You can get all of our updates, and more by following us on Twitter. We have a lot of great, resourceful posts planned for you and twitter allows you to get every one of them as soon as they’re published. You can also send us tips and more. Just follow us and direct message or @DesignVitality to talk.

Don’t know what Twitter is? It is a way to answer one simple question, “What are you doing?”

You can find out more about twitter here, or add us at twitter.com/DesignVitality.

So when I see a hot wallpaper I download it and save it, and today I have put together the first selection of our series of posts about stunning hand picked wallpapers.

Here are 25 Amazing Beautiful nature themed desktop wallpapers. Enjoy.

1. Paragonia
   
   This one is a collaboration between Pet Harrison and Marius Bauer. Its available up to 2560×1600.
2. A Dreamy Island
   
   Available in 1600×1200.
3. Serene Waterfall
   
   What nature wallpaper would be complete without a waterfall wallpaper? None. Available up to 1920×1200.
4. Cliffside Beach
   
   Available up to 1600×1200.
5. Another Dreamy World Wallpaper
   
   This is another great wallpaper which is a part of the “A Dreamy World” collection. Available in 1600×1200.
6. Splash
   
   Available up to 2560×1600.
7. It Was A Beautiful Day
   
   Available in 1000×1250.
8. Skyland
   
   Available up to 1920 x 1200.
9. Darkness to Light
   
   Available up to 2560×1600.
10. Green Dreams
    
    This one has both a daytime and nighttime feeling to it. It is available up to 2560×1600.
11. Winter Wonderland
    
    This wallpaper has a wonderful winter themed design and it is even available in widescreen. Up to 1680×1050.
12. Leaf Ripple
    
    Available in 2000×1333.
13. Crashing Waves
    
    This is an example of a photo taken at just the right time. Available in up to 1920×1200.
14. Beautiful Morning
    
    Available up to 2560×1600.
15. Stonehenge Wallpaper
    
    Available in 1000×631.
16. Splatter
    
    Available in 1280×960.
17. Canoeing
    
    Available up to 2560×1600.
18. No Line On The Horizon
    
    Available up to 1680×1050.
19. Blue is the Answer
    
    This one is available in up to 1600×1200.
20. Am Nature
    
    Available up to 2560×1600.
21. Pacific City
    
    Available up to 2560×1600.
22. Crepuscule
    
    This is a wallpaper of a breathtaking “black sunset.” Available up to 2560×1600.
23. Connect Relationships With Sounds
    
    This is a name I don’t understand, but this is an amazingly simple yet clean desktop wallpaper. Available up to 2560×1600.
24. Afternoon Shadows
    
    Available up to 2560×1600.
25. Driftwood
    
    Available up to 2560×1600.

Web 2.0 websites are typically known for the use of CSS, Folksonomies (social tagging, classification, and indexing), Microformats, REST/XML/JSON-based APIs, rich internet applications such as Ajax, Flex, or Flash, semantically valid XHTML and HTML, RSS/Atom syndication and aggregation, weblog-publishing tools, wiki or forum software, and the extended use of internet privacy and content management. Below is a list of the top 15 websites that have been influential in establishing these methods of functionality on the web.

1. iGoogle
Google has been a rising star for the past decade now, and is officially the largest American corporation not a part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The original site started out as a simple search engine, eventually becoming a wide network of sites and services that include Gmail, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Talk, Google Desktop, AdWords, Analytics, Picasa, and Google Earth, among others. As a testament to the company’s popularity, the word “Google” was added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary as a verb in 2006, meaning “to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the internet.” Google’s “iGoogle” variant site has shown to be a comparable staple on the 2.0 scene.

2. Flickr
With the advent of modern Web 2.0 content, one of the first forms of media to become the cornerstone of user-generated communities was photos. With the popularity of blogging, people began to not only want to share their experiences in text form, but in photo form as well. Hence, this form of visual expression became a popular aspect of the internet. Flickr introduced the ability to upload and share your photos with the world and receive feedback.

3. Facebook
In the natural order of technological evolution, there is always a “new” website that debuts as an advancement over an existing one. For MySpace, that natural evolution was Facebook. In recent years MySpace has become a breeding ground for social abuse, including stalking, child predation, sexuality, and other forms of depravity, including the overuse of cutesy sparkling animated GIFs. What Facebook offered was a straight-forward, minimalistic, accessible social network that cleaned up where MySpace had made a mess. With it’s heightened privacy protocols and lack of profile clutter, Facebook quickly became a popular utility for social networking.

