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Image Formats – what, why, and which.

Images are a large part of any website, so I decided to learn more about them today.

Images come in compressed, uncompressed, and vector format. A vector format is an image that is drawn every time using math. For example draw a line 45 degree from this point and color it blue. A non vector image or rasterized image is pixels. Basically the computer has a grid and knows what color each point on the grid should be. This is why you can zoom in on a vector image forever. The image is redrawn each time so it is perfectly sharp. You can not zoom into a raster image because the computer only knows what goes in each grid point. When you zoom in, there are more points than the computer knows what to do with, and so it gets super blocky. If you ever want to print something big, it usually has to be in a vector format for this exact reason.

PNG, JPEG, and GIF formats are the Big Three image formats. They are the most used formats for displaying images on the internet today. (Try to guess why the formats are matched to the player. 🙂

JPEG – compressed raster – small file sizes, image quality can degrade if edited and saved repeatedly.

PNG – large file size. Open source successor to GIF.

GIF – limited to 256 colors. Useful for simple colors, small file size.

So the simple rule is, use PNG for everything unless you have a specific reason not too. This post on Quora about PNG details why.

So there you have it. A short post about images. Anything that I is glaringly wrong or didn't make sense?

Posted on May 15, 2012 by admin

Create – Always learning…

If you haven't seen this video ([youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhLlnq5yY7k?wmode=transparent]) watch it. It is a minute and a half and I always come away having learned something.

I love to create. I love to take some raw materials, be they paper, or paint or an idea or words, and fashion it into something that no one has seen before. I love the idea of seeing a figure in your mind and working with skill and determination until it comes to life.

I believe that each of us has the opportunity to create amazing things. A core idea of being a Latter-day Saint is the idea that we are always learning. I was thinking about the exciting opportunities that decentralized education can provide. The idea that a farmer in Indiana or India, can get access to the same pool of knowledge as a Stanford student is electrifying. But what happens when everyone has a college education? Is this a bad thing? The answer is of course, no. There are so many problems in this world. We need the creativity and intelligence of everyone to solve them. We need everyone to create solutions to problems.

Just imagine if everyone had a great education. Not necessarily a college education, but a great education. They knew essential and important truths, and could make and test conclusions. Intelligent and creative people would have the tools and ideas nessisary to work together to attack the big, hard, important problems. And I think we could solve a fair number of them too.

Posted on May 14, 2012 by admin

Week Review #2

It has been a good week. My first full week of writing a post every day and I am starting to get the hang of it.

My computer is still in the shop. It was fixed in one day, but I have been aerating and thatching so many lawns I haven't had time to drive the 1/2 hour over to the mall. Hopefully Monday. Then I will start the engines on my site.

So far this week:

I asked and answered some questions about web hosting.

Ask and answered even more questions about web hosting.

I learned about the history of php.

I learned about ftp.

And finally I learned about responsive web design.

I'd say a pretty good week. Thanks to all who have read the posts, or encouraged or offered help. It is fun to know that I am not just doing this alone. You all are awesome. Feel free to message, comment, let me know what I can do to help you, or if a particular topic is interesting to you. Here's to a great week 3!

Posted on May 13, 2012 by admin

Responsive Web Design – the new thang

Responsive web design is the new thing. It is pretty sweet. Want an example? Go to saltsurf.com and resize your browser window. Sweet no?

The whole responsive web design show got its name from Ethan Marcotte in this wonderful article about responsive web design. He kind of coined a name for a practice that was taking off at the time.

But how is this black magic accomplished you ask? The secret sauce is media queries. (Don't really read the media queries link. It is long dry and boring. Just read the List Apart article. Much better. k?)

Media queries basically ask the device "Hey do you have this?". If the device answers yes, it gets one page. If it says no, it gets another. Nice right? This does require the developer to think up rules of how they want the page to display. Some responsive websites just get smaller while some completely change menu options and even eliminate or use different pictures.

Here are some examples:

http://www.madebysplendid.com/

http://conferenciarails.org/

http://www.saltsurf.com/

So if you want to get started making sweet awesome responsive websites, go download a simple boilerplate here -> http://www.getskeleton.com/

And get on it.

