06.29.2006Why Would Anybody Need 10 Megapixels?

It's funny where epiphanies strike me. This morning, I was in the shower thinking about what needed to be done at work today. That thought was immediately interrupted by a single number: 2400.

2400 can mean a lot of things. To me, the number was simple. It's 8 x 300. Clear as mud right?

I have a digital camera that takes great pictures. It's a 6 megapixel Nikon D70, and I honestly couldn't for the life of me figure out why anybody would need more than 3000x2000 worth of resolution for normal small format photography needs. Until this morning in the shower.

Yesterday's find of the JPEG Cropping program yielded some results that shouldn't have been, but yet were, surprising. When cropping a 3000x2000 picture into 8x10 format, the biggest picture that can be cropped without losing photographic data via software adjustment of ppi is 2500x2000. Doing some simple division (2500/10 or 2000/8) shows that the pixels per inch drop from 300 to 250. A picture at 250ppi is still nice but won't print as vivid or sharp as the 300 ppi pics. Newer 10+ megapixel cameras like the Nikon D200 can shoot pictures at resolutions up to 3872 x 2592.

So what is this 2400 number mean? It means that a 3872x2592 pic can be cropped into an 8x10 with > 300 ppi.

For a hobby photographer, a D200 is not worth the upgrade. But at least now I understand

06.28.2006JPEG Cropping

While I initially shoot my photographs in Nikon Raw lossless format, I eventually save my photos in JPEG format. The JPEG format is capable of good compression, a fact that makes sending or sharing digital photos possible. The problem with any compressed photo format is that any manipulation of the compressed image can cause image degradation. Simple tasks such as cropping or resizing a JPEG photo can cause a loss of image quality due to the fact that the image is recompressed after the changes are made.

JPEGCrops is a great free Windows front-end that allows for batch lossless cropping of JPEG images using the jpegtran program. I think this solution will work for many cropping/resizing applications as the programs are small, don't require any modification of the Windows registry, easy to use, and free.

I'm pleased to find such a great, cost-effective solution for lossless JPEG cropping.

06.26.2006Star Wars Galaxies Emulation

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has had problems with their Star Wars Galaxies online game franchise. This game should have been a no-brainer as Star Wars remains a strong brand with tremendous fan loyalty. Instead of players being treated to an interesting and immersive experience set within the timeframe presented in the movies, the game has suffered from game play bugs and a severe lack of focus with a story line that suffers from timeline continuity problems. The end result: a game that has lost a significant portion of it's player base in the past year, especially after the introduction of the New Game Enhancements (NGE) in November 2005.

Why mention this? Slashdot has reported that a team has successfully run their first Alpha stage test of a reverse engineered version of Pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies server software. If this software team is able to withstand the legal barrage SOE will launch at them, this might well be the last nail in the SOE Star Wars Galaxies coffin.

06.26.2006Photo 20060624

Details (Original): Nikon D70, 2006/06/24, RAW (12-bit) Lossless, 3000x2000, Focal Length 70mm, 1/125 sec, ISO 200 using 'Close Up' Digital Vari-Program.

06.22.2006Laptop Batteries

What is it with laptop batteries? Two stories in the news over the past two days might cause some concern for anybody considering the purchase of a laptop system. Not only are they expensive, but now it appears that the engineering staffs at both Dell and Apple have failed miserably in engineering their laptop batteries for longevity and possibly even safety.

Yesterday, this story appeared detailing how a Dell "exploded" while being used at a conference in Japan. Dell had published recalls on several battery models so this story wasn't a huge surprise.

Today, Slashdot linked this article describing battery swelling due to overheating in the MacBook Pro.

06.21.2006CSS For The Beginner

The basic premise of using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) is to separate content from presentation for web pages. Anybody that has used styles in modern word-processing or publishing applications can attest to the fact that if properly used, styles can increase the consistency of publishing elements and improve the overall appearance of a document. As a side benefit, changes are easily made for all similar elements in a single place. CSS aims to do the same thing by separating content from presentation and layout instructions.

Zen Garden is a great site that demonstrates the power of CSS through by allowing the visitor to select a style sheet and immediately see the result. If done properly, CSS is a great design philosophy that guarantees the best result in most situations.

The learning curve appears steep in developing sound CSS knowledge. While basic concepts are easily mastered (such as the three column layout used on this site), the devil is in the details. While digifiend.com looks great at 1280x1024, viewing it at lower resolutions will result in the flickr picture being cropped, viewing it at higher resolutions will result in the two right hand columns having an inappropriate amount of wasted space. Fixing the column widths would fix that, but the code to get those columns in the correct location isn’t easy.

This site will eventually be completely CSS driven. Eventually.

06.20.2006Site Updated to 3.2

The DigiFiend site has been upgraded to MovableType version 3.2. Features include better handling of comment and Trackback spam. Upgrade was fairly painless except for the fact that some of the file permissions were borked.