4. MySpace
Speaking of MySpace… Rising from the popularity of other social networks like Melodramatic, LiveJournal, and Friendster, MySpace rose to prominence as the premier social network of the 21st century. It offered a bevy of new features and functionality that made it unique, including the ability to embed HTML code directly into your profile in order to customize it to your preferences. Eventually adding additional content such as Music, Videos, Personals, Forums, and Games, MySpace soon became a hub of community-generated content and activity. Like I said in number 3, Facebook, of course, was the natural evolution of the social networking craze started by MySpace.

5. YouTube
As a natural progression, the next form of media to find it’s place on the internet was video. Following in the footsteps of Flickr, YouTube offered users the ability to upload videos to the internet and share them with other users. You could even copy and paste the embed code into your website, such as a MySpace profile, which helped to also promote the customization of social networking systems.

6. Blogger
Today, Blogger is a part of the Google network of websites, but that wasn’t always the case. Blogger started out in 1999 as an early self-publishing blog utility, which, at the time, had little commercial application. However, with a brand new tool for creative expression now available to the public, Blogger took off like a rocket. With millions of blogs and a new one created every minute, Blogger is no doubt the trailblazer of the modern blogosphere.

7. Wordpress
Wordpress, another self-publishing blog utility, is to the open source market what Blogger was to online hosted applications. Feeding off of the popularity of the blogosphere as perpetuated by services like Blogger, LiveJournal and Moveable Type, Wordpress was introduced as a standalone package of files that could be installed onto a server by the FTP savvy and configured as a personal blog and website. With a recent rise of DIY-web designers and bloggers, this seemed like the next logical step for internet users who are becoming more adept at content management. With it’s simplicity, usability, and Web 2.0 functionality, Wordpress hit Legendary status in no time.

8. Wikipedia
Nothing exemplifies “user-generated content” more than Wikipedia. As the encyclopedia anyone can edit, Wikipedia is a vast collection of information submitted, edited, and validated by the user.  As quite possibly the world’s largest collaborative effort, the site boasts more than 900,000 unique visits per day and is one of the most frequently referenced sites on the internet.

9. Yahoo!
Yahoo was one of the earlier frontrunners in the search engine game. They established themselves as a mighty force on the internet before Google had become the powerhouse it is today. However, credit is due to Yahoo as they pioneered the universal internet hub format that is commonly seen on sites such as MSN and iGoogle.

10. Digg
With so many blogs and news sites and online videos and other resources, wouldn’t it be nice if there was one place where we could have access to all of the content on the internet at once? Well, there is, and that place is Digg. So many websites offer up some form of content online, and with the widespread use of RSS feeds, it is easier than ever to create an automated hub to provide access to these sites. Users are able to submit links to the site for other users to view, and depending on the popularity of the link, it will either become accessible to even more users are disappear into obscurity. User-generated content has never been easier to share.

11. iLike
Without a doubt, the music-sharing revolution of the 21st century was initiated by the debut of the original Napster. It introduced users to the internet music trade and showed the world just how integral the internet is, and can be, to the music industry. Napster was obviously shut down, but it’s spirit lives on in the form of sites like iLike. iLike is a social networking site centered around music that epitomizes the idea of user-generated/maintained/organized content. Users can sample and download songs from upcoming as well as already established artists. iLike stands apart from the rest of the music sites because of its unique Web 2.0 functionality. Not only is it a standalone website, but it also has a Facebook app, an iTunes plugin, and other site/app addons that allow users to constantly stay connected with the world through music.

12. Amazon
The internet opened many doors, but none as profitable as online stores. Amazon represents an entire niche of websites in the genre of eCommerce. Internet sales have skyrocketed since the advent of online purchases, and have even become comparable to live sales in stores. Amazon is an arena of user-generated content and accessibility that gives people the ability to buy just about anything they want from one of the biggest commercial markets in the world.

13. eBay
Started out in 1995, eBay was Web 2.0 before the term “Web 2.0″ even existed. EBay introduced online auctions to the internet in a way that nobody had ever seen, and it caught on like wildfire. Today, the site boasts nearly 170 million users and is currently the premier auction site in the world. Since eBay also owns PayPal and Skype, you can consider this a triple threat.