On an aside, I really think that a majority of websites will soon have some of the most important elements of responsive web design. The device world is breaking apart and you have no idea what size of screen people are going to be seeing your stuff on. Best to have a prepared response. (Responsive get it? 🙂

Posted on May 12, 2012 by admin

FTP

It’s about to get FTP in here. Today I learned about file transfer. To get your website on your server you need to transmit the bits. FTP is how you do that. First the practical. Cyberduck (http://cyberduck.ch/) is widely regarded as the best free Mac FTP tool. Download it, try it out. Theoretical – I hear quite a few devs use Dropbox to sync their server files and their development files. Which is actually really smart. When you want to add a file to your server, just drag it into the Dropbox file. After reading up on it, it has limitations. You are limited to HTML and client side scripts or complete access to the server. Might be fun to try. On another note I get my computer back from the Apple Store tomorrow. My trackpad if fixed and we are ready to roll.

Posted on May 11, 2012 by admin

FTP

Posted on May 11, 2012 by admin

History of php

Php is awesome. I have been learning about it as I build my webpage. It was created in 1995 by one guy, Rasmus Ledorf. He wrote a set of scripts to run his own webpage. That’s why php stands for “Personal Home Page”. He released the scripts and they have become php today. That is inspiring. To think that something you create to help yourself would eventually be installed on 20 million websites. PS – see the Avengers. It is awesome.

Posted on May 10, 2012 by admin

Hosting simple cheap options?

In order to have a personal website, you need web site hosting. I don't feel like dedicating my Macbook (which is away getting its trackpad fixed) to hosting my website so I need to chose one.

I looked at answers on Quora to a couple of hosting questions.

I don't need a lot of complexity or bandwidth. Right now I am looking at the free Amazon account, Dreamhost, or maybe Namecheap. I am leaning towards Namecheap because I have my domain names registered there. I think the plan is Namecheap to start, and then set up a free Amazon instance to practice setting up servers. I shall pull out the ye olde credit card tomorrow and get something running.

Shot post but I aerated close to 20 lawns today so I think I shall call it a night.

Posted on May 8, 2012 by admin

What is the Thing you really want?

Take a moment and think. If you could have anything, right now, what would it be? Anything. What is your strongest desire? What motivates you? To check if the Thing you just thought of, really is what you want most, imagine how you would feel after you got it. You want to be President of a small Caribbean nation? Boom, wake up and smell the salty sea air Presidenté. How do you feel? If you don’t feel at peace, you need to go a step deeper. What motivates what you thought of? If you wanted a million dollars but imagining that doesn’t give you peace, maybe what you want is security. Now think, after making sure that really is what you want, what did you do this week to take a step in the direction of that Thing. If you really do want a million dollars in the bank, what did you do to increase your balance or improve your cash flow? If the Thing you want most is a happy family, what did you do to make your family happy? Our time is one of the only level playing fields. No one can’t get any more time. Too often we spend our time on things that don’t satisfy us because they are not THE Thing. I can hear you saying, “But Josh, what is the Thing you want most? And what did you do to get it?”

For me, to know that I am living my life the right way, taking advantage of all the opportunities and challenges that come my way, is the most important Thing. I think about where I am spending my time often. I am religious and I believe that if I am doing what God wants me to do, that is the best way I can spend my time. If you don’t believe in a higher power, that’s ok. The things that God wants me to do are things that make us and everyone around us happy. Be nice to people. Serve them. Learn more. Organize. Create. Love everyone. Take time to think and ponder. So how am I doing reaching that goal? I am far from perfect. I don’t need to know the stages of the Russian monarchy and revolution but wikipedia just sucks you in.

Reviewing my week, I am happy that I did take steps towards reaching my goal. I know that in order to really accomplish what I could in life, I require more skills. Coding skills, design skills, bow staff skills. 🙂 By doing something everyday to learn more of these skills, I am progressing towards my goal. If you are religious, I think that by honing our skills we become more useful in Gods Kingdom. If you are not religious, learning these skills takes me one step closer towards a Caribbean palace and new country on the world map. Booya. What is your Thing and what did you do this week to get it? Feel free to comment or send me an email. I really do want to know.

(Editors note – I am writing some of these posts on my phone, so if you see errrrors, alert me and I will fix them. Your future president or Russian monarch thanks you. 🙂

Posted on May 7, 2012 by admin