NETEYE Activity Indicator is a jQuery plugin for creating and displaying flexible activity indicators when needed.

The plugin doesn't require any images as it makes use of SVG or VML.

Its color can be defined and, considering the indicators generated support transparency, they fit perfectly to any background color.

There are multiple options offered for customizing it like: number of segments, size (width, length, space), speed of the animation and more.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

Advertisements:
Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)

Every graphic designer knows that choosing the color combinations is among the most important parts of the design making process, on print or on the web. There is no universal color combination that will please all types of clients. For some designers, it is a matter of trial and error. But trial and error means you wasting plenty of precious time. Time is an important commodity in the graphic designer’s fast paced world. Through proper research, sense of style and good common sense, you can eliminate the long time of experimentation.

Understanding the Color Wheel

Before anything, it’s important to know the basics of the Color Wheel first. Every designer should by now have familiarized the color wheel by heart.

White light is a combination of all the colors of the spectrum, divided into three basic groups: red, blue and yellow. From these three colors, you can combine every color imaginable to the human eye. To be able to create aesthetically pleasing color combinations, you have to know how the color wheel first. I’ll try explaining it to you without being too technical.

Monochromatic

For the monochromatic color scheme, it makes use of one color of different shades. For example, you use the following color combination for a web site:

The main color here is green, plus a lighter (50% white) green and a darker (50% black) green. Using monochromatic color combinations add a professional and sophisticated. It’s no fuss and straight to the point–thus it can get boring and monotonous (they have the same prefix, so…).

Complementary

The most interesting color combinations are those that show contrast and interest. This is by combining colors that are located opposite each other in the color wheel. They are bold, visually interesting and appealing. Just be sure to combine colors that look great together for your client’s company. Some combinations may look too gaudy–stay away from that.

Analogous

The analogous color scheme combines colors next to each other on the color wheel. They’re like the monochromatic scheme, great for professional and business uses. They are more interesting since they add contrast and interest into the canvas. Analogous color schemes are easy to work with and they always look great.

Here are some great examples of analogous color combinations:

Triadic

Triadic color schemes take three colors that are equally apart on the color wheel. They create a triangular shape when you connect the colors together. This type of color combination is aesthetically pleasing and well balanced.

Pleasing Clients with the Right Color Combinations

As mentioned earlier, you cannot please all clients with a universal color palette. You should know your client’s company first and foremost–what the company and their products are about, so that you can have a head start on picking the colors. Don’t forget to also check out successful logo redesigns.

Restaurants, Fast Food and Food Products

For companies that are centered on food and dining, use red and yellow a lot. These colors are attractive and easy to spot. Warm hues and solid colors are recommended. This is because the color red and yellow induces hunger by speeding up metabolism. This will increase the diner’s appetite, making them order more food than they should have. Avoid the blue and purple color for restaurants at all costs–these colors decreases one’s appetites. Subconsciously, our body reacts negatively to blue and purple toxins. Green and brown is a good color for relaxing and casual eating (think cafes and bistros). Try using colors in the triadic or complementary color scheme.

Here are some interesting color palettes for restaurants, fast food and food products:

Makeup and Hygiene Products

Choose colors that convey femininity, grace and cleanliness. Light, pastel colors like white, lavenders, light blues and light pinks are a great choice. Avoid warm and harsh colors. You can also opt for monochromatic and neutral colors, for they signify cleanliness and simplicity. Here are some interesting color palettes for makeup and hygiene products:

Government Agencies, Public Offices, NGOs and Organizations

When creating something for government and public agencies or organizations, keep in mind that it should appear respectable, trustworthy and dignified. Choose colors that are positive and cool, such as greens and blues. These cool colors provide a positive, public image that’s solid and built on trust. Government and NGOs love using reds, whites and blues for their logos after the US American flag. These colors are also a sign of nationalism and integrity.Choose the monochromatic or analogous color scheme. Minimize on using contrasting colors.

Here are some interesting color palettes for public offices, government agencies and other organizations:

Logos or graphic design for educational establishments, insurance companies and hospitals also apply as well.

Hotels, Spas and other Hospitality Establishments

When designing for hotels, spas and resorts, capitalize on comfort, hospitality and relaxation. Choose ‘earthy’ and natural colors. Browns, blues and greens are the most relaxing and calming colors. Avoid bold colors. Make use of the monochromatic color scheme. Use colors only to a minimum, unless if it’s a Vegas establishment.

Blacks, whites, silver and gold are also a good choice of colors for hotels, spas and resorts, especially if it’s a five-star establishment and they wish to capitalize on luxury and class.

Conclusion

Color is a good way to catch the eye of viewers, but too much color will be distract your readers from looking closer and reading on. If you can, stick to 2 to 4 colors only.

Color combinations are not created on whim, but through careful research and study. By knowing the basics of the color wheel and combinations, you can create thousands of aesthetically pleasing color combinations.

Ruby on Rails is an impressive development platform which is used widely by developers and popular apps.