14. Twitter
Twitter is a social network that takes the focus away from bulky profiles and side-features and provides an emphasized use of the communication qualities of modern networks. As a tool for trading “comments,” Twitter allows you to maintain flowing conversations and stay in touch with friends and random users.

15. Creative Commons
With the rise of user-generated content on the internet, it’s only natural that users would want to protect that content so as to prevent intellectual theft. Creative Commons provides just that. With many Web 2.0 elements in itself, CC allows users to claim “some rights reserved” for their projects and content. In an environment where legal copyrights often do not apply, it is refreshing to have an element of “Web 2.0 Protection” on the internet.

As a designer, I recognize how difficult it can be to compose and style your own website or blog, especially if you don’t have any design skills or are just starting out. I was a beginner once, and it was definitely a learning experience to style and develop my own blogs.

One of the most valuable aspects of the internet is the instant availability of all kinds of helpful tools and information. Among these resources are the golden nuggets known as online  generators. If you need to create a quick and easy element for your website or template, these utilities offer automated functions for creating just what you’re looking for.

Be it images, text, layouts, or CSS, these generators have just the fix you need.

Web 2.0 Design

1. Web 2.0 Badge Generator
Badges are fun little accents to add to a Web 2.0 oriented site. Quite often, they are used to denote a “Beta” mode, but they can be used for much more. This generator allows you to select a badge style and customize the color, text, and size.


2. Web 2.0 Buttons
In just four steps, this generator offers you a variety of options for specifying the shape, color, text, and inclusive icons for a custom Web 2.0 button. It offers more than 50 fonts and a hefty variety of icons (or the option to upload your own).


3. Stripe Generator
As Web 2.0 has evolved into its own style of design, there are many elements that have emerged to represent it. Reflections, cutesy icons… and stripes. This utility offers up a variety of settings for creating and customizing a striped pattern that is just right for you.

4. Web 2.0 Text Generator 1
If you want to Web 2.0-ify your site and create a custom text logo in the slick, glossy 2.0 style, just input your text into this generator and create your custom logo. You have the options to add a reflection and even add in a “Beta” tag, for those sites in testing.


5. Web 2.0 Text Generator 2
Here’s another generator for creating custom Web 2.0 text logos. This one offers up a variety of options for adjusting your colors, text, and reflection. It even offers up the inclusion of little Web 2.0 icons, and allows you to generate the image in a DPI range of 72-1200 in gif, jpg, or png formats.

Image Generators

6. Tabs Generator
Here’s a useful generator for creating custom tabs for a tabbed menu. You simply adjust the sliders and select various options for your tabs and then download your customized selection.


7. Ribbon Generator 1
Similarly to the Web 2.0 badges, ribbons offer the same functionality in a different format. Ribbons display in the corner of the page, so it doesn’t interfere with the site content. You can slip in a text message to display a “Beta” tag, or even just a random quote or site description.


8. Ribbon Generator 2
heres another ribbon generator. This one has a couple of additional customization features, but generally offers the same functionality.


9. Favicon Generator
Have you ever seen the little icon that appears beside the address bar when visiting a particular website? That is a favicon, or ‘favorite icon,’ used to represent a website for bookmarking purposes. It can be difficult to create yourself, especially if you’re not able to save images in icon format. This generator solves that problem by converting any image you upload into icon format and giving it the proper filename of ‘favicon.ico.’ Just upload it to your root directory and bam, your site has its own favicon.


10. Online Button Generator 1
This generator features plenty of options for creating a simple, custom CSS button for your site. You simply specify what features you would like (font size, color, width, border, etc) and the generator does the rest. Simple and easy for the coding impaired.


11. Online Button Generator 2
This is a more advanced button generator that offers the customization and creation of button in various styles, such as rounded, square, tabs, and web 2.0, among others.


12. Loader Generator 1
Do you have a site with dynamic content that displays a loader while content is loading? Want to change your spinner, but don’t have the design skills to produce your own? Then download a custom one here. Select the style you like, specify your color preferences, generate the spinner and download the final product.


13. Loader Generator 2
Here’s another generator that offers up a selection of loadbars and spinners to choose from. Same deal, customize your options, generate, and download.


14. Gradient Generator 1
This is a fairly complex online generator used for creating a gradient image. There are a multitude of settings that you can adjust to get your gradient just right. It takes some playing around with, but for those without access to image editing programs, this is an easy way to produce a gradient.


