Liberian Geek

If you know how to use it, HTML5 canvas gives you the ability to create many different animation, text, and design effects that you can use in any of your projects. Canvas makes it possible to seamlessly add awesome and versatile effects to your pages without making your page really heavy, or requiring additional software to run (like Flash, for example). Check out some of our favorite ways to use canvas in the list below!

1. Click to Draw

Did you know you can let users draw on your canvas? Check out my sloppily-drawn smiley face above, and click through to the tutorial to try it out for yourself (hopefully you’re better at drawing than I am).

2. Canvas Stars

Create this space effect with twinkly stars using HTML canvas for all of your galactic themed projects!

3. Canvas Charts

Did you know you can use canvas to create colorful, cool charts? Check out how to do it for yourself in this tutorial.

4. Falling Confetti

If your project is a celebratory one, why not consider adding some falling confetti effects created with HTML5 canvas.

5. Canvas Parallax Mountains

This canvas effect is really unique. Not only does canvas create the mountain shapes, but it also performs a parallax scroll effect that makes it appear as though the mountains are in motion.

6. Canvas Lightning Storm Effect

Another effect where canvas imitates nature. The rain effect is complemented by a cool lightning bolt that lights up the sky to reveal background clouds.

7. Canvas Loader

This bright loading effect is created entirely with HTML5 Canvas. The loading effect is the animation used to write the word “loading”, that occurs as quickly or as slowly as it takes to load the page.

8. Aurora Borealis Canvas Animation

This cool canvas effect mimics the colorful dancing lights of the Aurora Borealis. The lights in the canvas are actually animated so it appears as if they’re moving.

If you’re a photographer with a WordPress site, there are so many different options you can use to display your photography and create a portfolio. One thing you should definitely do to ensure that your photos get the page real-estate they deserve is to use a theme that was specifically designed for displaying photos. Here are some of our favorites:

1. Gridsby

Gridsby is a WordPress theme with a grid layout that was inspired by Pinterest. It’s great for displaying your photos as a full collection rather than individually. The theme is fully responsive.

2. Panorama

Panorama is fully responsive and allows you to feature several full-size photos on your home page (the images can also function as links). The home page images also come with nice CSS effects for smooth transitioning between feature images.

3. Yuuta

Yuuta is a simple theme that you can use to feature your full-size images as backgrounds of your posts as they appear on the home page of your site. The images will take up the entire width of your page, so they’ll be beautifully displayed. The theme is also fully responsive.

4. Divina

Divina is a theme designed specifically for photographers. Use it to display your photos in a clean, minimalist grid that enlarges the photos when they’re clicked on. The theme is responsive and features a sidebar.

5. Aperture

The Aperture theme’s full-screen slider is a great way to display your full sized images.

6. Adirondack

Grid layouts are great for displaying photographs, so here’s another one. This one has a modern, clean design that will display your posts’ featured images on the home page of your site.

Looking for a tool to help you explore and choose your color options for your next project? Here are 5 of some of the best and most versatile color picking tools that we love to use.

1. HTML Color Picker from W3 Schools

This HTML Color picker from W3 schools is a really great tool to discover all of your color options. Not only does the picker make it easy to select a color on your own and explore different shades of that color, but it also gives you the color values in Hex, RGBA, and HSL formats.

2. HTML Color Codes

This is a really useful tool that not only allows you to choose colors, but also lets you save them for later AND export them CSS files in Hex, RGB, HTML, CSS, and SCSS formats. As a bonus, the tool also suggests other colors for you that will complement the color of your choosing.

3. Color Hex

Color Hex is a color picking tool that also gives you access to the colors that have been recently picked by other users so that you can see which colors are “trending.” It also lets users create and browse through color palettes, in case you’re looking for some hue inspiration.

4. Color Palette Generator

This color palette generator will automatically generate a color palette for you based on any image that you provide. If you’re using an image as inspiration for some of your designs, this is a really great and interesting tool to use.

5. Get Colors from Images

Here’s a color picking program that allows you to upload an image and use a dropper tool to pick a specific color from anywhere on the image. Again, this one is really useful if you have a photo that you’re using as a color palette inspiration.

One of the coolest features of Google Chrome is the many ways in which you can customize it to suit your exact needs. A cool way to really make your browser unique to you and your interests is to install a custom theme. There are so many themes to search through that choosing your ideal browser theme can get a little overwhelming. If you want to customize Chrome but aren’t sure where to start, check out this list of some of the best themes currently available.

1. Black & White Theme

This is a really simple theme with a minimalist design, and is a great option for someone who wants to try out a theme but doesn’t want to do anything crazy or over the top.

2. Raindrops Theme

This beautiful theme might be right for you if you’re an appreciator of great photography or rainy days (or both!). It’s inspired by this classic image of a window on a rainy day.

3. Beautiful Landscape

This theme is especially great for Chrome users who have a bit of wanderlust, or simply users who are inspired by looking at images of beautiful scenery and landscapes.

4. Flying Paint

Flying paint is one of the coolest, most colorful themes available for Chrome.

5. Celestial Lights

This awesome theme was inspired by the gorgeous and colorful Northern Lights/Aurora Borealis phenomenon that occurs at towards the northern poles of the planet.

6. Spiral Galaxy M101 Theme

Outer space is pretty cool. If you agree, then you’ll definitely enjoy this starry theme that represents a literally out of this world spiral galaxy.

7. R2-D2 Theme

We may have saved the best for last…any Star Wars fans will probably be big supporters of this Chrome theme. Seriously, who doesn’t love R2?