If you're already experienced with it, preparing the development environment it requires is pretty easy. However, if you're new to Rails, it can be tricky.

Rails Installer is a free installation package which includes everything needed for a full Rails stack (Ruby, Tails, Git, Sqlite, Devkit).

Currently, it is compatible with Windows but Mac and Linux versions are mentioned to be "coming soon"

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

Advertisements:
Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)

Google is providing lots of tools for web designers/developers and almost all of them have their APIs for easier integration with 3rd party services.

If you're a frequent user of these resources and want to reach them easier, Google has a web page specifically for you: Google APIs & Developer Products.

The page lists all development-related resources of Google with their logos and highlights the ones according to their categories.

A must-bookmark for everyone into web development.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

Advertisements:
Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)

Most people find themselves working eight hours a day, five days a week. They could be connected to a small business or work in a prominent establishment where income is manageable. However, working on a daily basis makes you burn-out and want to work on your own with no boss watching you around.

Why freelancing is right for you? These days, seeking regular 8-5 jobs seem impossible to find. Employment seemed to have decreased over time with the current recession. Because of this, you find many people out of work. This then calls for a freelancing job where you can maximize your own time. But remember, you need to have the quality skills to become a successful freelancer.

Freelancing is simply working on your own. You take your own directions while starting an honest day's work. If skills are practice well, you have a greater chance of becoming successful than staying employed. This then is the topic of this article – making you ready to become a freelancer and the qualities you need to build your own skills.

Why freelancing is beneficial, if not unfavorable?

Image by Leszek na Litere Ka

1) Knowing the benefits of freelancing

Freelancing is beneficial because you get to choose when, where and what you work on. Unlike having a regular job, there is no need for you to prepare, dress-up and worry that you will be late for work. You also get to choose the location of your office and what projects you will be working on. There is freedom with respect to work as it will solely be to yourself. I guess you only have you to please yourself.

Because you choose the people you work closely with, income generated is solely for your own. All you need to have is the impulse to dominate your own business. If you want to have more clients in your business, that could be a positive attitude because this could mean more revenue. Income generated from each client is done separately. So once you get a bad client, you can simply hack him out. Why waste your time and effort on people like that.

2) Why freelancing could be unfavorable

Working in a prestigious company will guarantee you regular work while income is stable. But as a freelancer, it is your own discretion to have more clients and work hard for you to experience unlimited income. This is because income earned by freelancers is variable. There could be months were income is high; there could be months were revenues are low. This will even go down if you are lazy and get to choose poor quality clients.

So for you to be an effective freelancer, you need to have the patience, diligence, build trust and confidence in your clients to make things work efficiently.

How to sharpen your skills?

Image by John Nyberg

The common reason why people tend to improve their skills is paying the bills. Skills are necessary to keep you in business and create a name for you in the freelance industry. In doing this, clients will believe in your competence and will do more projects with you. To keep up with the ever fast changing world, improving your skills are necessary every now and then. When tasks are done well, more clients will welcome your job and everyone around is happy.

1) Find an inspiration to motivate you to work.

You may have not noticed it but you have been working hard too long. You tend to be preoccupied with work that you forget to have an inspiration. Having an inspiration provides you the significance of why you should work. You may also refer to other people who have done a great job.

2) Allocate time to learn

Whatever you are doing within a day or a week, allocate time to learn. Learning newer things about your job is easy. You may refer to some reference materials that will help improve your craft. It could be reading magazines, books, blogs and trade journals. You may even opt to go back to school and learn new things. Whatever is your decision, it is time to refresh your mind with excellent lessons to enhance your freelancing career.

3) Taking classes to further enhance your skills.

It is a great advantage if you take classes to work-out on your skills. This is because constant communication in school makes you learn new things and allows you to interact with co-students. A teacher is the best mentor to improve your skill.

4) Work with good people

Learning new things from people who have mastered their craft is also beneficial. People like this know what they are doing. They are good examples and you can begin by merely observing how they perform their skill. Working with them, be part of their team sounds great. You can also ask them questions if something needs to be clarified.

5) Stay focused and pay attention to your skills

We may have skills that need to be polished. Stay focused on this skill and find ways to improve it. You can work on this skill, practice it till it gets perfect, explore new horizons and be creative. Who knows it can take you to places like having more clients. And having clients believe in your capacity brings great advantage.

6) Take some criticisms positively

We might think that we have done an excellent job. But sometimes we are engrossed with work that we forget about its own share of mistakes. Whatever the case may be, we need other people's opinion about work. Of course, there will always be painful criticisms. But if you take things lightly and on the bright side, we learn and can try to improve the craft.

7) Try new challenges

Things will turn customary when work is started. There may be instances where it becomes boring. When this occurs, you need to assert a certain diversion and explore new challenges. Experiment by trying new methods that cans further enhance your skill. For instance in writing, you can experiment blogging, article writing and forums so things will sound interesting.