15. Gradient Generator 2
This is a much more simplified gradient generator that offers fewer options and is easier to use. If you don’t want the complexity of the previous Gradient Maker, then this may be the better option.


16. Tartan Maker
If you’re Scottish, a lumberjack, or just plain like tartan patterning then this is the generator for you. It allows you to design and implement a tartan style background for your website. You have complete control over the angle, colors, and size of the bands in the patterning.

CSS Generators

17. CSS Generator
Here’s a basic custom CSS generator. Pretty straight forward, just input your custom values and the generator spits out the markup for download.


18. CSS Navigation
Here’s a generator that offers help in creating a custom CSS menu for your site. Just enter in the link and the url that it is to lead to, order them, specify color, size, etc, and there you have it. The output is a pretty simple vertical column navigation menu.


19. CSS Menu Maker
This is more of a hand-holding generator as they offer up a selection of free templates to choose from prior to your customization. Once you’ve selected a template, you have the options of inputting custom values into the generator. What you end up with is a free custom menu for your site.


20. Multi-level CSS Menu Generator (Suckerfish)
This is a pretty nifty app for generating a custom CSS menu with a mouseover dropdown using the Suckerfish code.

Layout Utilities

21. Javascript Popup Window Generator
Here’s a shortcut for creating popup windows. It’s really quite simple as long as you’re fluent with Javascript, but if not, then this one is a must have. Just answer a list of questions to customize the functionality and Voila! Instant popup windows.


22. Wordpress Theme Generator
Here’s a utility that makes blog styling so much easier. For anyone that is familiar with Wordpress, you know how much of an endeavor it can be to customize the layout and design of the blog. You can download a premade template, but who wants to be unoriginal? Check out this generator and design the blog of your dreams.


23. Email Form Generator
If you run a site that gets a lot of traffic and you want to have a way for users to easily contact you, then a contact form makes sense. Creating one, however, is much easier said than done. This contact form generator picks up the slack and does the work for you. Just specify what input fields you’d like to appear on the form, or use a premade template, and drop the generated code into your site.


24. Color Scheme Generator
Have trouble deciding on colors for your site? Didn’t take that Color Theory course back in freshman year? No problem, this color scheme generator has got you covered. Just select your preferred scheme style and your favorite color, and the generator will match the corresponding colors that match your choice.


25. Rounded Corners
If you like the look of rounded corners and want to apply it to your site without messing around in Photoshop or toiling to get the code right, then just use this generator. Input your numbers, like corner radius, colors, borders, margins, etc. Generate the code and simply copy and paste into your site.

The thing about CSS is that it is capable of much more than just stylistic design. It has a degree of utile functionality as well, and I’m going to point out some tutorials that make use of some of the more practical applications of CSS when designing your site’s menus.

1. Mac Style Dock Menu Navigation Bar in CSS
For those of you Mac fanatics out there who love the smooth, animated functionality of the OSX Dock, then this is the menu for you! This tutorial makes use of a quick and easy jquery script to beautify the effect.

2. Hoverbox Menu
Similarly to the fisheye expansion effect of the Mac Dock, this menu creates an onHover blowup of the image link.

3. Position Property CSS Menu
This menu makes use of the CSS position property in order to create a rollover effect. Rather than replacing the image, it simply changes the position of the existing image, which has the rollover built in.

4. Flickr-like Horizontal Menu
Like the look and feel of the Flickr navigation menu? Well, so do we! This tutorial augments the CSS with a bit of Javascript to emulate the Flickr functionality.

5. Apple Style Rollover Menu
Here’s another one for the Mac fanatics. Like the look of the menu on the Apple website? Well, this tutorial shows you how to recreate it.

6. CSS Rollover Menu
More rollovers! This time around we are shown how to make a vertical menu with rollovers for both background color AND images. Another simple tutorial, but still very good to know.

7. Digg-like Navigation Bar
Like Flickr, Digg is another website that has a very appealing navigation design. This tutorial shows how to recreate the menu using only custom images and CSS.

8. Digg-like Vertical Dropdown Menu
Here’s another Digg recreation. This time around, we’re using a little bit of Javascript to create a handy drop down menu.

9. Tabbed Search Bar
We’ll take a break from the standard navigation menu to take a look at a search bar tutorial. In this, we see how to make custom tabs that will affect the functionality of our search. Pretty handy stuff.

