eMeeting offers a number of ready made features, which can get you started. An eMeeting-based website allows different access levels and multiple administrators can manage the site simultaneously. To prevent unexpected data loss, eMeeting includes a database backup feature, which can keep the member data safe. It is possible to customize the platform by modifying the source code based on your requirements. eMeeting offers a feature-rich environment, but because many of the features can’t be disabled, some users may find it somewhat overwhelming. It is also unfortunate that, eMeeting doesn’t allow you to integrate a third-party platform, such as instant messaging and forums. eMeeting offers a number of free and paid templates. Each template comes with a preview and you can try it before deciding to download. On the downside, many of the templates seem to involve old coding methods and while they work, you’ll find that they are poorly customizable.

In an eMeeting-based website, usability meets logical standards perfectly. Website navigation is easy due to its user-friendly navigation. Users can get step-by-step installation instruction and you can get the platform running without getting a professional help. eMeeting has a colorful, clean and simplified design, while available styles and templates can help you target specific consumers. Unfortunately, making changes on the template is quite complicated.

If you experience issues when installing and using eMeeting, there are a number of ways to get support from eMeeting staff: phone call, MSN, AOL, Yahoo Messenger and email. To get faster reply, you should use phone call or instant messaging. You can also interact with other eMeeting users in a member-only forum.

Unfortunately, eMeeting is not a free platform; the most affordable option is to pay a monthly fee of $24.99 per month. A full license costs you about $200, which is quite steep. To get the eMeeting logo removed, you need to spend an additional fee of $140. If you want to be completely in control, you should shell out more than $800 to obtain the source code. When you purchase the basic license, the files are encoded and you’re only allowed to make changes on the template. It is recommended to try the monthly license first to get an idea how the platform works and whether it fits your requirements.

When looking for an eMeeting hosting, make sure it meets these minimal requirements
• Supported operating system: Windows, Unix or Linux
• PHP 5.0 or greater
• MySQL 5.0 or greater
• IonCube support
• Supported web server: Apache

To find more of the top web hosts, check out these best web hosting companies found at BWHP.

After reading the above paragraph, your initial assumption might be, “centered alignment is bad, while; left and justified alignments are good”. However, the reality is a bit more complicated. In fact, there’s nothing inherently bad about centered elements in Web design. You just need to know how to yield them properly if you are going to use it with any amount of success.

So when you should not use centered alignment? The answer is straightforward: When there are plenty of contents in your website. A huge, centered block of text, can be downright ugly. Reading experience can be erratic and difficult, due to the lack of hard edges. Making your whole page centered is also a bad idea. Web designers should know about the difference between centered alignment and centered container. For example, a left aligned block of content placed inside a container (such as a box or frame) can be centered safely.

You shouldn’t think that the decision to choose a type of alignment is only a matter of aesthetic. You can create eye catching websites using any kind of alignment. The type of alignment you choose should improve readability significantly and isn’t at odd with your goals. The trick is to strike a balance between aesthetic and the usability of your website. One starting point where you can start considering about implementing a fully centered layout, is when there’s very little content on the page. It makes perfect sense as pages with a lot of content don’t hold up well with centered alignments. In fact, centered alignment can be required in pages with little contents, as they would look a bit empty with left alignment implemented.

Avoiding centered alignment for anything but the simplest webpages may sound a bit restrictive, but the key is to choose an alignment that can put your content in the forefront. An instructor in the design class may advise you to choose only an alignment when designing a website and stick to it. But as you gather more experience, you will find that mixing alignment is a good way to add refreshing variety to you design. For example, a website layout may use left or justified alignments; however there are specific portions that should use centered alignments. Headlines are the most natural place to use centered alignment. Centered, large headlines would do well in webpages with justified layouts.

Conclusion
To sum up, web designers should consider centered alignments as a weak factor in web design. “Weak” implies that centered alignments are easy to abuse and can easily be taken too far. We normally use centered alignment for certain web elements, such as headlines, but there are a few considerations to remember when you want to implement centered alignments for the whole web page. For example, web pages with a few items and very simple design are possible candidates for centered layout. However, once you start adding lots of images and big chunks of text, the layout can start looking messy.

