These 216 fixed colors, known as web safe colors are universally recognized by all browsers and operating systems. This means that web pages which use only these colors have a better chance of looking the same on any browser.
Less than 5% of computer systems are currently using 8-bit systems and are thus confined to 256 colors. However, you should still use web safe colors as a starting point, especially for logos, flat color illustrations, backgrounds, and large areas of the same color in any image.
Colors are made up of 3 pairs of hexadecimal digits. Each pair represents a value from 3 root colors: red, green, and blue usually represented as RGB.
Hexadecimal is based on 16 digits not 10. So, A would be equivalent to 11, B to 12, and so on. For example, 000000 is black, FFFFFF is white and FF0000 is red. The first pair of numbers shows the amount of red, the second set shows how much green and the last set shows how much blue is used to obtain that particular color. 00 represents no amount of that color (0%) while FF is the most amount of any color you can use (100%).
Here's the percentage breakdown: 0%=00, 20%=33, 40%=66, 60%=99, 80%=CC, 100%=FF.
Web safe colors, which are made up of 3 pairs of identical hexadecimal digits, consist of every combination of 00, 33, 66, 99, CC, and FF for each root color (6 x 6 x 6 = 216).
Todays computers are no longer limited to the 256 colors displayed by 8-bit video cards. 16-bit cards display 4096 colors (referred to as web smart colors) while, 32-bit cards will display millions of different colors (referred to as unsafe colors). The total number of possible colors is over 16 million as each root color can be one of 256 values (256 x 256 x 256 = 16,777,216). Your browser can display any of these colors as long as your video card will support it.
There are many color wheels and charts available on the internet to help you choose web safe, web smart, or unsafe colors. Here are a few:
A 216 web safe color chart can be found at: http://www.permadi.com/tutorial/websafecolor/ And also at: http://www.techbomb.com/websafe/
4096 Color Wheel will provide the hexadecimal values for web safe, web smart, and unsafe colors along with different saturations of hues and is available at: http;//www.ficml.org/jemimap/style/color/wheel.html
4096 Color Picker & Mixer demonstrates how different colored text appears against assorted colored backgrounds using the web smart palette. It's available at: http://www.webcolors.freeserve.co.uk/pick4096.htm
DHTML Color Wheel provides the hexadecimal codes for all 16,777,216 colors. It's available at: http://www.geocities.com/~prof_al/examples/colorwheel.html
Another version of the same color wheel displays your chosen color on the entire page. Find it at: http://www.jeffchester.com/colorwheel.html
Although modern browsers will display over 16 million colors, colors other than web safe colors may not display the same on different browsers. If you choose to use colors on your web pages from the web smart or unsafe color palettes, always view your pages on different browsers. This is to make sure that the colors that look great on your browser display the same or close to the same color on other browsers.
Are you up to date with the latest developments? Are you new to the Internet and totally bemused by all the jargon?
Do you know your P2P from your DVD? Do you confuse your MP3 and MPEG4? Have you got your codecs and plug-ins set up correctly and not exceeded your bandwidth? What does it all mean and does it matter if all you want to do is watch some movies?
The terms get longer, the speed of change is faster, the confusion increases. Whilst I watch a downloadable film on my laptop my uncle needs to help to program his old VHS recorder! This speed of change is opening up a huge gulf between different users and this gap seems to continue to grow.
You can now easily download movies to watch when you want, with perfect digital quality. You can even watch them where you want - perhaps download movies to you ipod or burn movies to DVD and watch on any laptop or on the TV as normal.
But to do so it helps to learn the new language and if you are interested in joining in the movie downloading then some basic knowledge of the essential terminology will help.
So where to start? Let's start with something we think we know:
DVD: "Digital Versatile Disc" or "Digital Video Disc" - these discs look like CDs (compact discs) but hold more data and are now used for storing digital movies. A rewriteable DVD can also be used for storing your music and computer files. There is no space here to explain the difference between all these permutations - DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R and the rest - that would be a separate article in itself!
Clearly when a movie is downloaded you are not downloading an actual DVD! So when you download a movie what do you actually download? It is quite simply a computer file - but of course they come in many types! Here are the main bits of movie file jargon you may come across.
MPEG-4: this is a standard for a file for video and audio, compiled by the "Moving Picture Experts Group" (hence MPEG) and it is their 4th version of the standard. So you can now download movies in MPEG-4 format - but this can take time as the files are so large!
DivX: developed by DivXNetworks, this is a file that enables fast movie downloads without losing any picture quality - and DivX is also based on the MPEG-4 video file standard that we mentioned above.
Codec: although it sounds mysterious, this is a piece of software that enables file COmpression and DECompression to transfer it across the internet.
MP3: short for "MPEG Audio Layer 3" - from MPEG again. This is for digital audio only, it uses a compression method that means smaller file sizes. You lose some information but most people can't hear the reduction in quality. So it's great for music downloading and playing audio on an MP3 player. But this is only for music, not for movies.
P2P: short for peer to peer. This is one popular method of sharing and downloading millions of movie and music files. Peer-to-peer is a form of computer network that does not rely on a server and client, but each computer is a peer or equal - great for downloading and sharing home video and audio content. Even with compressed files it can take time and sharing the load amongst several computers is a clever way to harness the power of the internet.
So when you've downloaded the files - how do you watch them?
On Windows PCs these files will usually play without a problem on the standard Windows Media Player, particularly if you have the latest version.
For Apple Macs QuickTime is both a file format and a player. Designed by Apple Computers QuickTime has been around a while. You can download the player from the Apple website and you can run it on a windows PC.
Having mentioned Apple it would be difficult not to mention the iPod. But playing movies on iPods and other portable players is another topic entirely!
? 2006 WhatMovieDownload.com
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Both Ricardy Banks & Andrew Castlewood are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Ricardy Banks has sinced written about articles on various topics from The Internet, Computers and The Internet and SEO Search Engine Optimization. Ricardy Banks is a Certified Internet Consultant with WSI and has over 20 years of experience in the IT industry.. Ricardy Banks's top article generates over 18100 views. to your Favourites.
Andrew Castlewood has sinced written about articles on various topics from The Internet, Gadgets and Movie Reviews. Andrew Castlewood is content editor at WhatMovieDownload.com and an impatient movie viewer! He monitors technology to make movie-viewing as fun as it should be! Andrew can provide you with more information about movie downloads at. Andrew Castlewood's top article generates over 4400 views. to your Favourites.