10. Vertical Pop-out Menu
Pop out and fly away menus are very useful for creating an easily accessible navigation tool for websites with multiple pages. It reduces clutter on a nav menu, and creates a fun and appealing little interface to boot.

11. Horizontal Dropdown Menu
Here’s a tutorial for the ever-handy drop down menu. Mouse over, drop down. Doesn’t get much easier than that.

12. Tabbed Menu
This tutorial shows how to give the appearance of tabbed pages. The tab of the active page will give the appearance of being on top of the others. Works well with Ajax and iFrames to organize dynamic content.

13. Graphic Rollover Menu (no preload)
This is always fun. This one shows how to create a menu out of a single image, and then have each menu item rollover independently.

14. Menu with Hovering Tooltips
These aren’t your daddy’s tooltips. These are embedded rollovers that display tooltip-like information upon rollover. Can be customized to display anything you want.

15. Gettyimages Search Menu (with Scriptaculous)
This tutorial recreates the useful search options menu of Getty Images. The interface is beautified a bit with the use of Scriptaculous.

16. Nested Flyover Menu
Like I mentioned earlier, fly over menus are pretty handy. Especially when you have a fly over within a fly over. Nested menus save a ton of space.

17. CSS Menu with a dash of jQuery
This is another simple mouseover drop down menu, but this time it’s kicked up a notch with a jquery script for transition effects.

18. Suckerfish Dropdown Menu
This one is the end all of mouseover drop down menus. Suckerfish is an easily applied and customizable bit of code.

19. Nested Directional Menu
And finally, rounding out our list of CSS menu tutorials, is our final nested flyover. This one, however, includes details on how to change its direction. Tired of the standard left-to-right format? Then change it to right-to-left!

To return to our regular scheduled programming, check out our useful web design and graphic design posts.

[ Image source: dp.ru, via reddit.com ]

Below are 50 sets of filters and plug-ins that can be added to Photoshop for absolutely free!

Plugins

Plugins are a great way to extend Photoshop. Plugins allow you to do small things like open different filetypes or big things like upload pictures from Photoshop to Flickr.

1. PixelNovel - flickr This plugin allows you to open an image, edit it and upload it to your flickr account without ever having to save the image. This plugin is only available for Mac OS X.
   
2. optikVerve Labs - virtualPhotographer Use this professional-grade plugin to help retouch your photos.
   
3. Power Retouche Power Retouche is a brightness tool that allows you to brighten your photos without losing color.
   
4. Deziner Folio» Ultimate Web 2.0 Layer Styles A plugin that features web 2.0 style gradients.
   
5. Panorama Tools Plugin that let’s you stich together images to make your own panorama.
   
6. P2B Perfect Skies Replace blown out skies with perfect skies!
   
7. AmphiSoft: plug-in filters for Photoshop A nice collection of helpful plugins to edit your photos.
   
8. RetroDots Use this plugin to create grid-aligned dots for that retro look.
   
9. Red Paw Media - Photoshop Plugins Red Paw Media has three free filters for removing rogue pixels, bleaching images and giving images that soft focus look.
   
10. Luce Luce is a plugin for generating light effects in Photoshop.
    
11. Extra Sketch Effects - Sketcher Plugin Retouch your images, create line art and more with these plugins.
    
12. 8bf.net - Free Plugins Photoshop plugins to do a variety of things to your images. Most of these are Vista ready.
    
13. PlugPage - Photoshop Plugins Plugins that range from simple color adjustments all the way to masking out difficult images in Photoshop.
    
14. AlphaPlugins - Adobe Photoshop Plugins Multiple plugins for varied effects from Alpha Plugins.
    
15. Pog’s Notes > Plugins Pog hands out some free plugins that are very useful when editing photos.
    
16. MV’s Plugins Many different kinds of plugins but the most interesting one is the Color Cube, a 3D color analysis plugin.
    
17. B/W Conversion This is a powerful black and white conversion tool. B/W Conversion gives you control over color tones, can simulate grain and can even emulate black and white films.
    
18. Dreamy Photo Dreamy Photo is a plugin to give your photos that soft focus look, giving them a dream-like feel.
    
19. Mehdi - Free Photoshop Plugins Free plugins that are compatible with Vista.
    
20. Top 10 Free Plugin Packs (2006-2007) Download the top ten free Photoshop plugins from 2006 to 2007.
    
21. SuperPNG SuperPNG is a plugin to replace saving PNG files in Photoshop. SuperPNG uses a different compression system and can create PNGs that are smaller than Photoshop’s traditional save feature.
    
