Hey everyone!

Just a quick announcement tonight that version 1.0 of the pngnq tool has officially been released. The major updates in this release include (according to their web site):

“May 2009: Merged ‘improved pngnq‘ and added configure script. Changes include gamma setting, better assignment of transparent colors so they don’t take up too much of the palette space, Floyd Steinberg dithering. Many thanks to Kornel Lesinski for his great improvements. Im calling this version 1.0, for what it’s worth. It’s in svn, and Linux and Mac binaries have been built. The other binaries will be forthcoming. I’ll also be adding example images using the new version soon so you can see what it does.”

Sounds great to me! I haven’t had a chance to download and experiment with the tool as of yet, but I figured I would help spread the word about that new release…so that others could experiment with pngnq 1.0 and report back with their findings.

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I came across a really cool web site the other day called Gapminder. According to their web site: “Gapminder is a non-profit venture promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information about social, economic and environmental development at local, national and global levels. We are a modern “museum” that helps making the world understandable, using the Internet.”

Very cool. Combining charts and graphs with the animation effects of Flash and other resources. The samples cited on their web site are fantastic as well.

After a bit of snooping to try and see how the services provided actually worked, I thought I would also see if anything might be done to optimize a few of the images on their home page: Read the rest of this entry »

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I came across an interesting site recently called Panamap, a service of Urban Mapping. Pretty cool stuff…a presentation model that mentally took me back to the late 1970s when I was anxiously awaiting finding the bottom of a Kellogg’s cereal box to see what “3D baseball card” I could add to my collection. From the Panamap web site:

“Multiple layers of information become viewable as the substrate is rotated across the viewing angle.”

Three maps sharing the same visual space…with each map becoming visible as you change the viewing angle of the piece. Fascinating technology! I’m not sure if we could ever make it work financially for our clients at mapformation, but as a map designer and collector, it is the type of interesting and unique type of application that really gets my attention.

Since I was poking around the Panamap web site anyway, I thought I would also check out a few of the images from their home page, to see what might be done related to optimization: Read the rest of this entry »

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It’s that time of year here in the Minnesota disc golf community! A time when the very-best of the best around the world travel to Minnesota to play in our one and only A-Tier tournament (national event) on the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) calendar. The event is called the Minnesota Majestic…and showcases some of the best courses the Minneapolis Saint Paul metropolitan area have to offer.

I can’t go to play or watch the activities again this year (not unless I want to be bankrupt and divorced, anyway)…but I have been following what will be happening over the next few days as others enjoy that event. I also thought it might be fun to take a look at a few of the images on their web site home page from an image optimization perspective as well…just to see if I might be able to help get that information into people’s hands a little better/faster: Read the rest of this entry »

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I attended another great Network Brown County session today in New Ulm, Minnesota, when I had one of those Eureka moments where you think to yourself: “Why haven’t I thought of this before?!” One of our presenters was Daniel Anderson from New Ulm Community Access Television (NuCAT). Daniel was talking about how they sometimes struggle to receive enough interesting content in which to air on CAT…and if any of us were involved with any government agencies, professional associations or sporting events, he would love to talk more about if we might be willing to submit some content for airing.

Disc golf anyone?! As I’ve mentioned in this blog before, when you don’t find me out making/selling maps or trying to save the planet via our GraphicsOptimization venture, you’ll essentially find me on a disc golf course in Southern Minnesota. Either that, or serving in my Webmaster duties for the Southern Minnesota Disc Golf Association, a collection of roughly 150 disc golfers in Southern Minnesota. An absolutely GREAT group of people…several of whom have become some of my closest friends in recent years.

Well, after talking a bit more with Daniel, he said that if we could get him some good footage, he’d air it for us at NuCAT…and after a few conversations with SMDGA members, I learned of a group called Disc Golf Live that specifically works to publish video content on the sport of disc golf, designed in part for broadcast over CAT stations.

According to their web site: “Disc Golf Live Video Magazine is a bimonthly program all about the sport of disc golf. Whether you are new to the game or a wizened veteran, DGL has something to offer. Tournament action, player spotlights, course reviews, and tips to improve your game are just a few of the topics covered on DGL.” Sounds excellent to me!

I’m working my best magic to try and get DGL episodes broadcast on our local CAT stations in the area, but in the interim, I thought I would see what I might be able to do with a few of the images found on the DGL home page: Read the rest of this entry »

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One more tool that I might need a bit of help to review…since it is Mac-only. Thanks to comments in my ImageOptim posting last week (thanks Jason and Stoyan!), I came across yet another .png optimization tool designed for the Mac. The tool is called PNGCrushrrr, and according to Stoyan is essentially a front-end UI of Pngcrush.

