What do those html hex values for colors actually mean?  Well, I intend to explain it as clearly as possible right here.  HTML colors aren’t supposed to be complex or confusing.  The hex values are six digits following a (#) sign.  The six digits are actually 3 pairs of digits.  Each pair represents either Red, Green, or Blue (RGB).  The lowest value that a pair can get is 00.  The highest value that a pair can get is FF.  So, #000000 is the lowest RGB value possible.  #00FF33 has the lowest possible value for Red (first pair), the highest possible value for Green (second pair), and the value “33″ for Blue (third pair).

With all three colors allowing values from 0 to 255, there are a total of 16 Million colors.  I know this isn’t anything ground breaking, but I have found that while many people are familiar with the #FFFFFF hex notation, very few actually know what the hex values mean and how to use that information to tweak colors.

Below is a nice color chart to help you find most of the hex values you’ll need for web sites:

Math Symbols Supported by HTML

Greek Letters Supported by HTML

Other Entities Supported by HTML

What your product photo shoot SHOULD look like...

I was working on a project recently and I realized something very crucial to the world of web design.  Many people might look at this and think I’m slow for never realizing it before, but whatever.  What I realized is that no matter how amazing the layout and web design work is, the site will look bad if product photos are bad.  Up until this point I haven’t put much thought into the importance of product photos.  Most small businesses do all of their own product photography with a point and shoot digital camera with little thought about composition, color balance, background, etc.

I’m about to say something that I don’t like.  But it is the truth, and I can’t keep the truth from people.  Your website will look better if you hire a professional photographer for the product photos and spend less money on a simple web design.  Obviously, if you need a more complicated and dynamic website, you should be willing to pay for it.  I’m saying that it might not be worth it if your product photos are amateur.

The new problem is that higher quality digital SLR cameras are getting more affordable.  People buy them and suddenly they think they’re Ansel Adams.  Well, trust me, there’s a lot more to photography than the camera!  So, if you are thinking about hiring a web designer, start by taking a close look at your product photos.  If they are fairly sterile and bland looking, you might want to consider hiring a photographer instead of a web designer.  That way you can drop your new product photos into your existing website for a quick upgrade.  This will also mean that when you are ready to spring for a web designer, you will already have some professional product photos for them to work with.

Free is an amazing word! I decided to compile a list of 100+ of the very best free apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Not all of the free apps listed work on all platforms…so make sure to look into it on your own. This list is broken down into 11 pages. Each page accounts for a software category. Feel free to leave additional free apps that you like in the comments!

Categories:

• Web Browsers
• Anti-Virus/Security
• Graphics/Photos
• Media Players/Converters/Streamers
• Bit Torrent Clients
• Programming/Development
• FTP/SCP/SSH
• System Tools
• Chat/Messengers/Social
• Archive Management
• Productivity

If a website is to be successful, it requires the talents of both. While, the work of a web designer and the work of a web developer have some similarities, there are also some very distinct differences between the two. Web design is the art of conceptualizing a design idea and bringing it to life on the web. Web development is the in-depth technical work that makes everything function the way it is supposed to.

It is very common for a web developer to have skills in design. In fact, one could say that web design is actually a sub-skill of web development. On the other hand, web designers are much less likely to have the skills necessary to write the markup and coding of a complex site. Designers tend to be dependent on developers, while developers tend to be independent and capable of doing an entire job from concept to finished product.

When it comes to the presentation of content, a designer might have many more creative ideas than a developer. This is not always true, but designer tend to be artists while developers tend to be more analytical. So, which one should you hire? Well, the ideal is a web developer with strong design and creative skills. I always recommend hiring a designer to help with the initial layout ideas and even creating a mockup of the final product. That is when you bring the developer in.

I hope this helps someone understand the difference between web design and web development!