22. Pro Canvas Allows you to customize your canvas options. Another enhancement to a stock Photoshop tool.
    
23. Seamless Tile Plug-in This tool is very helpful for creating background images. Seamless Tile allows you to create tiling images from whatver you want.
    
24. Telegraphics - Free Plugins For Photoshop & Illustrator Free plugins that mostly add support for file extensions.
25. The Plugin Site - Free Plugins A ton of free plugins for both Windows and Mac. The author gives a rating to each one based on usefulness.
26. Photoshop Filters / Plugins - VersionTracker This website keeps track of the latest updates for programs on the internet. This section has 278 pages of plugins.
27. PluginsWorld.com - Adobe Photoshop A mixture of freeware, shareware and paid plguins. Mostly free though.
28. Xero Graphics : Freeware Plugins Tons of plugins compiled into neat little zip files.
29. Plugin Pimp - Free Plugins And More Plugin Pimp brings us a wide selection of plugins for everyday use.
30. 10 Free Plugins To Enhance Photoshop - ExtremeTech Like the title says, download these 10 free plugins to alter images in Photoshop.
31. Graphicxtras.com - Demos, Samples and Freebies Various demo, sample and free plugins to use with Photoshop.
32. Paint Engine - Fantastic Machines Paint engine for Photoshop.

Filters

Filters are great additions when looking for new ways to edit images. Filters allow things like more control over grayscale and better contrast options.

1. Filter Forge - Filter Library Filter Forge is the leader when it comes to quality Photoshop filters. They currently have 3638 (and counting) filters.
   
2. Opanda PhotoFilter Free filter to customize your photos in hundreds of ways.
   
3. Magic Enhancer Magic Enhancer is an image sharpener that allows you to reclaim lost details because of fuzzy images.
   
4. Topaz DeJPEG DeJPEG is an awesome plugin for cleaning up JPEG images with heavy artifacts due to high compression.
   
5. Digital Darkroom @ The Light’s Right Studio Photographic actions for photoshop.
   
6. Filter Factory - Photoshop Filters Filter Factory brings us over 300 filters.
   
7. GREYCstoration Free, open-source noise reducion filter. This is an enhancement to the one that comes with Photoshop.
   
8. Web Atelier: 14 Free Photoshop Filters 14 Photoshop filters that do a variety of things. These are also compatible with Adobe Fireworks.
   
9. Cybia - Plug-In Filters 15 effects for creating grain and mezzo styles.
   
10. Cybia - The Works A complete set of filters that cover things like embossing, colour correction and even alpha work.
    
11. ::swisswuff:: - Digital Lomo Filter This filter is great for creating effects to make your images look as if they were taken with a Lomo camera.
    
12. Adobe Photoshop - 3D Shadow 1.2 Get more control over your shadows in Photoshop.
    
13. New Dawn Micro - Free Filters Eliminate Black/Eliminiate White, allows you to quickly cut out either the white or black background on an image.
    
14. Richard Rosenman - Filters and Plugins Plugins that you can use to generate different effects.
15. Filters @ Adobe Exchange Adobe approved actions, filters, plugins and more.
16. ATNCentral.com - Downloads This site features a very large list of filters. Most of the filters have example images so you can see what it does before downloading it.
17. Free Photoshop Filters A large list of Photoshop filters to manipulate your images.
18. Reminiscing Visions - Photoshop Filters Filters to help with color, tint and black and white in your photos.

After some research I was able to find the Photoshop startup screen from the very first retail version all the way until CS3. Take a walk down memory lane and see how many of these you remember and discover the humble beginnings of the world’s most powerful image editor.

