There’s the option to cruise Google or Bing for wallpapers large and shapely enough to make your background look sweet without tiling the image.  And sure, there are plenty of websites that tout that their choices of backgrounds are the best…except they aren’t. Not unless they are ColourLovers.

These cats are a colorful, creative community of people who create, share, and discuss the latest trends, colors, palettes, and patterns. So whether you’re an artist extraordinaire or just a person looking to spiff up a site background, ColourLovers is a great place to explore.

On ColorLovers, you can create your own background, palette or pattern and share it with the community or strictly keep it for (and to) yourself. There are various tools on the site to help you create these fancy, unique creations, no download required. My favorite (and the one that’ll be easiest to create your own Twitter background) is Themeleon.

Simply go to the “Tools” header and select “Themeleon” and it’ll automatically prompt you to sign into Twitter. Like many applications on Twitter, ColourLovers will need your permission to connect to your account, enabling it to load your Twitter profile page so you get a feel of what people will be seeing when they visit your profile. You can apply a pre-made background or theme from other users or tweak the colors of the background of your choosing.

And don’t worry. There’s no shortage of backgrounds. With over 3,000 backgrounds (that doesn’t even count the amount of color palettes available!), there’s a rare chance of having the same background of someone else on Twitter, unless, you know, you like what everyone else likes. And in that case, you might just want to choose from one of Twitter’s 19 default backgrounds.

One of the great parts of ColourLovers is that it’s all free. From the community forums, to creating backgrounds and sharing colors, it’s all at your fingertips; no wallet required.

If you want to take your coloring schemes to the next level, the site offers other services (whether partnered with a sponsor or giving you some third-party ideas) to help see that design come to life on clothes, fabric, or canvas.

So whether you’re perusing for a Twitter background or looking for a way to make some nifty art, ColourLovers is a great place to experiment with colors, just like you used to as a kid. Coloring outside the lines is optional, but strongly encouraged.

Photo Credit: farhaddaud (from Flickr)

The post Add a Splash of Color to Your Twitter Background (and clothing and walls, too!) first appeared on Techerator.

Firefox only

Getting Started

To get started, follow these steps:

1. Install the Firebug add-on (required for YSlow).
2. Install the YSlow add-on.
3. Restart Firefox.

Once Firefox restarts, you can view the performance statistics of any website by clicking the newly added YSlow icon in the status bar.  This icon also displays the current web page’s load time in seconds.

Clicking the YSlow icon will bring up a new window that will give you the option to ‘Run Test’ and lets you choose whether a test should be performed each time you load a web page.

Viewing Results

Once the test has been completed, you will be given an overall letter grade for the site’s performance and a detailed evaluation.  You can view the site’s individual ratings in the categories tabs on the side, and clicking each tab will display detailed information about your site’s performance and ways to improve it.

YSlow also provides information about the individual components of a website under the Components tab.  After clicking this tab, you will be presented with an expandable list detailing the types of files on the web page and their file size.

To view graphical site statistics, click the Statistics tab at the top of the YSlow window.  This will display weighted graphs for the sizes of components on the website.

The Tools tab allows you to run a variety of tests (such as Javascript tests) on your website.  Clicking ‘Printable View’ will provide you with a detailed list information about all areas of your website.

One thing to keep in mind is that YSlow calculates its results on data it receives from your browser and internet connection.  This means that if you are on a slow network (or the website’s host is slow), it may skew your results.

YSlow (and Firebug) are free add-ons for Mozilla Firefox and are a great asset to any web developer, whether casual or professional.  For more information and instructions, check out the YSlow User Guide.  [Yslow | Yahoo Developer Network]

The post How To: Analyze and Improve Your Website’s Performance with YSlow first appeared on Techerator.