Adobe Launches Photoshop Express Public Beta

With Photoshop Express, digital photos can be uploaded and sorted anytime, edited non-destructively to always preserve the original image, and shared from anywhere, on any Web browser. In a few easy clicks, Photoshop Express empowers anyone to make standard edits, such as removing blemishes and red-eye, converting to black and white, cropping and resizing, and much more.
Photoshop Express offers a variety of creative sharing options, including uploading and showing off photos and slideshows in your own online “Gallery” hosted by Adobe, or conveniently embedding or linking photos to social networking sites and personal blogs without having to leave the application. Slideshows never looked better with animation that makes photos float and fly across the screen, allowing for viewer interactivity and unique presentation styles.
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web2.0 Button Collections

Nice collection of web2.0 style buttons are available in dragnet. There more than 50 buttons showcased here along with some links to additional resource. Enjoy!

Link: button_collection

CSSGlobe.com: All About CSS around the globe

CSSGlobe is yet another site from the CSS community and Web Standards resources. So what is unique about this one? For two main reasons, one for its fresh and useful contents, and secondly for the active contributions of members bringing in latest of CSS and Web trends news.

The website carries active sections with “Articles” and “Community News”, both contributed by members/users. The articles are exclusively published for CSSGlobe supported with articles, tips, tutorials CSS and Web Standards from any other blogs/sites. Get registered and publish your findings.

Qualtiy Freebie from bittbox.com

Good design is a reflection of creative ideas and free design resources makes it easy to implement and popularize the latest trend in design. Bittbox provides quality Freebies and showcases some of the best photoshop artist in the design industry and their creatives. Photoshop Brushes, textures, Vector Brushes, Shapes, Stock Photos are some of the resources that are shared on this site. A gold mine for any designer.

Link: Bittbox.com

More life to your photos with HDR technique!

image source: wikipedia

Have you ever thought of enhancing some of your prized shots taken from your camera? Then you got to learn to generate a HDR image which means High Dynamic Range image. A technique that produces true colors and tones to your photographs by collaborating pictures of the same features under different exposures.

To start its important to have a steady hand or make it easy with a tripod and take shots of the same object with different exposures without any movement to avoid blurring of pictures. For example take 3 pictures with +2 EV and a couple with -3 EV and use softwares like Photomatix or other applications to generate your final HDR image.

Online Free CSS Menu Builder

Creating web2.0, glossy tabs is now made easy with izzymenu. This easy to use menu generator will help you generate/create menu tabs. The site has pre-defined tab settings with controls for different parameter. Customize your parameters, to create more number of tabs, horizontal or vertical, hover color/image and more. This is a handy site to be bookmarked, and create instant and professional looking CSS tabs in minutes.
Link: izzymenu

Apps Find: Expense / Money Tracking Web Apps

Always thought your money management skills is on the weaker side? Gone were the days scampering for a paper and calculator trying to figure out your spending pattern and punch the life out of the calculator.

With Web2.0 producing whole lot of online applications to manage your expenses, life has never been better. These apps help users track Expenses framed around the specified income from different sources as applicable to the respective users. In addition to the basic features you can plan your Budget and Expense report and also link bank accounts to the app.

Budget Pulse

"Money management software are usually complicated while online ones are too simple and featureless. BudgetPulse is built on principles of simplicity, user friendliness and comprehensiveness"- BudgetPluse

expensr

expensr is a free online personal finance application.

spendview

"The idea behind SpendView is straightforward - let users know where they spend their money, effortlessly. It’s a simple and secure personal finance site designed to minimize the effort required in tracking, analyzing, and reducing expenses."- spendview

Dell launch 20" widescreen monitor

Dell's new 20" widescreen flat panel monitor, the DELL UltraSharp 2009W. This panel has the capapbility to show more pixel content than the Dell's 19" widescreen monitor. The monitor shods 4 USB 2.0 ports incase you run out of ports on the PC and it also comes with height adjustable stand. Delivers life-like pictures with crisp and rich colors making the virtual experience feel like reality.

