kuler – Adobe’s version of Color Scheme Designer

Admin — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:40:03 +0000

Kuler is a great tool for all designers. It’s really similar to the Color Scheme Designer in the aspect that it composes several colors for you to use in your design.

It has several other features that make it even BETTER than CSD but there are tons of features missing too. Let’s start with the good stuff

What’s good

pre-made themes including “random”, “newest”, “most popular”, and “highest rated” categories
RSS feed for the “highest rated”
Ability to create theme from an image (upload an image, or choose an image from flickr and select colors)
community
Presets for uploading an image (called “moods”)
Ability to register and sign in to save and share themes

What’s not so good

there are some reservations about the interface
rather confusing color picking interface

What’s missing

export features (you can’t export to PSD, CSS, or HTML as you can in CSD)
no example sites (CSD allows you to look at example coloring)
VERY limited color options
no permalink

“What’s missing” seems not to be such a big deal, but it actually is. The “example site” feature on CSD is amazing and very useful. It can kick-start your imagination and it’s just really cool.

I don’t use the export features but it’s nice to know they’re available. Also, the color options in CSD are virtually LIMITLESS. There are TONS of presets while Kuler does not really have any of those great presets.

Kuler is great if you’re looking for pre-made color schemes and themes but it’s nothing compared to the Color Scheme Designer.

One feature though, that could win me over, is the “Create From An Image” ability that lets you use an image for the scheme. I will definitely try that out and report on it.

Share and Enjoy:

This year and the next

Admin — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:46:20 +0000

I just wanted to point something out to everyone. Technology and our world is advancing super-fast, I mean, I can barely keep up. So what does this year and the next year still hold for us?

Let’s look at Operating Systems:

Ubuntu 9.10

Ubuntu official logo

Ubuntu 9.10 alpha 3 screenshot

A new Ubuntu distro is coming out, the Karmi Koala. I know that they come out with two distros EVERY year but this is different. 9.10 is going to be a new stable and long-term supported update. It will also feature GRUB 2.0, the new multiple OS launcher. Also, a new X.org is available. I’m running a dual-boot with 9.04 and that Linux works perfectly for me so I’m looking forward to 9.10 because it’s supposed to be better than perfect and it’s supposed to have a friendlier GUI. I don’t even know how they do it, I think the user interface since 7.10 was extremely user friendly. We’re in a new era of super-fast laptops and netbooks. Ubuntu has already come out with several Netbook remixes but I think this year, they’ll have more fun with it. I’ll give you a full review once it’s out (it’s usually mid-October) and I’ll install it on my computer! You can follow updates and such at Planet Ubuntu.

Windows 7

Windows 7 desktop

Whoa yeah, new windows. I was starting to get scared that Vista was going to be around for a long time. So, I’m sure that millions of Vista users will be happy with the release of Windows 7 on the 22nd of next month. We already know what Windows 7 will look like, somewhat. There are hundreds of reviews on the Release Candidate. The RC is no longer available for free download so don’t even try finding it on the Microsoft website. So what’s supposed to be so great about Windows 7? It’s supposed to be more beautiful than Vista by using resources that would put XP to shame. There are hundreds more articles comparing the speed of Vista, XP, and Windows 7 (RC). It’s quite amazing, W7 can utilize your computer’s resources much more efficiently and you’ll see that your system will boot faster than even XP. I use XP, so this is great. And I haven’t even mentioned the revamped interface. It looks truly amazing, I don’t know what else to say except that I cannot wait to get my hands on it.

Snow Leopard?

I know nothing about the Snow Leopard to be honest, I just know that the OSX got updated a month or two ago. I really can’t write a review on it but I still want to point this out, a new OSX came out this year.

Let’s move on, Operating Systems are not the only pieces of software that get an upgrade. You might not have noticed but HTML 5 is getting a lot of attention.

HTML 5

HTML 5 is in works and us web-developers have a lot to look forward to. Some of the features include different mark-ups and tags and they are mostly directed to make 3rd party plugins obsolete. By that I mean, HTML 5 is trying to make it so that the user won’t have to install flash player, shockwave player, JAVA and all that stuff. It incorporates web form 2.0. Some of the new mark-ups try to limit the use of CSS such as the use of

and . Those will be replaced by markups such as

. There are plenty of other tags, such as which will conceivably replace everyone uploading videos to youtube and embedding those in their site. It should be much easier to embed a video straight from the source. I can’t wait for it!

Here are some example websites that already use HTML 5 but beware, your browser might not support it yet:

I’m not sure when HTML 5.0 will be fully implemented but I am looking forward to that day.

CSS3

A new CSS specifications under way! CSS level 3. Its development is under way and there is not much information present on the project. Most of the additions deal with shadows, transparencies, multiple backgrounds, overlays, and other fancy nice formatting through which you can bypass the use of photoshop.

You can find more information on it here:

I’m looking forward to the new formatting options as I’m sure everyone is.

From there, Adobe CS5 is going to come out, conceivably because of the OS upgrades and the web-development updates and that’s what I look forward to the most.