Unfortunately, centered alignments can cause website visitors to lose point of references when reading long blocks of text; consequently, you should use a left or a justified alignment to create hard edges. If you are working with content-rich webpages from the outset, then you could experiment by adding centered elements other than the headlines, such as sub-headlines. When you’re in a jam, a quick trick is to wrap center-aligned portion of text in a box that can flow well with the rest of the webpage.

Even the best web designers in the industry don’t posses such a magic formula nor do they believe one exists. However, many of them are proponents of goal-oriented designs and speak about them often. We can generally say that the difference between good design and bad one is that the former always meets its goals and the latter doesn’t. Often bad designs are the result of not having a goal in the first place.
However, fully accepting this premise still can’t get us very far. Too often the conversation on this matter is whittled down forcefully to much narrower topics. What should we focus on? Usability or aesthetics? Users or the client? As if being a web designer merely involves choosing a high priority goals and sticking to it.

Many project managers are too ambitious and defined that it’s like trying to hit a golf ball and making hole-in-one consistently, which even Tiger Woods is incapable of doing. Professional golfers have one primary task: hit the ball. But much like web design, golf is more complicated than that. You need stand, grip the club, swing the club and twist your body properly; while transitioning through various stages seamlessly. What seems like a fairly straightforward task of hitting a golf ball; turns into a very complex series of mini-goals that new golfers get right only after trying for hundreds of times.

Web design is the same way, trying to find a magic formula is as silly as believing that you can always put the ball right into the hole with one beautiful, elegant swing. When working with a web design project, you often need to deal with a myriad of goals and assign various degrees of priority.

It would too easy to say that web designers need to handle all goals equally to make for a well-rounded design. But unfortunately, real world projects won’t afford you such luxury. As they can’t or won’t set priority of goals, web designers oversimplify these goals, just to make them manageable. It communicates a fact that there’s indeed a limit to goals that they can achieve. Given a finite amount of resources and time, they should establish goals and define a list of priority. After defining goals in a project, which compete for your attention, you next step is to list them based on the order of importance. Before prioritizing your goals, you should understand what type of goals that exists in a web design project:

• Client’s Goals: A client is usually the most demanding stakeholder in a project with various wants and needs. You’re often asked to develop a design that can accurately represent a brand or a company and encourage visitors to read or take certain desired actions. Clients also expect designers to stay within established budget and meet important deadlines.
• Users’ goals: They are the most important stakeholder in a web design project with set of goals that can define the success of a website. This is where UX (user experience) goals come into play. Users want everything in the website to work fluidly. Unfortunately, client’s goals and users’ goals are sometimes mismatched.
• Web designer’s goals: Designers do have their own goals in a web design project. If you deny it, you are probably lying. Get your own goals and better be honest about them, so you can decide whether one particular goal is worth pursuing. Your goal might be to implement new design styles or CSS3 tricks that can help you achieve stakeholders’ goals. Designer’s goals should be viewed in light of all vested parties, to avoid unnecessary conflicts.
• Stakeholders’ goals: Stakeholders are all involved parties (client, users and web designer) in the project and web designers should consider their common interests. Meeting stakeholders’ goals are a huge step toward successful web design project.

The hierarchy above only defines common categories of goals and they should help you to organize goals in a project. The reality is that, some projects may have different goal categorizations, as there are more than three stakeholders involved.

As indicated previously, the key to defining goals priority is to consider whether the goal is a win for everyone. If conflict does arise, which will be ultimately pursued? Chances are, client’s goals sit above all else. Ideally, users are the most important stakeholder and should be prioritized, but in the end you’re hired by a client who wants to get as many things as possible for the money spent. Designers who insist to put users’ goals above the one who writes the check are often considered as rogue designers and get a bad reputation. The web design industry can be a little unfair sometimes. Ideal clients always put users’ goals high on their priority list and makes things much easier. However, if you face a conflict, you need to be persuasive.

