Rainbow colors

Kuler

Kuler is a featured-rich online color free tool from Adobe that you can use to create your color themes or browse through thousands of themes generated by community members. As a registered user you can save your themes and then view them in MyKuler. You can create themes using single color or by using color wheel. You can also extract color scheme from your images, for that you can upload your images or import them from Flickr. Kuler is my favorite.

ColorRotate:

Like Adobe Kuler, Colorrotate is also a free, online tool to generate color templates, but this is a 3D tool. Its intuitive 3D interface is fun to use and it enables you to quickly see the multidimensional nature of your colors and the relationships between colors. You can use its drag-and-drop option to adjust hue, brightness, and saturation. You can load color themes from you images. It also has a vast collection of community generated themes that you can browse to get some inspiration.

ColorSchemeDesinger

ColorSchemeDesigner is another free, online tool to generate color palettes. Its unique, easy-to-use color theme creator packs many useful featuers. You can generate single monochromatic, complimentary, triad, tetrad, analogic, and accented analogic color palettes. Not only you can create the color palette , you can also user their preview function to apply your palette to a dummy web page, to see how your colors will look on your website. This will definitely save many designers lot of time.
Another great feature is the ability to export your color palette as a Photoshop palette, HTML+CSS, XML, TXT, and GPL .
This tool does not work in IE6.

ColourLovers

If you need color inspiration, you will love ColourLovers. Designers from all over the world share their creative ideas on this website. It has over 286,866 members and showcase more than 2,407,124 colors, 1,090,882 palettes and 732,299 patterns. You can create your own color palettes or just pick one from this enormous collection.

COLOURlovers is a resource that monitors and influences color trends. COLOURlovers gives the people who use color – whether for ad campaigns, product design, or in architectural specification – a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews.

4096 Color Wheel

If you don’t want all the bells and whistles of above mentioned tools, you may want to try Color Wheel. This is a simple web-based tool to view and choose web-safe colors. It offers you a palette of seven colors, displayed on the left side of the screen. You can change these 7 colors one by one by clicking on a color wheel. It is a nice little tool to generate a color palette.

What are your favorite tools for creating color schemes?

Five free tools to choose perfect colors for your website. is a post from: zParacha.com | Effective programming and blogging tips by Zaheer Paracha

 

Related posts:

• Best free tools for Twitter Twitter provides an excellent platform to bloggers to promote their...
• Colors by name with hex and RGB codes. Today I stumbled upon a rather useful website. CSS Color...
• Top 10 tools for bloggers. If you are looking for ways to improve your blogging...

iPhone

• WordPress for iPhone:

  
  If WordPress is your blogging platform and you have an iPhone you are in luck. WordPress for iPhone is a free, open-source application that lets you create new or update existing posts and pages, upload images and manage comments on your blog from your iPhone. Just download the app, sign in using your admin user id and password and you are ready to roll. WordPress for iPhone supports both self-hosted and WordPress.com blogs. It is suitable for quick posts that do not need lot of formatting or too much typing.

• Photoshop Mobile iPhone App

  
  This is by no means anything closer to desktop Photoshop software, but if you need some basic image transforming or editing on the go, Photoshop Mobile is the best an excellent free photo editing app. You can rotate, flip your photos, add borders , and apply a number of preset color effects simply by touching your iPhone screen. After you are done editing your photo you can either save it on your phone or upload it to a free 2GB photoshop.com account that you can use in your blog posts. You can download the app from app store.

• Evernote for iPhone:

  
  To me the ideal application to capture my thoughts or notes is the one that let me access my notes when I need them. The immensely popular note-taking application Evernote fills the bill. With its free application for iPhone you have access to all your stored notes from almost anywhere.

  Evernote for iPhone lets you create notes, snap photos, and record voice memos that you can then access any time — from your iPhone, computer, or the web.

• EchoFon (formerly TwitterFon) for iPhone

  
  Twitter is a great social network to promote your blog and inform your readers of the latest posts on your blog. Twitter 140-character status makes it an ideal candidate for iPhone app. With Twitter clients for iPhone you can update your status at any time. There are several Twitter clients available for iPhone but if you don’t want to spend 2 – 4 dollars try Echophone. Personally, I like it better than another popular free iPhone Twitter client, TweetDeck. You can follow your friends, update your status, search for current trends. The feature I like the most is the ability to open the URL in Safari instead of just viewing it in the built-in web browser. You can also email the URL to your friends. Another useful feature is the ability to tweet on web page you are visiting in the EchoFon browser.

• Dropbox

  
  I am a great fan of cloud file storing and sharing service Dropbox. I have written about this service before. Dropbox for iPhone is also gaining popularity.
  To use this app you will need to sign-up for a free Dropbox account and install DropBox application on your computer also. After that you can view your files stored in DropBox folder from your iPhone.

Have you ever blogged from your iPhone? If yes what are your favorite iPhone apps for blogging.