There may be other elements not discussed here that can further enhance your skills. The above mentioned merely shows you an overview of why your current skills need to be improved. It is important and should be given utmost value as you need to meet the expectations and requirements of your clients. It is also because you want to establish more lasting relationships with them. And you simply want to build trust and confidence in them. If your freelancing skills is improved, excellent results are achieved.

For a productive development process, every web designer/developer needs tools that are functional and make you feel comfortable. 

An IDE (integrated development environment) is possibly the most frequently used tool as it is your touch to the code whether you're building something from scratch or applying just a small update.

And, you don't have to use only a single IDE, maybe something complicated with a debugger, built-in FTP, etc. as the main code editor and something simpler for quickly making updates + viewing source codes.

Here are 16 free IDEs for designers/developers that are used widely and proven to be stable:

Aptana Studio (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Aptana Studio is a very impressive and open source development tool that supports HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript and Ruby, Rails, PHP & Python on the server side.

It has a "code assist" feature where you can find out details about functions, elements, etc.

You can stay synchronized with the server via FTP, SFTP and control your code with the help of an integrated debugger.

There are many other features that will ease the development process including Git integration or a built-in terminal.

Komodo Edit (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Komodo Edit is an open source application that has support for PHP, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, Perl, Tcl, XML, HTML 5 and CSS 3.

It has syntax coloring, folding, background syntax checking,  auto-complete and calltips.

There are lots of extensions created by the community that will help you customize it more.

Code::Blocks (Windows, Mac, Linux)

A flexible IDE, focused on C/C++ code, that can be extended very easily with its powerful plugin support.

It has syntax highlighting, code folding, auto-completion and a tabbed interface.

There is also a task manager to simplify working on the same project for multiple users.

Aptana RadRails (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Similar to Aptana Studio, RadRails is also a great code editor that is open source. With only one difference, it is focused on Ruby on Rails applications.

It includes support for project navigation, smart code assistance, visual debugging and structure outlining.

Eclipse (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Eclipse is a free, state-of-the-art Java development environment (there are also JS, PHP and C/C++ versions).

It has a very active community and many open source plugins + developer tools built around the ecosystem.

CodeLite (Windows, Mac, Linux)

An open source IDE for C/C++ which can be easily extended with plugins.

It has a XML-based syntax highlighting for most of the popular languages and has a powerful code-completion mechanism.

Visual Studio Express (Windows)

Express products are the lighter versions of the Microsoft's popular developer tools (but they are still powerful).

There are various programs provided under 4 categories:

• Web
• Desktop
• Mobile
• Database

Each program targets a Microsoft platform (Windows Mobile, SQL Server, etc.) and they are very handy if you're developing in these platforms.

NetBeans (Windows, Mac, Linux)

It consists of an open-source IDE and an application platform that enable developers to rapidly create web, enterprise, desktop, and mobile applications.

Java is the main platform and it also supports JavaFX, PHP, JavaScriptx, Ruby +Ruby on Rails, Groovy and Grails and C/C++.

Xcode (Mac)

Xcode is the "Mac way" of building for Apple-powered platforms.

It includes features to complete all the build, debug and test cycles.

A graphical editor (Interface Builder) helps designing every aspect of your iOS or Mac OS Xapplication’s graphical user interface.

For iPhone developers, there is a full-featured simulator for a complete testing of the output and much more.

MochaCode (Mac)

A Java IDE that offers a complete "Mac" user experience with text editors, keyboard shortcuts, toolbars, etc., all behaving exactly as you would expect from a Mac application

There is a powerful code assistant with auto-complete and a library displaying any parameters related to the code.

Geany (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Geany is a simple-yet-powerful IDE that support all major filetypes.

It supports code-folding, auto-completion, code navigation and new features can be added with the plugin support

PSPad (Windows)

The editor supports many file types and languages, with syntax highlighting.

There are macros, clip files and templates to automate repetative tasks.

Other features include an integrated HEX editor, FTP client, macro recorder, code explorer and more.

Anjuta DevStudio (Linux)

With a simple user interface, Anjuta has many features including project management, application wizard, interactive debugger, source editor, version control, GUI designer, profiler and many more tools.

Also, the functionality can be extended quickly with thanks to its plugin support.

KDevelop (Windows, Mac, Linux)

The IDE supports many programming languages like C, C++, Fortran, Java, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python and Ruby.

It has built-in project management, debugger and can be extended with plugins.

Notepad++ (Windows)

Notepad++ is actually an advanced text editor and a must-have for every developer using Windows.

It has syntax highlighters for every popular scripting language and it is usually a perfect fit for a 2nd IDE, for small updates or simpler codes (however, there are many developers who only use it).

Multiple tabs can be created, macros can be used and there are many other features like code folding, advanced search, etc.

ConTEXT (Windows)

Similar to Notepad++, ConTEXT is an advanced text editor where you can work on unlimited files at the same time.

Besides features like syntax highlighting and multilanguage interface, it enables you to store code templates, record macros, compare files and more.

Also, it has customizable help files for each file extension.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

Advertisements:
Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)