A great way to improve the performance of your site is to optimize the size of your images. Smaller image sizes require less bandwidth, disk space and load time, and ultimately improve visitor experience. In this article, I share my effective 5-minute technique for optimizing PNG images. This is a two-step, lossless optimization process that removes as much extraneous data as possible without sacrificing any image quality whatsoever. It’s fast, free, and highly effective.

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For on-demand printing of books, calendars, and other desktop-published items, lulu.com is a popular choice. The on-demand service provides customers with online administration interface that provides automated tools for uploading, publishing, and managing their projects. Once published, books may be printed, purchased, downloaded, and/or distributed. Of course, the entire process of using lulu.com to publish and print projects is fairly complex, with many details contingent on your specific needs. As a recent customer of lulu.com, I thought I would share a bit of DIY wisdom for anyone considering using their on-demand printing service.

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Believe it or not, one of my most popular posts here at Perishable Press is an article I wrote about a counterfeit Slifer Yu-Gi-Oh! card. Since its publication, I have received some very interesting information regarding the apparently extensive market for fake Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. Recently, reader Deana wrote to share her experience with an eBay purchase of a “very good counterfeit” Slifer card on eBay.

As a savvy Yu-Gi-Oh! collector, Deana has purchased “some really great cards” on eBay. For example, she once scored an authentic, 70-dollar DDS-001 Blue-Eyes White Dragon card for about 35 bucks. She says that obtaining legitimate high-value cards through eBay is “really and truly a luck of the draw.” Even worse, many eBay shoppers may have purchased counterfeit Yu-Gi-Oh! cards without even realizing it. As Deana explains, the subtle differences between “real” and “fake” cards are not “something you would notice unless you are a collector.”

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In this article, I discuss how to get the most out of your site’s images by optimizing them for both people and search engines..

For many sites, images play an important role in the communication process. If used correctly, images have the power to make your articles come alive with clarity and vibrancy. Some visitors may merely notice the image and continue reading, while others will want to know more about your images and dig deeper. While checking out your images, inquisitive guests will explore any clues available to them: alt tags, title tags, and captions, for example. Likewise, when classifying, categorizing, and ranking your site’s images, search engines such as Google employ complex algorithms that evaluate many different image-related aspects in their calculations. Focusing on the details related to image optimization helps both search engines and live visitors to maximize the usefulness of your images. In this article, I present a healthy collection of image-optimization strategies designed to help you get the most from your images.

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[ Detail of 88teeth’s revamped “Manoid” ] Longtime friend and fellow-DLa member ThaneC recently has updated his personal/portfolio site, eightyeightteeth.com. ThaneC’s site has been completely redesigned and reorganized, featuring easy navigation and generous presentation of core content. Every page is overflowing with creative juice — thumbnail galleries of artistic works, digital photos, and custom wallpapers are a pleasure to browse. Full-size versions of each creative piece “pop-up” upon command. ThaneC’s unpretentious wit and artistic sincerity furnish each page with insightful commentary and inside information concerning each delicious offering. Designed according to the principles of modern web design, ThaneC’s site now employs the efficiency and flexibility of HTML and CSS, rounded out with a touch of unobtrusive JavaScript to make it all sweet.

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Some friends and I recently gathered in Portland, Oregon for the 2007 PDX Zine Symposium. Held on the lush campus of Portland State University, this was the seventh annual zine convention, featuring an abundance of tablers, zinesters, and visitors. Although we did not purchase a display table this year, we did represent our graphic zine collective, Dead Letter Art (DLa) by making the rounds, checking out new zines, and sharing issues of DLa. Since the annual Zine Symposium began in 2000, DLa has attended almost every year, learning, networking, and exploring ideas with fellow zinesters. Thus, with a hefty stack of DLa issues in hand, the DLa posse traded zines, collected chunks, and consumed as much information as possible from an endless river of zine literature and DIY propaganda.

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Front-page story attacks city

Central Washington — The Columbia Basin Herald continues to describe Quincy as “stampeded by gang members, teeming with teenage pregnancies, constant shootings, stabbings, drugs and excessive consumption of booze.”

They printed the story — believe it or not — on the front page.

“Quincy is also known as ‘Q-town,’” the Columbia Basin Herald, a regional newspaper, claims. “It is overpopulated by gang members and individuals of hispanic decent who often believe they are of african background. Smoking marijuana is very popular and is often practiced by all age groups in the area.”

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Ditch Witch, I think I love you.. On my never-ending quest for fresh graphical chunks, many a ridiculous warning sticker have caught my eye. Upon encountering such gems, I immediately slip into stealth mode and plan for attack. Once the stage is set and the time is prime, I move in for the kill — another ripe chunk cold plucked from the vine. Of course, only the nonsensical, pointless, redundant or otherwise ridiculous labels are snatched from existence — anything even legitimately informative requires a more compassionate approach..

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One of our favorite command-line screensavers, DAZZLE is a two-dimensional kaleidoscopic program featuring a timeless display of perpetually evolving psychedelic viewscapes. Users may interactively manipulate over thirty image-creation algorithms, or set the program to automatically generate hours of dynamically morphing displays of colorful patterns and geometrically complex graphics.

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Dead Letter Art (DLa) is an esoteric underground art collective. The collective consists of eight core members that have known each other since high school, and have been creating and sharing their art for well over fifteen years. Sharing many common interests and influences, the DLa collective explores diverse artistic media, both individually and collectively. Their vast media expertise includes everything from drawing and painting to website development and multimedia production. Further, the group also embraces the fine art of desktop publishing, employing their periodically printed zine, Dead Letter Art, with their recently redesigned website, deadletterart.com, as their vehicle of choice for sharing, discussing, and exploring their highly creative, collective universe.

