My search for free, pretty floral background yielded over 50 pages(!) which, as you can imagine, took me a while to trawl through. So I thought I’d share my top 15 picks with you to make your job a little easier. Enjoy!

NB: these links open up the image in the www.sxc.hu website where you can download them for free. You’ll need to join, but it’s free and definitely well worth it!

Here’s my top 5 favourites, the ones I use again and again.

1. Pick a New Colour Scheme @ www.colorschemedesigner.com

Picks simple colour schemes for you for websites, brochures etc. This is a recent find and I love it.

2. Create Favicons @ www.favicon.cc

Frustrated at trying to create favicons easily? I was too until I found this nifty online tool that uploads your image and creates it for you ready to download. So simple and clever.

3. Find What Colour It is with www.colorzilla.com

This is a little app that you download which sits in your task bar. If you ever want to know the RGB or Hex colour of something on your screen just mouse over it and it tells you.

4. Create Screenshots with www.jing.com

Jing was created by those clever people at TechSmith (who also bought us Camtasia and Snag It). It takes screen shots and short videos of what you are working on on your computer. Best of all it just sits discretely at the top of your screen so it’s there when you need it without mucking about opening programmes etc.

5. Find a Funky Photo @ www.sxc.hu

At first glance it seems like the address of a site of dubious content but it’s actually a fantastic resource of high quality free images. The search function is a bit odd at times but we can forgive them for that given how great the photos are!

If you want to add your own top 5 feel free to do so below!

So, let’s go. Here they are folks, my top 10 annoying things online …

1.    Intro Pages, especially Flash ( see #6)

Didn’t we move on from intro pages years ago?

2.    The words “Click Here”

Please give me something meaningful to click on. Click here is just noise. And goodness knows there is enough noise online as it is.

3.    Default 404 pages

Lazy, lazy. Plus such a waste of an opportunity to redirect visitors somewhere else on your site.

4.    Hide And Seek Menus

You know, the ones which move about like a video game when you click on it.

5.    Contact Us forms

Yes I know it’s to avoid spamming a lot of the time. But please, even if you have to space it out, I still want an email address. At least then I know if it doesn’t bounce back that it may actually have got to you.

6.    Flash for Flash’s sake

Nothing more to say here

7.    Videos/audio that starts automatically

So annoying I can’t write anymore about it.

8.    Animation

Anything animated that I didn’t ask for is wrong. It’s annoying and distracting.

9.    White text on black

Up there with wearing white shoes after labor day. Wrong on so many levels.

10.    Sites that use pop ups when you try to leave

And no, not *that* kind of site. Lots of legitimate sites have started using this technique now. Take the hint .. if i’m leaving, I’m just not that into your site!

So, how does that stack up with your top online peeves?

Leave a comment and let me know!

I’m no photoshop wizard (actually Photoshop minus 101 is about my level) but I just had to try to make this pencil when I found it here: http://psd.tutsplus.com/drawing/how-to-create-a-super-shiny-pencil-icon/

The tutsplus.com site has the most amazing free Photoshop tutorials. Never ceases to amaze me what cool things people do in Photoshop. I struggle to know where to begin sometimes but these guys break it down and make it so easy to follow.

You’ll notice how I conveniently haven’t posted my own effort here. As I said, photoshop isn’t my thing so my effort wasn’t pretty! But I’d love to see some of your own work if you did manage it