simplifyyourwork2008.com

So you’re telling me there’s a Microsoft site out there that is clean, simple, creative, AND playful? Is the universe ripping apart at the seams? But I guess they only get partial credit because the site is targeting Mac users.

I’m such a sucker. Ok, Aral…what is it already?

The Ultrashock community has been a big inspiration for me over the years. I haven’t spent as much time on their site lately, but I used to really enjoy reading through their forums.

A site upgrade may have been long overdue, but they have certainly outdone themselves this time around. They have hooked up one of the sweetest Flex sites I have seen. I’m not sure how practical this type of implementation is (especially in regards to search engine compatibility), but it sure looks cool :). It also looks like they have earned an FWA site of the day. Nice!

Finding that perfect color combination can sometimes be a tough nut to crack. I find that for me, it’s all about inspiration, so here are 5 great resources for “color-block.” And of course they’re presented in a list… because everyone loves lists.

5 - COLORJACK
http://www.colorjack.com
Extremely useful online utility that allows you to create color palettes by experimenting and tweaking a whole slew of options. When you’re done, you have the option of exporting your swatches to Illustrator or Photoshop.

4 - COLORZILLA
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/271
Sometimes inspiration comes from other sites or random images floating around on the WWW. So instead of hitting the ole’ “print screen,” I use ColorZilla. It’s one among a plethora of useful plugins for FireFox. Basically once installed, you’re able to sample any color displayed within your browser in all its hexadecimal glory.

3 - BEHR COLORSMART
http://www.behr.com/behrx/workbook/index.jsp
Behr has a fun application for choosing paint colors for your home, and I find that it’s a great resource for finding interesting palettes for design work. One advantage that I see in the site is that you get to see what’s hot and trendy in interior design.

2 - KULER
http://kuler.adobe.com/
Kuler, from Adobe Labs, is by far the sexiest of the five resources listed here. It has a slick interface and intuitive usability. The “create” feature is clean and fast, and the social, community aspect is great.

1 - COLOURLOVERS
http://www.colourlovers.com
…the queen mother of color sites. Although Kuler has a better “mixer” tool, COLOURlovers has a superior online community full of people who are passionate about color. The blog posts are interesting, and they truly seem to have their fingers on the pulse of color trends. And as an added bonus - the site is beautifully designed.

Ever wanted to find Chuck Norris?

1 Go to google.com
2 Type “find chuck norris”
3 Press “I’m Feeling Lucky”

There is a great article on InsideRIA.com discussing Jakob Nielson’s article “Web 2.0 Can Be Dangerous”. I tend to agree with everything noted in David Tucker’s review, and I’d like to add my own thoughts…

I think what disturbs me most about Nielson is his approach. While he certainly has some valid points, he directs his voice to those without a technical background, and pretends to know what he is talking about on the technical front. Jakob, if you are listening, you don’t. Your readers would be better served if you were steering clear of the technical jargon, and sticking to your expertise in usability. RIAs are a relatively new concept, and while “best practices haven’t gelled yet”, RIAs still offer a great opportunity for business owners to capitalize in a BIG way by creating rich web applications with usability in mind. This RIA thing is not just about “gadgets on a page”…

The statement about Flash at the beginning of the article really discredits Nielson as far as I’m concerned. He did a great job of stating the obvious way back in 2000, but the Flash bashing wave that he’s still trying to ride crashed a couple of years ago…

Helvetica is a new documentary out by Gary Hustwit. It basically takes a look at the history of the typeface and its impact on our visual culture.

The very bearded, Bill Jones, sent me a link to it on Google video - watch the documentary in its entirety here.

I follow Ryan Stewart’s blog. He is well versed in Flex and other RIA technologies, and is employed at Adobe as an RIA Evangelist. His opinions are generally not heavily weighted in Adobe’s favor. There were no big surprises here, but it’s nice to know that we’re moving the right direction.

His post on RIA predictions for 2008 is worth reading…

Ryan Stewart: Rich Internet application predictions for 2008
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?p=699

Here is another good (and very relevant) forecast article:

12 predictions for Enterprise Web 2.0 in 2008
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe/?p=157

Hornall Anderson
Saw this site and thought it was worth a post. Slick interface showcasing some good-looking, diverse work. I really like the clean and tidy approach to the UI - it doesn’t compete with the content, and it lets the work speak for itself.

Cool idea for a physics game. I’m not sure how it could be used, but it’s crazy addictive even at an early stage.

Ok, so the site has been non-existent for a few days. Apparently, we do have a few loyal readers though who have been bombarding us with emails. So, by popular demand…and for the sake of reducing our email traffic, we have decided to turn the site back on. Blogna is back.