Jan 21

I have found a few things out about what Facebook does to your pictures after you upload them, 100% by my own experimentation. In list format:

  • Scales the image down so that the longest side is 604 pixels if it was bigger than that to start with.
  • Recompress all images as JPEGs at quality 85. I found this out with ImageMagick: identify.exe –verbose filenamehere.jpg. Hat tip to Arjan van Bentem for pointing me to IM. It doesn’t look like 85 is all that bad, by the way, if Wikipedia’s sample JPG compressed photos are anything to go by, but do bear in mind that multiple JPEG resaves will degrade the image quality, since it is a lossy format (but of course just copying or downloading it won’t mess with it at all). Also, Facebook will recompress it even if you upload a JPEG image at the correct size (using quality 85 doesn’t work either; it gets recompressed at 85 again)
  • Converts image to Grayscale mode if it is a grayscale image. I suspect this might make it smaller.

So, beware of decreased image quality if you are uploading a twice-(or more)-saved JPEG. That being said, I wouldn’t worry about it much, since it’s only Facebook. If you have a slow link to the net, I’d say go right ahead. I wrote about sizing your photos down for faster Facebook uploads a while back, so if you need some instructions, here you are.

Oh, and one more thing. I have found that JPEG compression can be used to artistic effect. Orange Peal Design’s site is a good example (in fact, the only one I know about). Gives it a certain feeling and not just a crappy impression. Strange how these things work.

Jan 17
Check up
Posted by Nathaniel at 8:11 pm in life | 1 Comment »

I have a few things to say.

First, I’m a little bit busy. I still don’t consider myself busy by the standards of some of my friends (I have hours and hours of free time, for reals), but it has picked up this year, I think.

Second, I started off this year trying to consistently read the Bible. I don’t think that reading the whole Bible in a year gives you spiritual super powers, although I do think that all of the Bible is worth reading. Also, I think the Bible is worth reading every day. The way I think about it right now is read it every day, get back to it if you missed it, don’t commit suicide or have insecurities if you don’t read the Bible in a whole year. Not that I always do all that but that’s how it’s laid out in my mind right now.

Third, I want to start working out a bit this year. I want to start out with the one hundred push ups training program. It sounds like a very doable, macho, and cool regimen. I did the test several days ago and hit 20. Sad, but it leaves a lot of room for improvement, that being the point of this paragraph. And I haven’t started yet. I blame this weekend (went to Moscow, had Collin over, went to a fireside chat (lame fire… way too low), went to a contra/square dance, went to a missions-themed Sunday School and church service today, ate at the fellowship feast afterwards, and set in on a couple videos and some Q & A. And did some clean-up following that.). That being said, I’m planning a Tue-Thur-Sat schedule for it, so we’ll see how it goes this week.

Fourth, as I think I’ve said before, I want to get some more writers writing here. But here’s the idea I want to get across: it’s not exactly volunteer but it’s not paid and it’s definitely not an internship. I think it is most easily communicated as “I just want to get some friends together and write a sweet blog. And get conversations going.” So hopefully we can get a more official (but not more formal) statement out on that in the near future.

Fifth, leading on the heels of the last para, I’m hoping good things for this blog. It’ll be awesome if we get more writers and I’m looking forward to putting some more effort into writing (I’m thinking post-graduation-from-high-school, which happens early this June). I’m thinking Senior Thesis class may have some redeeming qualities… Anyway, I want to have a discussion with Matthew sometime soon about what he thinks about the blog (past, present, future, probably with emphasis on the last).

Sixth, speaking of school… I almost want to skip this whole graduation thing. I say to myself that I’d be quite happy with a regular end of the school year and beginning of summer. I don’t really know if that’s true. However, best not to dwell on that because I really doubt I’m getting out of this. I am to have a hand in planning it, though, so I can flaunt my influence there (what value it has). And Anna and I are both hoping the other will be valedictorian. Except I think I secretly want to be valedictorian because I keep catch myself writing bits of a speech in my head. Blast.

Seventh, the 29th of December was a bit of a nice date for our family. Finally we got a decent internet connection. Stuck with dial-up for over 10 years. And then finally broadband. Fitting for 2010 I’d say. I think a post relating to the topic may be expected in the future.

I believe that’s all for now. Also, a public thanks to you, Matthew, for your well-written recent posts. While it’s true I’ve always written more posts, I have felt the quality of your posts was very often rather splendid while it was not always so much that way with mine.

Jan 13

Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl: Wide-Eyed Wonder in God’s Spoken World by N.D. Wilson is a wild ride. To be fair, the preface warns the reader with such injunctions as “This book does not go straight,” and “I’ve forgotten to include seat belts, and I don’t know where I left the liability waivers.”

The narrative weaves erratically through reflections on philosophy, quantum physics, wasp villains, and Shakespeare in a stream-of-consciousness format. Interspersed throughout are meteorological observations, insights on everyday life, and stories from the kingdom Animalia. “Have you ever heard a rabbit scream?”

