Sketchpad is a web-based painting app that doesn’t use Flash

It’s a bit early to start claiming that Flash’s days are numbered, but there are a few of us that are frustrated with Flash’s performance sketchpad(and crashiness). If you’re starting to get frustrated about dealing with Flash, but are still craving full-featured web applications, there’s some good news on the horizon. New apps are starting to get developed with comparable functionality to Flash, but with no Flash in sight. Sketchpad is a great example of this.

Sketchpad is a nicely designed web-based painting and drawing application. It’s not going to replace Photoshop, but it’s certainly full-featured and fast enough for quick edits. In fact, Sketchpad is surprisingly frugal with processor cycles, and snappier than I’ve come to expect from similar web apps.

Visit: Sketchpad

Find inspiration with Ideas

When you visit Ideas, you are presented with a large search box, beside which sits a button that simply states, “inspire ideasme!” Type in a word, and the site will present you with a series of sets of information that is somehow related to the word entered. If you’re feeling bereft of ideas for even a word to enter, a few examples are provided such as aircraft, love, beauty, sorrow, yes, red, winter, home, Africa, kiss.

Depending on the word you enter, Ideas may or may not be able to find examples of the following types:

  • Famous quote
  • Creative Commons licensed photos from Flickr
  • Color swatches from COLOURlovers.com
  • Songs from Last.fm
  • Related words from BigHugeLabs.com
  • Videos from YouTube.com
  • Listings from Etsy.com
  • Bookmarks from Delicious.com
  • Article from Wikipedia.com

What a great way for creative people that are looking for a little boost in the inspiration department to start with a specific word and serendipitously follow a trail to something that may well inspire them.

Visit: Ideas

Create and Share Panoramic Images at viewAt

If you’re interested in panoramic photography, viewAt combines a greecepanoramic maker with a Google Maps mashup so you can not only create interactive panoramas but geotag them and share them with the world.

Even if you’re not interested in making panoramic photos, just browsing the viewAt map is a visual treat. The vast majority of user uploaded content is absolutely stunning. The photos you upload can be converted into a cylindrical or spherical panoramic. Cylindrical panoramics are the ones you’re most likely to have already come across, where viewing the photo is like rotating around in a circle viewing a band of the scene before you. Spherical panoramics require more photos to be taken, but they create almost a 360 view of scene allowing you to pan up and down as well as left and right to take in everything at the site of the photograph. For more information and a chance to check out some of the spectacular panoramas already hosted by viewAt, check out the link below.

Visit: ViewAt

Edit Your Online Images with FotoFlexer

FotoFlexer offers an online photo editing application that provides users photoflexerwith advanced and fun features. FotoFlexer also allows users to upload and save edited photos to major photo sharing services like Flickr, Photobucket, MySpace, and Facebook. FotoFlexer has been chosen by Google as the image editor launch partner for the OpenSocial initiative, and has teamed with Atlantic Records to help launch new artists CDs.

As of March 2008, FotoFlexer became the embedded image editor for Photobucket. FotoFlexer is also the embedded image editor for TinyPic and Piczo, as well as the developer of a number of popular Facebook applications.

FotoFlexer has launched several technology innovations. It was the first company to launch a commercial seam-carving application, which appears to “magically” remove objects from photos. The company has filed 6 provisional patents for advanced technologies.

FotoFlexer is also applying its image-processing technical expertise on some large, (though confidential) initiatives which may fundamentally change the way people and companies use photos online.

Visit: fotoflexer.com