SharleePlett.com
Sharlee Plett’s Tips, Ideas, and Creative Endeavors

Color Cop is a little color picker utility that I use almost constantly for graphics work and website design.  

It lives in a little popup window that stays open over other windows.  You can drag its little box all over your screen, minimize it, close it, or just leave it open while you work. 

It has a nifty eyedropper that you use to select any part of your screen and grab the color.  Once you’ve grabbed a color, it shows you the color in its sample window and its hex code below.

You can customize the color you’ve selected, adjusting its hue, saturation and luminosity.  Color Cop shows you the RGB value of your customized color and when you return to the front screen, shows the color in selection boxes along with the hex code.

You can copy the hex code from Color Cop to the clipboard and drop it into your graphics editing software.

Color cop remembers the last several colors you worked with and your last screen position, and will remember whatever was there when you last closed it.

It is versatile too, with color code support for HTML hex, Delphi hex, PowerBuilder, Visual Basic hex, and Visual C++ hex.

It is freeware, with no nags and no popups.  You can download it from:

http://www.download.com/Color-Cop/3000-2383_4-10047009.html

I was startled out of my work at the computer by a knock at my door.  It was my sister,  carrying a small tarten luggage case.  “I’ve brought you a present,” she said, holding out the case as she came through the door. 

I was about to tell her that I had enough luggage when a little gray kitten paw poked through the side of the case.  “You’re going to love him,” she smiled, and zipped open the case.

Deep gray eyes caught and held mine from inside the case and two little paws reached over the edge towards me.  He never took his eyes off me and his tiny mews caught my heartstrings. 

It was a tiny little tabby gray kitten, with tiger stripes on his back and leopard spots on his belly.  We put him on the couch, where he tottered about unsteadily, anxiously mewing. 

“He’s about 4 weeks old, the kids found him caught in a tree at the park and brought him home,” she told me, reaching over and scratching him behind his ears, “his mom was probably killed by a coyote.   He was up a tree, and his brother and sister cowering at the foot of it.”

“Will you take him?  He has nowhere to go and I can’t keep him with the dog in our household.”

And so Mr. Christy moved in with me today.

That’s what I decided to name him.  I had just finished watching Robin Williams as Christy in the movie “What Dreams May Come” and love the character he plays in the movie.

Meow! 

Mr. Christy would love to go outside.  I can tell because he sits in my window sill at times avidly watching what is going on outside. 

I’d love to let him go outside, but he is so little and the town I live in poses many dangers for such a tiny creature.  We get a fair amount of traffic, there are many loose dogs and there are coyotes, one of which probably killed his mother. 

So I read up on training cats to walk on leash.  I learned that if you start them early enough, and have the patience of Job, it can be done although cats never really learn to heel and mind like dogs do.  Good enough.

I went to the pet store and found the smallest possible harness.  They had a harness for a teacup poodle or chihuahua. 

When I got home I pulled Mr. Christy onto my lap and the fun began.  Kittens don’t really take all that well to having a harness put on them and Mr. Christy was no exception.  He was confused first thinking that I was playing with him so every movement of the harness was met with teeth and claws to catch and immobilize the harness.  Then he decided this wasn’t a fun game at all and writhed about frantically as I pulled it over his head and fastened it around his belly.

I let him go and he treated me to an energetic acrobatic contortionist act that was as comical as it was frenzied.  Up on his tiptoes with his backed arched, he flew across the room in jagged bounces frantically chewing at the straps.  Then rolling about on the floor in a mad panic, chasing the side of the harness with his teeth.  He finally came to rest underneath the table panting and looking at me with disgust.  I told him he had done very well and offered him a treat.  On hobbly kitten legs he trotted over to me to accept his treat and his praise. 

I left the harness on him for about an hour and he seemed to come to terms with it, no longer fighting or attacking it. 

Round one accomplished!