Given the fact that some clients have zero interest in pursuing users’ goals at this juncture, you should propose adding a new element that can benefit users without disrupting client’s goals. Show them examples of poorly executed client-centric websites, perhaps your client will be sold on completely.

Conclusion
In a goal-oriented design, it is impossible to achieve “one size fits all” approach. No web design experts can give you a correctly delineated list of goals that will work on any project. Great designers don’t start their projects in Photoshop but with a piece of paper and a plain old pen. Start by listing goals for you design and then order them based on order of importance while considering relationship between client, users and you, as a web designer. Once the step is completed, go over this approach with the client.
If you do this right, often your client would be amazed by how thorough you are. It’s likely that your client wants to make some adjustment on the list, if so, find a compromise. After you and the client have list of goals that’s mutually agreed, everyone will be better prepared to create something effective. Agreed upon goals can also help you defend your ground if a conflict occurs later in the project. Sometimes, the client tells you to go to a random direction; just pull out the agreed-upon list of goals and remind the client that the best end results could only be achieved by following the original plan.

Plan an outline
Before you start the design process, consider dynamic navigation styles available to you. You may choose to have dropdown or fly-out submenus to appear from a fixed block or navigation bar; alternatively you may use fade-in, sub-link slide or in fact, you don’t even need a sub-navigation at all.

Check the default design of a CMS called Fork (http://www.fork-cms.com/); it uses simple, well implemented top-bar navigation. Nothing comes off as difficult or confusing when you use a similar style; as it provides immediate access to critical areas of the site. But based on the number of webpages in your site, your situation could differ significantly.

Adding sub menus

A popular technique is to use a sub-navigation dropdown menu within each category. Admins of WordPress-based websites can use some forms of jQuery to this feature up by default. An alternative for sub-navigation drop down menu are CSS3 transitions, which can be better when implemented properly. Unfortunately, Javascript and CSS3 still poorly support some mobile browsers, but these fancy techniques should work well on latest desktop browsers.

Ajax Tabs

If you need to cram many links into a smaller area, you need to hide them by default. Hidden dropdown menus are commonly used, but you can also use a container with tabs. Ajax allows you to pull out records from the database or other webpages asynchronously.

Bold and big lettering is a good example of taking website navigation the next level. If designed properly, it is often attention-grabbing. Obviously, very flashy website navigation isn’t always realistic within the scope of certain project. If you’re lucky enough to work with a small number of navigation links, you can jack up the text size and other navigation elements a bit. The web standards have advanced a long way since the proliferation of the Internet. In the past ten years, we have witnessed huge innovation leaps. Now the HTML5 is sweeping the web development industry by storm, offering stable and sound declarations for even the most convoluted page elements. The <nav> tag is now replacing the unordered list formats. A web designer should understand the markup and semantics of dynamic navigation menu. Between the jQuery UI library and the newer CSS animation effects, you can find many customization options. You can find great forums and support communities for web developers new to latest technology who just want to pick up the trade.

Of course, nothing is without consequences. As web developers are trying to make their websites look and feel better than the competition, Flash-laden websites became sluggish and sometimes remarkably buggy. Web developers and designers were so preoccupied with whether or not they could make the most attractive Flash-based element that they don’t stop to think if they should.
Visitors also need to use the latest version of Flash plugin to make the site fully usable. We can’t easily forget those dreadful loading bars; forcing us to silently stare and wait for 1% to reach 100%, they rank among the worst user experiences in the online world. Stability is also a problem; in fact, Steve Jobs reportedly said if Macs crashed we should only blame Flash. This is certainly a hyperbole, but his statement isn’t too far from the truth. Flash becomes intrusive enough that people are downloading certain browser plugins that block Flash codes unless they’re approved manually. Web developers often ignore the fact that a Flash element only makes user experience worse and not better.