Vectips: Quality tips and tutorials for Illustrator

In line to the recently famous resource blog psdtuts, here comes the new one "vectips". Vectips has come out with quality tips, tricks and tutorials for Adobe Illustrator. The site targets on professional visitors with medium level skills in the illustrator. The categorizing of the TIPS, TRICKS and TUTORIALS makes the user to reach articles quickly and the apple green color used for the design gives an overall pleasant look. My favorite tutorial from the blog:

Also check: creating-halftone-effects | quickly-add-grunge-to-text

USB Digital Film Scanner

image source: gadgets.co.uk

Now here is an interesting gadget which will interest a lot of people who used the film camera before the digital camera took over. A gadget that can scan your photo negatives. So if you are one of them who have a stack of old films in your cupboard then its time to dig them out and convert them to possitives digitally. The USB Digital Film scanner will give life to your good old negatives by scanning them at high resolution and then having them converted to useful digital formats like jpegs etc.

Google Sites step up website publishing

Google Sites is finally launched. Another new service from the Google Apps stable, users can make use of Google Sites to develop/create websites online and no knowledge of programming is required to use this service. With different templates to choose from and a storage space of 10GB supported with a rich text editor, this application is a breeze to use.

Trend Analysis on Navigation from Smashingmagazine

Navigation design plays a vital role in making a site/blog popular and equally successful. Smashing magazine has come out with a new article on Navigation menu trend analysis. The article proves to be a good reference for any creative site/blog design, as it covers most of the available menu styles and its best examples. You will end up with a clear insight and design trends of navigation menu. So gear up to redesign your blog navigation!

Article Link: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/02/26/navigation-menus-trends-and-examples/

The Morph concept from Nokia

Featured in The Museum of Modern Art “Design and The Elastic Mind” exhibition, the Morph concept device is a bridge between highly advanced technologies and their potential benefits to end-users. This device concept showcases some revolutionary leaps being explored by Nokia Research Center (NRC) in collaboration with the Cambridge Nanoscience Centre (United Kingdom) – nanoscale technologies that will potentially create a world of radically different devices that open up an entirely new spectrum of possibilities.

Morph concept technologies might create fantastic opportunities for mobile devices:
Newly-enabled flexible and transparent materials blend more seamlessly with the way we live Devices become self-cleaning and self-preserving Transparent electronics offering an entirely new aesthetic dimension Built-in solar absorption might charge a device, whilst batteries become smaller, longer lasting and faster to charge Integrated sensors might allow us to learn more about the environment around us, empowering us to make better choices.

In addition to the advances above, the integrated electronics shown in the Morph concept could cost less and include more functionality in a much smaller space, even as interfaces are simplified and usability is enhanced. All of these new capabilities will unleash new applications and services that will allow us to communicate and interact in unprecedented ways.

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Turbocharge your web application development!

Generate database and reporting applications for .NET in minutes. Quickly create visually stunning, feature-rich Web 2.0 applications that are easy to customize and ready to deploy. If you need an app built today, use Iron Speed Designer!

Simply point to an existing database and let the Iron Speed Designer wizards build a sophisticated, database-driven application that's ready to deploy. In just minutes, Iron Speed Designer generates your application's Web pages, user interface code and data access logic. Say good-bye to hand-coding ASPX pages and SQL statements.

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Professional Developer and Designer (Microsoft Software ) for students tools at no charge

For the first time, Microsoft is giving its valuable software developer and design tools directly to students worldwide at no charge! This site enables students like you to download professional-level Microsoft developer and design tools to unlock your creative potential and set you on the path to academic and career success, by supporting and advancing your learning and skills through technical design, technology, math, science and engineering activities.

Among the products available currently are Windows Server, the Expression Suite of products, XNA Game Studio, SQL Server and the new Visual Studio.

In order to get this software from Microsoft at no charge, you will be asked to establish or verify your student status once every 12 months. This process is built into this DreamSpark site itself. Verification of valid student status will enable students from around the globe to download Microsoft developer and design tools at no charge.

Note: You must be at least 18 years old or have otherwise reached the age of majority in the place (province, state or country) where you live, or if not, your parent or legal guardian must accept the Microsoft DreamSpark software license terms on your behalf, in order for you to download and use the software.

Visit DreamSpark for more details