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Lossless Image Compression with PNGcrush and JPEGtran, What Fun!

By Chongchen Saelee
www.eastfist.com
Originally published Nov. 12, 2009

While working on my own website, I was doing research on increasing the speed of webpage downloads and naturally the topic of image optimization came into play. Like most graphic designers who have easy access to Photoshop, I’ve found it sufficient to use it’s "Save For Web" feature to optimize images for the Internet. However, after reading some claims by more reputable web designers (I assume they are) that two programs could greatly reduce the filesizes of images while retaining lossless quality, I had to see it for myself. Here are the results:

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Before the advent of CMS like WordPress, one had to manually organize and update single webpages if he didn’t have PHP or other dynamic methods available. Well, now I can post things much easier and so here is my first post of Oscar picks. It seems Roger Ebert wants you believing he doesn’t already know who the winners are and you can win big money if you can guess the winners in a contest hosted by Mubi.com. Anyway, here are some of the nominees and my picks: more »

In most cases, the idea of programming is all the same. What makes it difficult is learning a particular language with all its different syntax, commands, etc. Like real-world cultures, people speak different languages, but everyone needs to eat and poop, except the words for those might differ from culture to culture. Even if there were no language differences, I’m sure one could still gesture, if considered obscene but still get the point across. If you could pick up those cues, then you’ll see that most cultures are the same. So let’s take a look at similarities between c++ and vb.net… more »

If you want to know how Google Chrome stores files in its cache on your computer, the code is open source and you can look it up here: http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/network-stack/disk-cache
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Originally published Oct. 13, 2009 – I don’t know if it’s a fact or not, but I’m suspecting Lionsgate did a silent recall on their distribution of early editions of the “Basic Instinct” Bluray disc (BD). Apparently, my almost mint-condition copy of the Basic Instinct BD doesn’t play anymore. I was able to play it on a PlayStation 3 (PS3) a year ago when I first purchased the BD, but after the PS3’s firmware was updated, Basic Instinct failed to playback. It doesn’t run on a PC player either. more »

Take a look at Vat19’s gigando novelty gummy bear and worm. Holy yikes! more »

I’m not even 10 hours into gameplay yet, but I am impressed by the graphics. more »

If you guys need cheap webhosting, dedicated servers, or something in between, give Hostgator a try. For as low as $4.95 a month, you can have a shared account up and running in no time. Heck, you can sign up for a relatively free month with the right discount code. You can use HG10OffWebhosting to get $9.94 off your first month. And you have no obligation to stay on after the first month.
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Sigh. It’s so hard to start up a project from nothing. It’s one thing to make a personal website which caters mainly to stroke one’s own ego, it’s another to create a product to draw others in. And the hope is that the product is good enough that strangers become customers and keep coming back. If the small niche that I’ve discovered on the Internet is thriving enough, I hope I can tap into it to make some revenue. more »