Many people thought that the HTML and CSS hybrid have come to save the day. While, Flash was taking a fresh beating almost every day, many sites turned to or were developed only with JavaScript, HTML and CSS. These basic web technologies form the very backbone of the WWW as we know it today and they also allow developers to create dynamic websites. However, developers began to stretch these standards to limit and they started to take the Flash developers’ mentality. They were so busy considering what are possible that some websites begin to use the “loading” message all over again.

So will CSS3 and HTML5 rescue us once again? CSS3 and HTML5 could be awesome new toys, but we may need to ask ourselves these questions to avoid making the same mistake.

Are these for experimental or functional purposes?
As a web developer, you have every right to hypothesize and experiment. There’s no harm in making your personal website an experimental platform. However, the problem may arise if you do it on client’s website under the premise that you can immediately apply a new invention. But unfortunately, clients aren’t crazy enough to hire a web designer who wants to create a website that looks impressive to other web designers, but annoy everyone else.

When implementing HTML5 or CSS3-based solutions, you should carefully weigh all pros and cons. Always prioritize website visitors above all others, perhaps even the client. Adding a Flash element may only boost the aesthetics of your website and the consequences aren’t worth the slight bump in usability. From a non-designer’s perspective, a Flash element should add to the overall experience. Sometimes Flash can make your website more usable but other times, you will find yourself with a slow site and bloated codes. Decide where you should draw the line and be honest to yourself.

Will any user miss out?
Say, you want to add a CSS3-based animation on your client’s site, you should check the analytics to see whether you will leave some users out. For example, some CSS3 implementations may make the website less usable for non-Webkit users. Before HTML5 and CSS3, browser compatibility was already a huge problem; it is only getting worse now. When applying a new solution or technology, always do it with all major browsers in mind. You shouldn’t be afraid about implementing browser-specific effects or tricks, but just make sure everyone else still can get a great experience. When working across all popular browsers, always start from a baseline of aesthetics and functionality. Only add in special effects and extras, when the site works well on all platforms.

Conclusion
To sum up; after a few tries, you’ll love HTML5 and CSS3. But, it’s easy to be compelled to spend loads of time stretching the limit of what you previously thought wasn’t possible. When working with a new technology, don’t go overboard and always be cautious. Many web developers find it possible to create Flash-like elements with HTML5 and CSS3, so it’s time to learn these new trades in the industry.

The most affordable hosting package is shared hosting, which is good for small businesses that operate a single, simple website to support their operations. Shared hosting is inexpensive because it rents out server space to several websites and then shares the server space between those web sites. Shared hosting can become a problem, however, when there is too much traffic to support all of the sites. For example, if your site shares space with another site that becomes immensely popular, it may slow down your site because so much of the server space is used up by the popular site with which you share space. If your site is the most popular site among the group that shares the server, then this may be the most advantageous situation because you get to dominate the server for a small fee, usually no more than fifteen or twenty dollars per month. Reseller hosting is similar to shared hosting but is slightly more expensive because it includes added features that enhance the client’s ability to manage the website.

Grid hosting combines multiple individual servers to function as if they were one server and portions out space on this grid of servers so that companies can pay for exactly the amount of hosting that they need. This allows for a degree of flexibility that makes paying for hosting services cost-effective for clients.

Colocation is another popular option for businesses. Colocation allows you to place your sever machine in someone else’s rack and share bandwidth. It generally costs more than standard web hosting, but less than if you did it yourself at your business.

Virtual private server hosting and dedicated server hosting are a departure from the concept of sharing server space with other websites. Virtual private server hosting doesn’t guarantee a separate server for a client, but instead creates a separate virtual server within a single physical server and then dedicates the entirety of that virtual server to the client that pays for its use. In this way, a client doesn’t have to worry about other websites hogging space on the server but still doesn’t have to pay for the use of an entire physical server. Dedicated server hosting is the most expensive form of hosting among the options discussed here because it purchases the services of an entire physical server. Those who use this service might not be making the most effective use of their money because they could get the same dedicated space using a virtual private server, which would be a more efficient use of server space, but those who pay for dedicated server hosting get the satisfaction of knowing that somewhere there is a single, tangible machine dedicated to hosting their website.

