Google Mail is accessible from mobile phones as a Java application.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykbMU58W08k[/video]

We’re thrilled to introduce Gmail for mobile version 2.0 for J2ME-supported and BlackBerry phones. Our focus for this version was to make the experience faster and more reliable. We rearchitected the entire client to push all the processing to the background, greatly improve the client-side caching scheme and optimize every bottleneck piece of code we came across.

Also, Gmail for mobile 2.0 is available in over 35 languages now. Please note, though, that not all features are available for all phones.

Go to m.google.com/mail in your mobile browser to download the new Gmail for mobile for your phone.

I tried yesterday but I had some problems with the connection so… no personal opinion on this subject yet.

Source: Google Mobile Blog

This week’s link is Pixlr, a free online image editor, jump in and start edit, adjust, filter. It’s just what you imagine!

Pixlr is built for non-professionals, the users that have basic editing needs. It’s not for large RAW images or for printing. It is merely a tool for editing web images to be posted on blogs, news-sites, social networks like Facebook, Bebo, image sites like Flikr, Photobucket etc.

It’s a great tool for non-technical people, or people who don’t own Adobe Photoshop. The interface is identical, and I guess they’re improving it regularly.

I’ve played a little, uploaded a photo, saved it back, everything is “seamless”. Just like someone said, “this can’t be running in my browser, or can it?”.

A few thoughts on colour schemes and colour associations.

Colours evoke particular associations and emotions in our minds. Here is a summary of some of those associations:

Yellow: cheerful, sunny, upbeat, happy, luminous, intense.

Orange: energetic, cheerful, glowing, vital, upbeat, playful, happy, comedic, festive, loud, popular with children. It carries many of the same qualities of its components of yellow and red. Orange lost popularity for many years because of its association with the period of the late 1960s and early 1970s but is now making a comeback. When lightened to peach or coral: soft, upscale, nurturing,
healthy. When darkened to deep rust: sensual, earthy, spicy, warm, ethnic.

Red: Attention-demanding, energetic, exciting, courageous, hot, aggressive, dynamic, fiery, intense, passionate, sexy, bloody, warning, angry, prideful. The most attention-gathering color. When deepened to shades and tones: rich, lush, elegant, refined. When lightened to hot pink: shocking, energetic, youthful, trendy, vibrant, faddish. When lightened to paler pink: romantic, tender, feminine, sweet, sentimental, soft, delicate.

Purple: rich, elegant, creative, spiritual, confident, eccentric, sensual, daring, futuristic. When deepened to a darker purple: regal, majestic. When lightened to lavender: soft, sweet, genteel, nostalgic, delicate. When grayed to a tone: sophisticated, subtle.

Blue: tranquil, calm, peaceful, meditative, restful, reliable, traditional, clean, fresh, cool, icy, alluding to sky and water, divine, cold, sad. When deepened to darker blues: powerful, authoritarian, credible. When lightened to pale blues: soft, serene. When tinged with green (like teal): rich, unique, upscale, appealing to both genders. When tinged with purple (periwinkle): warm, trendy, energetic.

Green: natural, fresh, clean, healthy, hopeful, youthful, abundant, rebirth, spring, soothing, cool, clean, woodsy. When deepened to darker greens: richness, security, safety, prestige, safe, secure, stately. When lightened to paler greens: calm, soothing.

Brown: durable, earthy, rustic, organic, healthy, ethnic, substantial, solid, timeless, reliable, stable, antiquity, permanent, drab, dirty. When lightened to tans and beige: rock, sand, natural, classic.

White: pure, clean, chaste, pristine, innocent, bright, clarity, hygienic, healthy, stark, minimalist, cold. When deepened to off-whites: warm, friendly, calm.

Black: sophistication, elegance, chic, dramatic, mysterious, powerful, stylized, somber, ominous, foreboding, death, depression, despair, fear.

Colour Schemes

Monochromatic
Description: Tints and shades of a single hue
Ambiance: Unified, harmonious, and professional
Example: White, light blue, medium blue, professional dark blue, and black

Complementary
Description: Two colors opposing each other on the traditional color wheel
Ambiance: Vibrant, jarring, and attention-getting
Example: Orange and blue

Triad
Description: Three evenly spaced colors around the traditional color wheel
Ambiance: Bold, vibrant, potentially jarring
Example: Yellow, blue, and red

Analogous
Description: Several colors adjacent to each other on the color wheel
Ambiance: Harmonious, stylish, and pleasing
Example: Yellow, orange, and green

Warm
Description: Variations of yellow, orange, and red
Ambiance: Warm, cozy, and inviting
Example: Yellow, orange, and red

Cool
Description: Variations of greens, blues, and purples
Ambiance: Slick, sophisticated, and professional
Example: Green, blue, and purple

One of my recent projects involved creating some sort of a color picker. While I eventually used one jQuery for this purpose, I ran into a nice illustration of hexagonal color palette.

Download the high resolution version here.

In the hexagon, or hexagonal, palette color codes are abbreviated with only a single digit representing each pair of digits. An axis for each of the three primary and three secondary RGB colors radiates out from the pure white in the center to one of the points of the hexagon on the outside edge. Each axis is terminated on the outside border with an extra color chip showing the color that “governs” that axis, so it’s easy to find the appropriate axis. For instance, locate the blue chip at the very bottom, and follow it upward. First, you cross the shades of blue on the outside, then primary blue around the middle, then tints of blue toward the center, and, finally, white in the dead center. Tones are in the outside diamonds that span each axis.

The black-outlined larger hexagon of chips halfway out on the palette displays the hues of full saturation. Inside that hexagon are the tints/pastels, and outside are the more sophisticated tones and shades, with blacks and grays showing up in a repeated pattern on the outside border. Colors evolve as we rotate around the wheel, such that red blends into orange, and orange into yellow, and yellow into green, and so forth. It now becomes effortless to pick several colors that are related in some fashion to each other, such as a red, a dark red, and a pink. The hexagon palette is more artistically intuitive than most available palettes, and it’s mathematically correct as well. Each color code transforms into the code of the adjacent colors by following a mathematical progression.

Yesterday I told you about my new blog iPhone compatibility.

Today I asked a friend to test my blog on his iPhone. There are several tweaks to be done, but overall I’m happy with it.

There are some changes to be made these days, such as the logo and the links’ colours. I’ll keep you posted.