Songs of praise for PNGCrushrrr? Horror stories to share? I’d welcome any information people are willing to share…as if it’s a good tool, it would be nice to share links and information to it within our main web site. Thanks!

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One more time…another favor to ask of Mac users! I came across yet another Mac-platform .png and .jpg optimization tool recently that a friend/reader of this blog named Pornel has made available on his web site, called ImageOptim. According to the description on his site:

“ImageOptim is a front-end (GUI) for set of tools for optimisation of PNG and JPEG images. ImageOptim uses:

* AdvPNG from AdvanceCOMP
* OptiPNG
* PngCrush
* JpegOptim
* jpegtran from libjpeg
* and optionally PNGOUT”

Very nice! Unfortunately, I am not on a Mac platform (Windows Vista), so I am unable to test the tool. However, if Mac users out there were willing to give ImageOptim a try and report back on your experiences, I would be grateful. Thanks!

Tools/Techniques | 2 Comments »

Hey everyone!

Time for me to ask a favor of the readers of this blog yet again! I recently came across information about a new .png optimization tool called PNGPress that I am wondering if anyone has experimented with. According to its web site: “PNGPress is a frontend for OptiPNG. It takes one or more image files and squeezes every last kb out of them, without “losing” any data. Just drag your images onto the PNGPress icon, and away it goes. PNGPress will also backup your original images, and allows you to set the compression level yourself.”

Sounds like a much-needed tool for the Mac platform! I can’t test it though (Windows Vista user)…so I’m hoping a few of you out there on Macs might be able to report back with your first-hand experiences with the tool.

Thanks in advance for your help!

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I sometimes wonder (or worry) that individuals within the higher education community view me as a bit of a “hanger-on” or outsider. I may currently have a dot-com at the end of my email address! However, it feels like only yesterday that I was up to my elbows in work at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota (USA)…scheduling meetings and events into spaces while trying to dodge the semi-regular rotten tomato or death-threat from a tenured faculty member (or worse, the occasional wee-bit-superior-to-thee department chair, Dean or “other”) who was convinced that I must be the biggest IDIOT on the planet because I didn’t schedule their class in “their” classroom.

Never you mind that 6-7 other instructors also asked for the same room at the same teaching times, and unless they knew of ways to tap into parallel universes where those spaces were vacant across other dimensions, only one class was fitting into that space at any given time. I only have a Master’s Degree…but maybe a few of those PhDs are able to cross that dimensional barrier while simultaneously transporting their students with them. In which case, I will happily concur and call myself an idiot!

Because of all the “pain and suffering” I had to endure for approximately seven years prior to leaving to start my self-employment adventure, I suppose I do honestly feel a bit of entitlement. Entitlement in the sense that I can still hang out and brainstorm (or lament) with all those other higher education professionals that I like so much…even if I am technically not cashing a paycheck from any .edu institution every two or four weeks. Web developers, public relations professionals, admission staff, line workers in the cafeteria, etc.

One group I recently became aware of that captured my attention is Higher Ed Experts. According to their web site: “Higher Ed Experts provides professional development and social networking online opportunities to higher ed professionals working in Web, marketing, PR and admissions offices.” Sounds right up my alley…if that group wanted to have a “hanger-on” dot-com infiltrating their ranks!

I’m interested in the potential for possibly helping them with webinars or a few other tasks in the future. However, in the interim, I thought I might at least take a look at a few of the images on their home page from an image optimization standpoint, to see what I could do: Read the rest of this entry »

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In doing a bit of work researching what other people are talking about related to image optimization tonight, I came across a blog posting by Jeff Starr (Perishable Press) entitled: “5-Minute PNG Image Optimization.”

In the article, Jeff describes using a process of OptiPNG or Pngcrush and then Smush.it to achieve superior optimization results for .png files. Sounds pretty good…and will achieve MUCH better results than what most people out there will attempt! However, I still believe that the ultimate “5-Minute PNG Image Optimization” process is simply applying some batch optimization using PNGSlim, then going to get a coffee or a snack while your computer is busy shaving lots of bits and bytes out of your imagery.

PNGSlim will get you smaller than any other tool I have seen without sacrificing image quality (including Smush.it), and only requires the ability to simply select and then drag selected .png files on top of a Windows Command Script (.cmd) icon after you have installed the tool. Amazingly easy and, albeit a bit slow to process the images (especially larger images), you’ll be hard-pressed to achieve better results while applying a bare-minimum amount of effort.

While visiting that blog posting, I thought I would use PNGSlim on three of the images found on that page…just to illustrate how wonderful/powerful it can be! The results of that bit of effort can be viewed below: Read the rest of this entry »

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