It all started in 1994, when Adobe realized that the Internet could be the next big thing after personal computers. Just like any big businesses, it bought up a competitor, instead spending precious time on R&D. PageMill was bought from Seneca and after the version 3.0, it received fairly positive feedbacks from the industry. To help defend themselves from Macromedia products, Adobe decided to purchase a firm, a company called GoLive System, which developed CyberStudio, a WYSIWYG editor and Adobe gave it a different name, the Adobe GoLive.

Early users of GoLive reported one fundamental conceptual flaw; the software is only decent for creating static, simple webpages. When web designers wanted to add a few dynamic elements, the UI became clunkier, inefficient and to certain extent, an all around nightmare. GoLive was also criticized for its messy outputs. Despite these flaws, Adobe GoLive was available through 2007 and it was pulled from Creative Suite when Adobe released CS2.

In the 1990’s, Macromedia was a huge name in the industry, after it purchased Backstage, which eventually evolved into Dreamweaver and FutureSplash, which became Flash. No one needs to be reminded how the web was changed forever by Flash. Initially seeming like a hero, it’s lately being marked by Apple and other companies as a villain, especially after the arrival of HTML5. But, overall it made the web a more dynamic, more interactive and richer user experience. In short, Dreamweaver ousted Adobe GoLive from the top position in web design industry, as many professionals favored its friendlier workflow. Heavy lifting tasks like database and scripting integration was supposedly much easier, causing major corporations with complex sites to favor Macromedia.

In 2005, Adobe bought Macromedia to end the competition once and for all. Adobe has spent a lot of money into developing Macromedia’s superior technology, but seven years later, in 2012, the result of the acquisition is still a bit mixed. Flash is slowly being abandoned, but Dreamweaver is still the web editor to beat. It is difficult to know how many web designers still use Dreamweaver, but by using Builtwith service, there are upwards of more than 4 millions websites using the tool. Obviously, Dremweaver still has a significant impact on the web deign industry. Although, scornful and rude criticism of Dreamweaver are present, they are actually also spewed towards WYSIWYG tools in general. To be fair, web developers will take on a massive task to code a large website by hand alone; Dreamweaver and other WYSIWYG tools still help web designers and developers to tackle complex layouts and codes.

However, only a few web design professionals are still willing to consider Dreamweaver as the pinnacle of web design technology. Instead, they seem to simply accept that Dreamweaver is the best solution they have at the moment while they eagerly await for the prophesied “Dreamweaver killer”.

Fireworks, was also once a rock star tool in the industry, which combines some elements of web design and Photoshop. Many experts consider, Fireworks is merely what Photoshop might look like if it was developed with web design in mind.

It’s still difficult to figure out what the future of web design industry would be like. Last year, Adobe abandoned the Project Rome, it was based on some solid ideas with significantly lower learning curve compared to the Dreamweaver. But unfortunately, it could only export Flash-based websites, instead of those based on CSS and HTML. Unfortunately, the web design industry has put Flash on par with the trouble itself and consequently Project ROme had nothing to merit from delivering Flash-based implementation.

Last year, Adobe launched the Muse, which was the latest in a long series of promises to allow web designers to work without the smallest amount of code involved. Official videos on YouTube make some pretty ambitious claims about revolutionizing the web design industry and we have heard this kind of promise before. As of March 2012, the Beta 7.01 has been released. The community spoke out in unison as soon as the Muse was released. Experts in the industry pointed out that Muse has a few fatal flaws, such as horrible typography, non-semantic code output and strictly fixed layout. But once you give it a shot, it’s easy to notice that Muse is a good combination between Photoshop and Project Rome. Muse could be an attempt to revive Project Rome under a different name, by removing Flash elements and adding some Photoshop goodness.