• Photoshop 1.0.7
  
  The very first retail edition of Photoshop, and the eye that would appear for many startups.
• Photoshop 2.0.1
  
  The next version introduced color to the splash. Notice the eye in the lens.
• Photoshop 2.5
  
  Version 2.5 had an identical splash, although you no longer had to click anything to continue on. This was also the first version to be ported over to Microsoft Windows.
• Photoshop 3.0
  
  Photoshop 3.0 continued with the paint palette. The eye has now moved on to film strip. This version of Photoshop introduced layers, something that every designer on Earth uses. Tabbed palettes also joined the club, allowing more tools in the same amount of space.
• Photoshop 4.0
  
  The palette and film are now gone, and the eye has become the centerpiece. Photoshop 4.0 brought about adjustment layers and actions. Actions are a life saver for anyone who has done repetitive tasks.
• Photoshop 5.0
  
  Photoshop 5.0 brings back a camera lens. 5.0 also introduced the history palette, allowing multiple undos. Type also remained editable, previously it was rasterized as soon as you left the type tool.
• Photoshop 5.5
  
  Photoshop 5.5, also known as the “Web Edition”, allowed you to switch back and forth between Image Ready. Another big feature was the “save for web” save dialogue.
• Photoshop 6.0
  
  Photoshop 6.0 introduced vector shapes. Another big step was the introduction of the “liquify” tool, something used heavily by fashion magazines.
• Photshop 7.0
  
  Version 7.0 brought back the lens to the startup screen. A major tool for this release was the healing brush.
• Photoshop CS (8.0)
  
  For the first time since 1.0, Photoshop CS removes the familiar eye and replaces it with a styled feather. 8.0 brought a new Slices tool, previously used in ImageReady.
• Photoshop CS2 (9.0)
  
  Photoshop CS2 continues the feather trend. A major tool in this release is the introduction of smart objects. The Vanishing Point tool was also brough onboard. Layer selection was modified and it became possible to select more than one layer at a time.
• Photoshop CS3 (10.0)
  
  The latest release of Photoshop has the simplest splash page, using only a shadow and blue gradient. New to the tools are non-destructive smart filters. Improvements were made to many tools as well, such as the print dialogue, RAW editing, Curves, Brightness and Contrast and more.

If you are a designer and you haven’t heard of Firefox, I want to know where you’ve been. Seriously. No need to panic, because today is the official download day for the new Firefox 3.

Firefox offers a faster, safer browsing experience. To get the details, check out this page where you’ll find out more about what makes Firefox a better browser.

Today is the day that the Firefox community, and the Firefox users who love this browser are coming together to set a Guinness World Record. To help Firefox 3 earn the title of the most software downloads in 24 hours, simply participate by downloading it for yourself.

Using this collection of links you should be able to find the perfect background to fill the void in your design!

1. Squidfingers - Patterns
   158 free patterns from Squidfingers.
   
2. Brusheezy - Patterns
   Lots of patterns available for download. The site even includes a rating system to see what others thought of them.
   
3. Photoshop Patterns @ deviantART
   A TON of free patterns by Deviant Art users.
   
4. BioRUST.com :: Adobe Photoshop Patterns
   Free photoshop patterns from Biorust.
   
5. TipClique Photoshop Patterns - Set 001
   5 high resolution Photoshop patterns. Be sure to check the site for collections 2 and 3.
   
   
   
6. Photoshop Ninja Noise Patterns Vol 1
   Photoshop noise patterns from Photoshop Ninja.
   
7. Photoshop Patterns From Art Photos On Webshots
   Webshots brings us 5 pages worth of Photoshop patterns.
   
8. Photoshop Patterns - DigiScrapDepot.com
   A few Photoshop patterns from DigiScrapDepot.
   
9. Photoshop Patterns by Shelby Kate Schmitz
   Lots of patterns for Photoshop 7 or higher. Supports both Windows and Mac.
   
10. Photoshop Patterns by Athryius Designs
    36 decorative patterns from Athryius Designs.
    
11. Kaliber10000 {The Pixel Patterns Collection}
    Very professional looking patterns from Kaliber10000.
    
12. Photoshop Patterns | Alice Grafixx
    Alice Grafixx brings us 38 pages of patterns.
    
13. Patterns from ::: Screentones :::
    Textures, backgrounds and images for comic-style Photoshops.
    
14. Patterns at -=KLEKART=-
    Very nice Photoshop patterns by an aspiring Illustrator.
    
15. 1001 Tours - Photoshop Pattern Downloads
    Photoshop patterns from 1001 Tours.
    
16. Photoshop Patterns @ DinPattern
    4 pages of high quality patterns here.
    
17. Design Spice - Free Photoshop Patterns
    65 simple Photoshop patterns for backgrounds.
    
18. Photoshop Patterns // OptikTutorials
    A simple pattern pack containing 50 patterns.