use. There are exceptions to be sure (Romain Guy for one). For those of us that aren’t as blessed I present here a list of color pickers that allow you to pick harmonious color combinations for web sites, etc.
- Added 03/06/2007:
Kuler
From Adobe and pronounced “cooler” this is a fantastic color chooser. Not only can you create your own color scheme using a very intuitive color wheel but you can also search on the hundreds of color schemes people have already generated to find something quickly. This is a fantastic resource.
- ColorJack Sphere or more generally ColorJack.
This is another fantastic color resource. Sphere is another easy to use color wheel with options for both the traditional RYB color wheel as well as the standard RGB model. There are many algorithms to choose from (triad, complementary, etc) but the really unique thing about this tool is the ability to see how color blind people interpret colors. Very cool stuff. ColorJack also offers a service similar to Kuler where you can see color schemes others have created using the Studio tool on the website.
- Colors on the Web
This site is more than a color chooser (one is available from the Color Wheel menu option) as it also gives user-created color schemes, forums, writing on color theory, etc. It’s a fantastic resource for those who want to learn more about color.
- Color SynthAxis
OK. This is a real designers tool and complicated but damn is it cool. I believe it is best explained by the tutorial.
- Added 11/25/2007:The Color Wizard
The interesting thing is that tools such as these are coming out of the woodwork these days. At one time Harmony, a Photoshop plugin for the Mac from Hot Door, was the only thing available. They now recommend Kuler and their own application hasn’t been updated in years. My how things change.
Christmas lights are definitely not very eco-friendly in their usual form. I do love them though and this year I started the move to the LED variety. Maybe those aren’t even eco-friendly but they are a damn sight better than the traditional type (4-5 watts vs 40 or so on average). I have my lights on a timer and I don’t do the Christmas Vacation style of lighting so I don’t feel too guilty about it.
So this year we have three strings of “white” LEDs along the rooflines of the house and they actually look pretty cool. They’re definitely more of a very-cool-white variety to the point they’re almost a light shade of purple but they look pretty cool nonetheless.
I did find something even cooler at the local Menards hardware store last night though. GE is making solar-powered LED christmas lights. Had I known about those before I would have purchased them for outside because from a power use standpoint you can’t get much better than powered by sunlight 
Maybe next year….
On another note….it has been awhile since I’ve written here. Over the last couple of months I’ve been doing the job search thing and started my new job last week so things have been pretty busy. I’m hoping to get back into the swing of things after this week once my new routine becomes…well…routine again.
I’m being forced to run CentOS 5 at my new job and there is a bug in the graphic boot screen where once the boot process is complete instead of getting the graphic login screen you get dumped back to a virtual console. Hitting Alt-F7 brings up the graphic login screen. This bug is documented here.
The fix I tried was to install the Fedora Core 7 version of the RHGB package which fixed the issue (and caused another one…more on that in a second). That fix is located here at rpmfind.net.
In CentOS 5 the graphic boot process itself is glitchy on my Dell laptop (Precision M6300). However it doesn’t cause any problems and I do get the graphic login screen as I should.
If you’re a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and have been living under a rock the original cast of MST3K is doing a new thing. Same idea, same people, different title. Cinematic Titanic.
Check it out.
I love using AOL’s radio website. The player has a fantastic lineup of channels to listen to and the sound quality is wonderful. I never look at the AOL.com site for the most part. Until tonight.
The only thing I can say is damn. How much more obvious do they have to make it that they’ve totally poached the UI from yahoo.com. NOT only that website but AOL’s webmail client is almost a direct rip of the new Yahoo Mail UI, but it’s uglier.
At least AOL didn’t copy Yahoo Calendar (which is awful these days) for their own web calendar. They poached the UI from Google Calendar for that
I keep coming across people using “learnings” as a word in documents. Here is an example (scroll down to the bottom and you’ll spot it). Just a note for the incompetent: “learnings” is not a word. Go look it up in the dictionary…I dare you. See what comes up? “Learning”.
If you want to sound like Borat then keep using “learnings”. If you want to sound competent try “lessons learned”.
One of the things I wanted to do with this blog, that I really haven’t done to much yet, is document the things my family is doing to become more sustainable and less of a burden on the planet.
Up until now I’ve written some other things here and there but as a record of sustainability I haven’t done much past writing about the farmers markets and my garden. Those things are important but I want to, and have wanted to, do more so tonight I’m going to start working on an index of where my family is at the moment vs. where we really want to be.
I think we already do a lot of things that are good for ourselves and the environment but it just seems very disorganized. Things happen in fits and starts and I want a smoother ride. I am going to start recording here what we are doing and what we want to do to move towards being more sustainable. I’m hoping keeping a record will help me make myself more accountable to my own goals and maybe help out somebody else who is having the same problems.
This post is the inaugural post. Tomorrow night I will write about the things we are already doing that I think are important.
Jeffrey Zeldman really does have a wonderful way with words. Check out his recent iPhone experience.
I’ve been having an issue for the last several days where I have not been able to multi-select files in Explorer in Vista. Keyboard shortcuts didn’t work either nor did the Select All menu option (grayed out).
It would appear that this is a known issue and the problem is that the defaults for certain types of file dialogs where you should only be able to select one file are getting set for all folders. Unfortunately none of the fixes worked. Those fixes were:
- Remove the Bags registry key under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell
- Do a reset folder options under Folder Options->View in Explorer
But I did find a fix and it is listed here along with the script that fixed the issue:
Can’t select multiple files in Explorer
Incidentally I do not have Vista 64. This problem can happen on the 32 bit version as well.
Here is the script I used to fix the problem. It is the same one referenced in the link above but I had to rename the file to have a .gif extension. Please rename to .vbs to run it.
Fix Single Select
I found this website via StumbleUpon. It is a neat display that shows how many people have been born, died, and how many tons of CO2 are being released into the air since you started watching the web page. The author used data from various sources to determine the rates of birth/death/tons of CO2. He discusses where he got the data if you click the About button thats on the display.
Pretty cool. Check it out.