For any web designer, it’s a little frustrating to see how Adobe went through so much to bring better web design technology to the industry. It is definitely a significant problem and it is still today. It seems, Adobe needs to take more time to explore current practices. They need to leverage the immense number of Photoshop users and offer easier solution. Many newer web designers are still too intimidated by complex code and Adobe needs to help them to succeed in their careers with as little pain as possible. The Internet is a living breathing thing and it is built for interaction. The basic idea behind its invention is to provide an interactive virtual world for everyone to use.

How Adobe Gets it Wrong?
When web designers do their job, behavior and functionality is every bit as important as the external aesthetic. They should think how a website needs to function and let it defines the website’s visuals, not the other way around. Many WYSIWYG tools have it backwards, which unconsciously encourage users to create more static design infused with less interaction. Using these tools, many web designers will forever fail to develop rich web content that world needs.

Adobe sometimes misunderstands current trends in web design industry. Lately, many print designers are transitioning or expanding its operation into the web design field, but unfortunately, they sometimes feel like a group of people that are looked down upon. If new web designers despise your solutions, then odds are they will be abandoned gradually.

WYSIWYG tools shouldn’t be considered as a way to avoid learning code, instead they should be able to teach new designers on how to code with as little pain as possible. Tools like CSSEdit and Flux offers a straightforward way to create and add style to web pages without relying too much on codes. Visual controls in these tools revolve entirely around CSS and designers who are new to coding can gain more understand of how CSS works.

Adobe can’t keep using the argument that non-coder designers won’t know the differences, as coders will spread the words that current Adobe’s products are not up to par. Rapidweaver, CSSEdit and Flux are web developer friendly tools and they offer clean workflow. Instead of giving non-coder designers shortcut into the industry, Adobe should consider how to deliver a solution that can empower them into real web developers.

Talking about WYSIWYG tools in web design is a bit difficult. Many veterans look down upon them, which immediately alienates non-coders who are bound to it due to the lack of viable alternatives. Some hardcore coders in the web design industry act like pretentious snobs and they should feel guilty of this attitude. They shouldn’t indirectly intimidate inexperienced designers; instead they should help non-coders into the fold by providing assistance. That said, many WYSIWYG tools, including those released by Apple, still get professionals so fired up. Some of these tools are so far off the mark that they disgust dedicated web designers.

Adobe still has a special place in web designers’ heart and it should try to help create solutions instead of creating more problems. Adobe may need to get together with highly respected experts in the industry to come with user-friendly tools that can meet their lofty standards. It also needs to slow down in its mad dash for grabbing more market share and defines traits of proper web designers. This would help new web designers to integrate themselves in the industry instead of making them feel unwanted by the rest.

Pinterest is a social network that relies on user curated content rather than user generated content. Users create “mood boards” of images that they’ve found elsewhere on the internet and share those boads with their followers. For example, a user might have a “kitchen renovation,” “holiday destinations,” or “wedding planning,” board. Savvy suppliers are realising that creating their own pinboards is a great way of making sure that their products feature in these people’s plans.

Pinterest is on the desktop and is mobile. It integrates with other social networks like Facebook and Twitter and is fast becoming the way to share visual references. According to Read Write Web, “User experience, a clean retro visual design, content curation, social collaboration and subscription: those are the things that Pinterest is leveraging to gain a lot of traction and buzz.

While IKEA doesn’t have an official international Pinterest yet, several localised versions exist, such as the UK and Turkish IKEA Pinterest accounts. Here, people share the inspired ways that they’ve used IKEA products as wedding accessories, children’s furniture and so on.

Clothing brand The Gap also features their products heavily, arranged into boards by collection, model and designer:

The aim of this Pinterest account is to promote specific products – essentially it acts like an online catalogue.

Volkswagen has taken a less direct tack, with a Pinterest that reflects the brand image rather than the product range:

The content doesn’t consist of direct sales pitches for Volkswagen vehicles. Rather it reminds people of the fun, free spirited ethos of the types of customer it hopes to encounter on Pinterest. It’s very well tailored to what is, at present, the Pinterest niche user.