In the chapter titled “The Problem of Evil and the Nonexistence of Shakespeare,” Mr. Wilson deals with the sobering reality of evil. God is the great Artist, and there is black paint in the world. “How can this Artist be good?” The Christian apologetic is presented here in a rambling, poetic style influenced by C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton, and the result is truly a work of art. Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl is different; it reads with a unique style that well captures the depth and vibrancy of creation, and being thought-provoking while at it. I highly recommend this book, and I think every Christian should read it.

Note (no pun intended) that Mr. Wilson employs a few words that some might find offensive. For some thoughts on Christians and what might be called “strong” language, check out these older blog posts here and here.

True to the title, Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl takes the form of notes from life, expressing the wonder of God’s world. God’s spoken world. One theme that runs through the book like a thread (and there are many) is that of words. Everyone is given a part in God’s story.

“Our Maker waits. He would have a conversation. What words will we have? We need only one, the One who spoke us.”

Notes From The Tilt-A-Whirl (front cover)

Jan 6

Avira

Two quick things today. First, a tip on how to disable the splash screen and annoying popup “nag” screen on Avira Free AntiVir version 9. To get rid of the splash and nag screens, just follow the instructions here. You can also disable the little update notifier following these instructions. As an aside, this section of the title was loosely derived from a Grand Stream Dreams blog post on Taming AVG Free version 8.

Linux

Next, switching to console mode, a useful tool for Linux users. While it is usually preferable to use some form of GUI for general computing tasks, there are times, even if you’re not running a specialized server or recovering a corrupted machine, when a simple comand-line interface would come in exceedingly handy. You can, of course, open a terminal window to get a text interface, which is great for quickly and efficiently running powerful commands, while looking and feeling hardcore. The advantage here is that you can open other windows and continue using the GUI. However, there are times when a program crashes or the GUI freezes, and dropping to console mode acts as the equivalent of the Windows Task Manager. This can be easily accomplished with the shortcut key Ctrl+Alt+F1, with F1-F6 opening separate terminal instances. You can then terminate the offending program or restart the X server, and return to the GUI with Ctrl+Alt+F7.

Further reading here.

Jan 4

Loremipsumdolorsitamet.com is no longer online. At least not in it’s proper form. However, you can view a copy right here. As the page says upon clicking the [info...] link, “Purely coded in JavaScript. This means you can save this page locally (File → Save As…) for offline use.” Or, online use in a different place.

So, what is it? A filler text generator with a choice of Lorem Ipsum, English, Jabberwock, or Tagalog. Enjoy. Especially if you miss it.

Update: Here is the official new location, I think. Complete with background image and header (yum yum). It seems to have originally been designed by Rico Sta. Cruz. The source code refers to his old site, ambiescent.com. His new site is ricostacruz.com, and Lorem Ipsum is now hosted at a subdomain there.

Dec 30

It seems from what I’ve read around the interwebs, the package name might have changed. Also, in my fresh installation from the LiveCD, the Microsoft Core Fonts listed in the Ubuntu Software Center doesn’t have an install button. Fear not, though.

Open a terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal). Type this and press enter:

sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefonts-installer

Wait for it to do it’s magic and you should be good to go. If you run into problems, I suggest starting at Google. Installing the MS core fonts seems to be an issue in this release, but then again maybe I don’t know because I’ve never had problems with it before.

Dec 30
Dream DNS scare
Posted by Nathaniel at 8:31 am in tech | No Comments »

This morning I dreamed that Archie Buck1 had reported on Facebook that his internet service provider’s DNS went down (I checked Facebook before I wrote this post: it didn’t really happen). Yikes. Because that’s my ISP now, too.

So, if your less of a computer person, you’re probably wondering what exactly DNS is. It stands for Domain Name System and this is what it does:

The most basic task of DNS is to translate hostnames such as theos.in to IP address such as 74.86.49.131. In very simple terms, it can be compared to a phone book. DNS also has other important use such as email routing.

From Vivek Gite’s post Free Fast Public DNS Servers List.

What does this mean for you or me? It means if the DNS server we use is down, we can’t type in www.google.com and get to Google because our computer doesn’t have a way to find the correct IP address behind that domain name. Same for Facebook, Twitter, or anything else.

And so, I got to thinking I should probably grab some alternate DNS server IP addresses, know how to use them, and tell you to do that, too.

First off, a list of servers (IP addresses are comma separated):

Thanks again, Vivek.

And now, how one uses them. Google has a page on how to configure Windows, OS X, and Linux to use their DNS servers. Just replace the Google Public DNS IP addresses with those you want to use (or use them if you want). Go copy that info right now (and the list of DNS servers above (or Vivek’s)). If you’re on Windows XP, try here.

And… it might never happen to you, but if it does it can be a real pain; you have an internet connection but you just can’t go anywhere (or some places). So I’d recommend stowing away that information in case it ever happens. Here are some tips at Lifehacker to figure out if your DNS servers just went kaput or something else is wrong.

  1. Friend and former principal of the private school I attend (sort of this year)

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