Image credit:dotdean

Five best free iPhone applications for bloggers is a post from: zParacha.com | Effective programming and blogging tips by Zaheer Paracha

 

Related posts:

• Best tutorials by not so famous bloggers Last week DailyBlogTips invited bloggers to write turtorials as part...
• Best free tools for Twitter Twitter provides an excellent platform to bloggers to promote their...
• Jump-start your blog with free gifts from ProBlogger. If one of your new year resolutions for 2010 is...

Numbers

import java.io.*;
import java.util.*;
public class ReadInputNumbers {
      public static void main (String[] args) {
      System.out.print("Enter numbers. Enter 0 after you have
entered  all numbers. \n");
      BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(
                               new InputStreamReader(System.in));
      String numberStr = "1";
      ArrayList inputNumbers = new ArrayList();
      Integer intNumber =-999;
      while(intNumber != 0){
 	 try {
		numberStr = br.readLine();
		intNumber = new Integer(numberStr);
		if(intNumber != 0){
		   inputNumbers.add(new Integer(numberStr));
		}
	} catch (IOException ioe) {
	   System.out.println("IO error trying to read input!");
	   System.exit(1);
	}catch(NumberFormatException e){
	   System.out.println("You entered an invalid number
                                   ("+numberStr+").");
	   System.exit(1);
	}
      }
      Collections.sort(inputNumbers);
      Iterator itr = inputNumbers.iterator();
      if(!inputNumbers.isEmpty()){
	 System.out.println("You entered..." + inputNumbers);
	 System.out.println("Smallest value you entered is " +
                         inputNumbers.get(0));
 	 System.out.println("Largest value you entered is " +
                        inputNumbers.get(inputNumbers.size()-1));
	}else{
	  System.out.println("You did not enter any number.");
	}
   }
}

Enjoy.

Image credit:BaylorBear78

How to determine smallest and largest number in Java is a post from: zParacha.com | Effective programming and blogging tips by Zaheer Paracha

 

Related posts:

• Sort numbers in Java to find minimum and maximum values without using Array Recently a reader contacted me with a question about sorting...
• ColorPix. Free utility to determine the hex code of any color. Ever wanted to use a shade of color you found...
• Best way to check if a Java String is a number. An example on how to validate if a String variable...

Zip Code

In today’s post I’ll show you how to use JavaScript regular expression to validate zip code. Let me first show you the JS code.

function validateZipCode(elementValue){
    var zipCodePattern = /^\d{5}$|^\d{5}-\d{4}$/;
     return zipCodePattern.test(elementValue);
}

Explanation:

The argument to this method is the zip code you want to validate.

In the method body we define a variable (‘zipCodePattern’) and assign a regular expression to it.

ZipCode format: The regular expression for zip code is

/^\d{5}$|^\d{5}-\d{4}$/

This is quite a simple regular expression.

What we are saying here is that a valid zip code can either have 5 digits or 5 digits followed by an hyphen(-) and ends with four digits. So, zip codes 38980 and 83900-8789 will pass validation. However, 83900- or 839008789 will not pass our validation test.
If you don’t want to have a zip+4 format you can use /^\d{5}$/ as the regular expression to validate simple zip code.

Image credit:smcgee

Validate Zip code using JavaScript Regular expression is a post from: zParacha.com | Effective programming and blogging tips by Zaheer Paracha

 

Related posts:

• Validate U.S Phone Numbers using JavaScript Regular expression. Photo credit: aussiegall Continuing with our JavaScript regular expression series...
• Validate email address using JavaScript regular expression Last month I wrote about regular expressions in Java, today...
• How to validate Social Security Number (SSN) using JavaScript Regular Expressions When I wrote the JS regular expression article last week...

Email

Regular Expressions offer a concise and powerful search-and-replace mechanism.
They are patterns of characters used to perform search, extract or replace operations on the given text. Regular expressions can also be used to validate that the input conforms to a given format.

For example, we can use Regular Expression to check whether the user input is a valid Social Security number, a valid phone number or a valid email number, etc.

Regular Expressions are supported by many languages. Sun added support for regular expression in Java 1.4 by introducing java.util.regex package. This package provides the necessary classes for using Regular Expressions in a java application. It consists of following three main classes ,

• Pattern
• Matcher
• PatternSyntaxException

The java.util.regex package has several other features for appending, text replacement, and greedy/non-greedy pattern matching. See the JDK Documentation on java.util.regex to learn more about using regular expressions in Java.