Perhaps the archetypal Pinterest user is someone who also has an Etsy account: individuals who like one-off design and visual culture. The Etsy Pinterest particularly highlights products that are specific to the time of year (such as Easter and Wedding themed boards in spring, and Halloween and Thanksgiving boards in the fall).

Their boards contain a mix of products available from Etsy sellers, and inspiration for DIY craft projects, which means that it holds the interest of people who enjoy craft without making them feel that the Pinterest is simply a mirror of Etsy’s online store.

Publisher Scholastic reaches out to teachers, librarians and parents with their Pinterest. It also targets their core market of young readers.

The “All Things Baby-sitters Club” board is aimed that the young teens who read the Babysitters’ club series whereas the Classroom Magazines resources are aimed at adults. Having different boards allows Scholastic to cleverly target different niches.
Pinterest offers a number of ways in which brands can reach out to customers, from promoting a lifestyle to showcasing new products, to acting as a focus group. Tracking the number of “repins” is a great way of assessing a product’s popularity.

According to Mashable: “Expressing passion for a hobby is just as easy as browsing for your next purchase. But what’s even more addictive about the site — a collection of collections — is that it’s just as much about the users as it is what they’ve posted.”

The super-high-resolution, 2048 x 1536 display – dubbed a “retina display” because the resolution is based on the calculation that 300 ppi is the maximum amount of detail that the human retina can perceive from 12 inches away – was already present in the iPhone, but the new, bigger form factor on the iPad makes for the biggest super-high-res display in a consumer device to date.
“It hadn’t been done before,” Said Richard Shim, analyst at NPD DisplaySearch in an interview with Wired. “There hasn’t been a demand for it, or an OS that could utilise all those pixels. It’s new territory.”

And that’s the important thing – the iPad has an OS that can drive the super-high-res screen, but what is it really useful for, other than looking good? After all, it’s not just cost that has to be scaled up in order to accommodate the new display. Apple has had to make the backlight bigger and has had to install a bigger, heavier battery as a result.
These displays have mostly found their niche in gaming, but the App Store lists a special retina-display ready category in its iPad 3 apps.

Games:

Infinity Blade 2 from Chair Entertainmentis a swords and quests game that uses the Unreal Engine (a lite version of the games engines behind Gears of War and Mass Effect). According to Wired, “Infinity Blade already looked incredible. Those detailed models and artistic lighting effects look even better in Retina.”
Firemint’s oh-so-playable Flight Control has had a space makeover as well as being retina-ready. Gesture interface-driven, it’s your job to dock spaceships by drawing their trajectories. High speed, lip-bitingly tense gameplay, now in brilliant detail.

The Real Racing series has always innovated to take advantage of the latest features of apple hardware. Real Racing 2 hasn’t changed much in terms of game play but the super-high-res visuals, and 4x anti-aliasing means that the graphics are unprecedentedly clear! The game is rewarding and long and looks terrific.

Design Tools

This isn’t your nephew’s doodle programme – SketchBook Pro is brought to you by Autodesk, the makers of 3DStudioMax.The layers, tools and brushes supplied allow you to create incredible composited and manipulated images and the app uses the gestural interface to allow you to change tools, switch palettes, and zoom and undo intuitively. The retina display makes for extremely clear and detailed resolution, but it also means that you can work on a massive 2048×1536 canvas for professional-level image processing.

SketchBook Pro iPad Screenshot

The beautiful iStop Motion for iPad http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BYHsn8-LDbM links with an external camera and has intuitive on-screen overlays that allow the budding animator to create high quality films. iMovie for the Claymation lover – this tool lets you create masterpieces from the things around you. This will be a hit with adults and kids alike!

