Archive for September, 2007

The wonders of Microsoft Office compression

Published
by
Christian Flickinger
on September 25, 2007
in Informational, how-to and microsoft
. 2 Comments

So I am currently an IT professional for a company in the Midwest. Just like any large company, there are plenty of presentations where Power Point is the main visual. We have a graphic design department for our advertising. They maintain a large database of images, logos, photos, flyers, etc. They have a total hard-on for ultra-high-res images. I respect the idea, and the proper uses, of high-res imagery! There is one problem though: they don’t believe in compression. I LOVE compression. I love being able to compress server logs by a factor of 88%, or compressing a jpg from 3.4MB to a wimpy, yet still usable 45KB. The Power Point presentations that are generated here contain 10-50 images, all in their 10 mega pixel glory, along with transitions, lame type-writer effects, and horrendous page backgrounds.

After the presentations are created, the users attempt to send it to people inside and outside of the company. They quickly receive a “Mailbox is over its size limit, or you are trying to be a dumb ass and send a 91MB Power Point presentation to someone”.

They then call me and yell at me for putting limits on their email. I try to explain to them how stupid sending a 91MB Power Point presentation is, but they wont listen. So I grab it off the network drive and work magic on it. I quickly turn that 91MB Power Point into a 7.2MB Power Point, which is the EXACT same quality on screen and in print.

Here is how:

  1. Step1:
    Open your gigantic Power Point presentation. The one I am using in this demo is a sexy 33.98MB (35,631,104 Bytes).
  2. In Office 2007, click on ANY photo/image in the Power Point Presentation.
    1. Up in the Ribbon (fancy name for Office 2007 Tool Bar), click on the “Format” menu, under “Picture”.
    2. Now click on the “Compress Pictures” option to the left
      Office 2007 - Step 1
       
    3. Make sure “Apply to selected pictures only” is UNCHECKED (see below)
      Office 2007 - Step 2
       
    4. Check the top 2 boxes, and select “Screen (150 dpi)” (or, if you are really advantageous and wanna stick it to the MAN, choose “Email (96 dpi)”)
      Office 2007 - Step 3
       
  3. In Office XP/2003, you simply right click the photo, click “Format Picture”, goto the “Picture” tab, in the bottom left of the window, click “Compress” and use the same options as above!

This works in Office XP/2003/2007 in all programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc)

The Power Point presentation used in the example above is now 3.36MB (3,527,168 Bytes).

Enjoy.

ZendCon: Zend/PHP Conference and Expo

Published
by
Christian Flickinger
on September 9, 2007
in conference, php, sf, zendcon and zendcon07
. 0 Comments

On October 7th, 2007 I will be in SF Cali attending the third annual ZendCon Zend/PHP Conference and Expo. I will be in SF Sunday through that Friday. Aside from attending the conference, I am going to hang out in SF and hit up some networking events. It should really fun. I am going to post some of the interesting stuff that I absorb from the conference, so check back in for that.

Also, if you are in SF and wanna hang out, or know of any interesting events/parties I should attend, hit up the About section of the site and grab my email.

We Hit Techcrunch

Published
by
Christian Flickinger
on September 6, 2007
in facebook, nytimes and techcrunch
. 2 Comments

Earlier last week when the Facebook controversy started, I contacted TechCrunch to get some questions answered before I responded, because I know they have experience in talking to service-providers. After speaking with TechCrunch, and not responding to Facebook’s take-down request, my account was disabled. I finally responded and, after a few emails, agreed to remove the code from my website (for fear of legal intervention, and to get my Facebook account back).

TechCrunch ran a story today detailing the controversy and the implications surrounding it. It is great to see that others have the same ideas as I do and agree with me on some levels.

So check out the article, Facebook: Opening Up, But on Its Own Terms!
P.S.: NYTimes Tech section picked up the story as well: Closing the Open Facebook

If you would like to contact me, please read the About section of the website.