Using this package I created a utility class to validate some commonly used data elements. My FieldsValidation class has following methods:

1. isEmailValid:

Validate email address using Java regex

/** isEmailValid: Validate email address using Java reg ex.
* This method checks if the input string is a valid email address.
* @param email String. Email address to validate
* @return boolean: true if email address is valid, false otherwise.
*/

public static boolean isEmailValid(String email){
boolean isValid = false;

/*
Email format: A valid email address will have following format:
        [\\w\\.-]+: Begins with word characters, (may include periods and hypens).
	@: It must have a '@' symbol after initial characters.
	([\\w\\-]+\\.)+: '@' must follow by more alphanumeric characters (may include hypens.).
This part must also have a "." to separate domain and subdomain names.
	[A-Z]{2,4}$ : Must end with two to four alaphabets.
(This will allow domain names with 2, 3 and 4 characters e.g pa, com, net, wxyz)

Examples: Following email addresses will pass validation
abc@xyz.net; ab.c@tx.gov
*/

//Initialize reg ex for email.
String expression = "^[\\w\\.-]+@([\\w\\-]+\\.)+[A-Z]{2,4}$";
CharSequence inputStr = email;
//Make the comparison case-insensitive.
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(expression,Pattern.CASE_INSENSITIVE);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(inputStr);
if(matcher.matches()){
isValid = true;
}
return isValid;
}

Update: Read this post for a more thorough Java regular expression to validate email address.

2. isPhoneNumberValid:

Validate phone number using Java reg ex.

/** isPhoneNumberValid: Validate phone number using Java reg ex.
* This method checks if the input string is a valid phone number.
* @param email String. Phone number to validate
* @return boolean: true if phone number is valid, false otherwise.
*/
public static boolean isPhoneNumberValid(String phoneNumber){
boolean isValid = false;
/* Phone Number formats: (nnn)nnn-nnnn; nnnnnnnnnn; nnn-nnn-nnnn
	^\\(? : May start with an option "(" .
	(\\d{3}): Followed by 3 digits.
	\\)? : May have an optional ")"
	[- ]? : May have an optional "-" after the first 3 digits or after optional ) character.
	(\\d{3}) : Followed by 3 digits.
	 [- ]? : May have another optional "-" after numeric digits.
	 (\\d{4})$ : ends with four digits.

         Examples: Matches following phone numbers:
         (123)456-7890, 123-456-7890, 1234567890, (123)-456-7890

*/
//Initialize reg ex for phone number. 
String expression = "^\\(?(\\d{3})\\)?[- ]?(\\d{3})[- ]?(\\d{4})$";
CharSequence inputStr = phoneNumber;
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(expression);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(inputStr);
if(matcher.matches()){
isValid = true;
}
return isValid;
}

3. isValidSSN:

Validate Social Security Number (SSN) using Java reg ex.

/** isSSNValid: Validate Social Security number (SSN) using Java reg ex.
* This method checks if the input string is a valid SSN.
* @param email String. Social Security number to validate
* @return boolean: true if social security number is valid, false otherwise.
*/
 public static boolean isSSNValid(String ssn){
boolean isValid = false;
 /*SSN format xxx-xx-xxxx, xxxxxxxxx, xxx-xxxxxx; xxxxx-xxxx:
         ^\\d{3}: Starts with three numeric digits.
	[- ]?: Followed by an optional "-"
	\\d{2}: Two numeric digits after the optional "-"
	[- ]?: May contain an optional second "-" character.
	\\d{4}: ends with four numeric digits.

        Examples: 879-89-8989; 869878789 etc.
*/

//Initialize reg ex for SSN. 
String expression = "^\\d{3}[- ]?\\d{2}[- ]?\\d{4}$";
CharSequence inputStr = ssn;
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(expression);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(inputStr);
if(matcher.matches()){
isValid = true;
}
return isValid;
}

4. isNumeric:

Validate a number using Java regex.

/** isNumeric: Validate a number using Java regex.
* This method checks if the input string contains all numeric characters.
* @param email String. Number to validate
* @return boolean: true if the input is all numeric, false otherwise.
*/

public static boolean isNumeric(String number){
boolean isValid = false;

/*Number: A numeric value will have following format:
         ^[-+]?: Starts with an optional "+" or "-" sign.
	 [0-9]*: May have one or more digits.
	\\.? : May contain an optional "." (decimal point) character.
	[0-9]+$ : ends with numeric digit.
*/

//Initialize reg ex for numeric data.
String expression = "^[-+]?[0-9]*\\.?[0-9]+$";
CharSequence inputStr = number;
Pattern pattern = Pattern.compile(expression);
Matcher matcher = pattern.matcher(inputStr);
if(matcher.matches()){
isValid = true;
}
return isValid;
}

This example demonstrates how easy it is to validate email address, SSN, phone number in Java using regular expressions. You can read more about regular expression format here .

You can download complete Java code for this class here .

Feel free to modify and use this class in your projects. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Enjoy.

crystaljingsr

How to validate email, SSN, phone number in Java using Regular expressions. is a post from: zParacha.com | Effective programming and blogging tips by Zaheer Paracha

 

Related posts:

• Ultimate Java Regular Expression to validate any email address. My post about Java regular expression gets a lot of...
• How to validate date using Java regular expression My earlier post on how to validate email address, SSN...
• Validate U.S Phone Numbers using JavaScript Regular expression. Photo credit: aussiegall Continuing with our JavaScript regular expression series...