Reference

The Barefoot World Atlas is a sumptuously illustrated and content-crammed guide to our world. Aimed at schoolchildren it will nevertheless be a family favourite. The designers are rightly proud of this product and have got BBC TV presenter Nick Crane to act as your guide to a beautiful 3D globe created by artist David Dean. Geography, natural history, politics and sociology all come alive, and the content is updated from sources like Wolfram Alpha so it won’t go out of date.

Solar Walk is a stunning orrery for the 21st century. The 3D Solar System model is not only fact-packed, it is also 3D TV ready so you can see the details from many angles. One reviewer described Solar Walk as “a scale model of the Solar System where you get to manipulate space-time, measure the distance between stars, learn details about 92 celestial objects, and watch 7 fact-filled videos… 3D satellites, icy poles, and city lights all look amazing.”

Entertainment

Netflix have gone retina ready. Sort of. According to the LA Times “With this upgraded screen on the iPad, all you’re getting are improved icons and still images for movies and TV shows? What about moving on up to high-definition? Well, Netflix says support for HD streaming is in the works — their mobile team said on Twitter they are ‘actively investigating 1080p support.’ For now, you’re stuck with standard definition at a resolution of 1350 kbps, 640×480.” The ABC network’s player (US only) is streaming episodes in super-high-res, however.
Sesame Street tie-in Another Monster at the End of this Book also takes advantage of the high res graphics. The developers say that: “in this sequel to the best-selling, chart-topping Monster at the End of This Book app, Grover invents giggle-worthy ways to prevent readers from getting closer to another monster hiding at the end of this story. But an ever-curious Elmo asks for your help to slip past Grover every time.”

Another Monster…iPad Screengrab

On the whole, none of these apps really takes full advantage of the retina display (with the possible advantage of SketchBook Pro). Disappointingly, Netflix limits its retina display support to the icons and artwork only so far. While retina ready content looks good, there has to be more to it than this. How will you use it?

Interior Designers

Interior designers are professionals with superb taste in colors. It is a difficult task to balance colors used in a room to make everything looks clean and pleasant as a single mistake can ruin the whole design. Search the Internet for high resolution images of rooms with outstanding interior design and use the picker tool to quickly build a great color palette for your Web design.

Fashion Designers

These people have a gift of putting colors together to design great outfits. Professional fashion designers are educated in colors, but they also highly intuitive on what works and what doesn’t.

When it comes to adopting colors from the fashion industry, you should take note of fashion collections with interesting colors. Well known fashion designers always use specific color palette in a release. Their works are source of great color palettes especially when you want to use something seasonal in your Web design project. Find a high resolution image of professionally designed clothing that interest you, use color picker tool in Adobe Photoshop to collect all colors used, often you can come up with colors that greatly match with one another. For new web designers, colors they extract from fashion works genuinely look a lot nicer than choosing colors randomly.

Famous Paintings

Painters are masters in colors; they didn’t use Photoshop to experiment with colors, which leaves little room for error. Many paintings, whether they have realism or abstract style, are great sources for color palettes.

Objects in Nature

God’s creations are inexhaustible sources for color palettes, what more beautiful and colorful than a vibrant field of flowers and a stunning sunset. But if you consider grabbing colors from these objects are not very original, you might need to borrow colors from works of professional photographers.

Good color palettes allow you cram all ideas into your mind, so you can come up with something unique. Colors are universal and from a single palette professionals can produce so many unique designs.

Colors are raw ingredients in Web design and no one really can claim an ownership of a specific color palette, although some companies tried to do that. What really matters is what you do with those colors and that what defines your originality. If color palettes are intellectual properties, McDonald may file a lawsuit against Sprint for blatantly ripping off colors from their distinctive logo, with yellow and black that contrast very well.

Copying a website layout is one thing, but you shouldn’t be afraid of grabbing a few colors from an image that interests you. Create a library of color palettes that can match specific occasions, seasons and moods. Colors are a subject that many Web designers struggle with; but often a short trip to Flickr can help to improve their skills. Web designers should take a look at many objects both on the Internet and the real worlds to find palettes that they consider to be really attractive.