While surfing my daily tech Web sites, I came across this interesting article, that gives you the top 5 Web design applications (for Windows), you cannot live without. These applications are useful, and are already on my Windows machine.

Ok, so you shelled out $US400 for DreamWeaver. Your latest PhotoShop upgrade was another US$170, and Illustrator cost about the same. Your pockets are a lot lighter than they ought to be, but all you have is the bare essentials.

Never fear! We’ve got 5 powerful tools that will smooth your development without costing you a single penny (unless you choose otherwise).
ColorPic by Iconico

There certainly is no shortage of specialized eyedropper utilities, but few have pulled all the right functionality together as usefully and elegantly as Nico Westerdale’s ColorPic.

If you’re starting off a project without much more than a logo or a photo, ColorPic is an absolute gem. Get up close and personal using the handy zoom window, grab the main colors with a snappy CTRL-G, then just pick out the ‘bridging’ colors from the anti-aliased edges.

Each set of chips is savable as a “palette” so you can easily recall archived project color sets in seconds. All colors are available in RGB and Hex.

The app is offered free of charge from Nico’s site at Iconico.com, but he offers other, equally great, inexpensive software for you to test-drive. You’ll no doubt notice the brilliant product, Screen Calipers, which is also worthy of mention. The full version is only US$15 and includes transparency options, skinning and multiple units of measure. Grab them both and at least write him a nice thank you letter!

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