Here's a list of some free services that we think you'll find useful in the future.

1. PLACEHOLD.IT

 Placehold.it is a simple image placeholder developed by Brent and Russell. All you have to do is simply point your browser (or image source / background-image style) to the following URL, and pass in the sizes of your placeholder: http://placehold.it/350x150. This will produce a handy little image placeholder. This can be used to demonstrate layout designs to clients, or even advertising space. Here's the result of that particular URL:

You can do some pretty useful things with Placehold.it too, like setting the style and text of the placeholder. Let's assume for this demo that you're selling advertising space on your site, and want to demonstrate to potential clients what a 120 x 120 pixel advert looks like. You can pass a number of parameters to the service such as format, colour, text and size. For example, http://placehold.it/120x120&text=120x120+Advert generates the following placeholder:

For more information, check out www.placehold.it to find out more ways to use and customise the service.

2. border-radius.com

Border Radius is a useful CSS3 for creating border-radius declarations using CSS3 and browser-specific CSS developed by Tumlr's Creative Director, Jacob Bijani. All the user needs to do is insert the number of pixels they wish to make their border's radius and the service automatically generates the relevant CSS to make this happen. 

Although support for CSS3 is still on the up, this could prove to be a little time-saving service for anyone who uses a lot of border-radii on their website.

Visit www.border-radius.com for a demo of the service.

3. Color Scheme Designer

We all know that contrasting colours compliment one another, but it can still be quite a challenge finding colours which suit an overall design or have a look of consistency with them. Thankfully, helpful Czech chap Petr Stanicek has developed a clever little service which allows you to define a colour and discover not only complimenting colours, but accented, analogic and mono colour schemes around it. 

This is certainly a useful service, and not limited to web development. It can be used for a variety of design services and provides the client with RGB values as well as Hexadecimal to boot. 

Access the application at www.colorschemedesigner.com.

4. 960 Grid CSS Framework

It seems that in today's age of copy-paste coders, there's a framework for just about everything. CSS is no different, but we personally think that the 960 Grid CSS Framework is a very useful one. By providing designers with a number of columns and fixed width grid elements, it's easy to create columned designs using CSS. Also available as a fluid layout, the grid framework could prove to be extremely useful for developing websites of a width and ensure that the design will display as expected.

Perhaps it's a step too far down the road of conformity, and it might be the case that the framework's usefulness will be short-lived, but as can be seen from the examples on the 960.gs website, the framework can provide a good underpinning to any number of creative web designs and layouts.

Check out www.960.gs for examples and information, or go straight to the application here.

Well, hopefully you'll find the services above useful!