Image

How to reduce file size of an image in 10 seconds

Photos shot with digital camera usually have a huge file size – anywhere from 6MB to 12MB. If you use these images on a webpage it’ll take a lot of time for the page to load. This creates a lot of problems: user has to wait till the page loads, consumption of server bandwidth, more consumption of users internet data, and it’s not good from SEO angle too!

No Photoshoping
You need not be a photoshop expert to do this. Infact, you need not even install any complicated software.

ms-paint
If you’re on Windows, then you already have the software installed in your system by default.

How to reduce file size of an image and resize(image dimension) the image
Open the image in ms-paint.
Click Ctrl + w and resize the image.
Now save the image and check the file size.

This way you don’t even lose the quality of the image.

Image Rollover Effect – using Simple HTML

When visitor roll mouse pointer over a image, s/he will see a different image, when s/he moves mouse pointer out of the image focus, s/he will see the previous image. This is called RollOver Effect. This method is mostly done using JaveScript. It is used mainly on images, while building menu etc.

Yesterday I had written an article about OnlineProfits re-lauch and I had used rollover effect to one of the images there, and some people asked me how I did it(Simple Ans: See the source code 😉 ).
So here is the simple code to achieve this design effect:

<a href="Destination Address" 
ONMOUSEOVER='thinkwithsatish.src="ImageURL-when-mouseover" ' 
ONMOUSEOUT='thinkwithsatish.src="ImageURL-when-mouseout" 
'><center><img src="ImageURL-to-be-shown-by-default" 
NAME="thinkwithsatish"/></center></a>

Explaination:
ONMOUSEOVER and ONMOUSEOUT are valid JS effects. Since all most all browsers support JS, this works fine.

Give a name to the actual image to be displayed:
<img src="URL-of-default-image" NAME="thinkwithsatish"/>
I have named above tag src as thinkwithsatish. Now Refer to this name by using ONMOUSEOVER and ONMOUSEOUT commands.

ONMOUSEOVER='thinkwithsatish.src="ImageURL-when-mouseover" '

ONMOUSEOUT='thinkwithsatish.src="ImageURL-when-mouseout" '

Hope the rest of the code is self explanatory.

Code in action!:

Now you can test it by taking your mouse pointer in and out of image area. If you don’t see any changes, place the mouse pointer over the image for some time – because in some cases, it takes some time to load.

I see that, it works perfectly in Mozilla FireFox, Internet Explorer and Chrome. I haven’t tested it in other browsers. And interestingly, I saw it working even in RSS feed!

Many people use content management system software like WordPress, to publish their content. So in order to include a RollOver effect using JavaScript means – editing the header part or installing a plugin which does the job etc. So instead we can incorporate this simple coding to get the design effect.

Design Tip: This is just the coding/programming part. To get the effect on the design, you must choose such images which will have good effect on users mind. So choose the images wisely.

I am not sure, how helpful it is to you. But it surly helps me sometime to get some minimal design effects on my WordPress blog posts.

Making Desktop icons unclickable!

April Fool Prank, with the help of Computer – Just for fun

Step 1: Goto Desktop. Press Ptr Scr [Print Screen] button. This key is usually present after the F12 key or above the Insert or Home or Page Up keys. Now right click on the desktop and goto “Arrange Icons By” and then uncheck “Show Desktop Icons“.
hide-Desktop
Step 2: Now goto ms-paint application or any other paint applications. Click on Edit menu, and click on Paste option. Now save the file in some folder.

Step 3: Now again right click on the desktop and select “Properties“. Select Desktop tab. Now click on browse button and select the image saved, in step 2. Click on Apply and Ok.

That’s it. Now when your friend tries to click on the icons on the desktop, he will not be able to do that, as those icons are images and not the actual icons!

Remember, people who do not know much about computers may get stuck with this trick, but do not irritate them for long time, as they may try to fix the problem and create a new one which even you can not detect and fix 🙂

Be responsible while making fool of some one else. Try to make it just for small fun and do not make it to hurt someone’s feelings. Have a great, fun filled April(2009).

Code To Show 125X125 Ad Banner On WordPress Sidebar

During the early days of this blog, we had some problem in showing adsense ads of 125×125 format on our sidebar. We wanted to have four 125×125 ad banners(as shown in below image), but we were unable to align it properly. After some research and getting help from online friends we could overcome this problem. Now we are sharing this, in order to save some of your time, who may also be facing the same problem.

Its easy to show image ads(direct advertisers ad banner) in the side bar. But if we want to show ads using some adnetwork(Ex:- Adsense, Adbrite, Bidvertiser, BuySellAds etc), its bit difficult to properly align the ads(as shown in above image).

First the simple one. If you want to show some ad banners(which does not use JavaScript or any other scripts). You can use the following code:


<h2>Sponsors</h2>
<!-- insert ad blocks instead of fake images -->
<a rel="nofollow" href="destination-url">
<img style="margin: 0 15px" height="125" width="125" 
src="image-url"
 border="0" title="insert title" alt="insert title" />
</a>

<a rel="nofollow" href="destination-url">
<img height="125" width="125" 
src="image-url" 
border="0" title="insert title" alt="insert title" />
</a>
<a rel="nofollow" href="destination-url">
<img style="margin: 0 15px" height="125" width="125" 
src="image-url"
 border="0" title="insert title" alt="insert title" />
</a>
<a rel="nofollow" href="destination-url">
<img height="125" width="125" 
src="image-url" 
border="0" title="insert title" alt="insert title" />
</a>

But the same can’t be applied when you want to show some JavaScript enabled ads(Ex:- Adsense, Adbrite, Bidvertiser, BuySellAds etc) in above mentioned style.
To do that, add below code to your style.css


.bigblock {
  width: auto;
  height: auto;
  padding: 15px;
       
}

.left-top {
  width: 125px;
  height: 125px;
  background: url(images/125x125.jpg) no-repeat;
  margin-bottom: 10px;
       
}

.left-bottom {
  width: 125px;
  height: 125px;
  background: url(images/125x125.jpg) no-repeat;
  }

.right-top {
  float: right;
  width: 125px;
  height: 125px;
  background: url(images/125x125.jpg) no-repeat;

}

.right-bottom {
  float: right;
  width: 125px;
  height: 125px;
    background: url(images/125x125.jpg) no-repeat;

}

.clearblock {
  width: 100%;
  clear: both;
}

Now insert below code wherever you want to show the ads(Ex:- sidebar)


<div class="bigblock">
<div class="right-top">Ad code</div>
<div class="left-top">Ad code</div>
<div class="clearblock"></div>
<div class="right-top">Ad code</div>
<div class="left-bottom">Ad code</div>
</div>

That’s it, you are done. You can play with above coding to customize it further to blend with your blog design.
Hope it helps, atleast for some of you.