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Let’s face it. Websites are as transient as the wind. Developers and designers spend countless hours producing sites that may exist online for mere months or even less before being restructured, redesigned or removed completely, forever disappearing into eternal nothingness — or, even worse, into the sterile void of a search engine database. Clearly not the best situation for designers looking to maintain a complete record of their online work.

Even for sites proactively encouraging their caching and archiving by the search engines, accurate and reliable online site preservation approaches the impossible. Unfortunately, search engines are extremely inconsistent when it comes to archiving websites. If you doubt that, try digging up one of your old sites and see how it looks as stored deep within the archives of say, Google or Yahoo. Search engine archives commonly omit associated CSS, JavaScript, and image files, rendering sites incomplete and useless as a design reference.

Local or offline site storage also is impractical, especially if your sites are database-driven and require a server to process content. Replicating the original server environment is usually a hassle, requiring database reconfiguration and URL path repairs. Further, databases frequently involve absolute URL’s, thereby rendering offline sites practically useless. Besides, many sites are often aesthetically redundant, consisting of hundreds of virtually identical, dynamically created pages. Such archived sites are waste of disk space, especially if their content is now obsolete or exists elsewhere online.

Rather than rely on the search engines or depend on impractical offline archiving methods, savvy web designers and developers should develop a concise, high-quality screenshot archive of all their work. A well-maintained screenshot archive is an invaluable design tool providing streamlined reference for future projects, source material, and portfolio development. Clearly, from a visual-design perspective, screenshot archiving is far more valuable, useful, and beneficial than traditional methods of storing antiquated or otherwise dismantled websites.

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We are continually on the prowl for fresh chunks — whether it’s business or pleasure, day or night, scanning the immediate environment for tasty visual gems is a constant delight. Perhaps you find yourself lulling over tacky magazines at the dentist’s office, when suddenly — out of the corner of your eye — you notice it: a small triangular decal attached to the side of the waiting-room television warning people about something with an absolutely ridiculous icon to reinforce its message. Unlike the typical media fodder enslaving the likes of "People" and "Time", the TV warning chunk shows true character — slightly worn and abstract with a sense of authenticity and timelessness. Casually, you rise from your waiting seat and meander over to the TV, as if you may be thinking about changing the channel or something. As your eyes intently examine the coveted nugget, you realize that it is definitely a "must-have" to add to your collection. A quick scan around the room to verify that nobody (surprise) is paying attention, and it’s time to strike! With a single, fluid motion, you silently reach around the side of the TV and peel off the delicious morsel…

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Recently, my son traded three common Yu-Gi-Oh cards for the coveted Slifer god card. He was very excited, thinking he worked the deal of a lifetime. Indeed, Slifer cards sell for around $35.00 apiece, depending on the dealer. Nonetheless, trading three worthless cards for a Slifer god card seemed like a phenomenal deal..

What we discovered next nearly dropped us to the floor — the Slifer card was a counterfeit! Within moments of checking it out, Mom immediately recognized the unusual coloring, odd syntax, and heavy gloss on the card. Upon closer examination, many errors were discovered — spelling mistakes, missing graphics, and misaligned text — all pointing to one inescapable reality: an illegitimate Slifer card!

Amazed by the idea that someone would actually produce a fake Slifer card, I quickly confiscated the card and began scrutinizing the details. After studying the card, carefully comparing it to other Yu-Gi-Oh cards and several legitimate Slifer cards (via dealer sites, etc.), the extremely poor quality of the counterfeit became laughably obvious. This is sad for at least two reasons. First, it is sad that there are scumbags who steal from children. Second, it is sad that a counterfeiter would perform such an absolutely pathetic rendition of the very popular Slifer Yu-Gi-Oh god card.

Nonetheless, discovering and studying the counterfeit card provided such a thrill that we thought others might benefit from a critical online analysis. Hopefully, this article will serve as a reference for others to compare against in order to avoid the purchase or trade of other fake Yu-Gi-Oh cards. If nothing else, we hope that you will enjoy a hearty laugh upon discovering the amateur nature of this particular counterfeit.

Authentic Slifer Card

Counterfeit Slifer Card

Click here for a close-up, side-by-side comparison of the authentic vs. counterfeit Slifer cards.

Summary of the obvious errors on the fake Slifer card:

• [a] Card title is in lowercase text; "sky dragon" is not capitalized
• [b] The text, "GOD", has replaced the original symbol and text
• [c] Incorrect number of stars: ten stars on the real card, eleven on the fake.
• [d] Missing serial number below the image of Slifer, on the right-hand side
• [e] "[DIBINE .BEAST]" is misspelled, contains a period, and is typographically incorrect
• [f] Description contains numerous errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and typography
• [g] Misaligned text for "ATK" and "DEF" characters
• [h] Missing japanese characters in the lower-left corner of the card
• [i] Missing copyright and japanese name in lower-right corner of card
• [j] Missing reflective authenticity decal in lower-right corner of card
• [k] Image resolution/quality is poor — out of focus, grainy, pixelated
• [l] Overall coloring of the card is too pale, or otherwise inaccurate
• [m] Placement of the description text is misaligned, too low
• [n] The card itself is overly glossy — way too much gloss

Flaws present on the back of the card

• The brand name, "KONAMI" and registered symbol (R) missing from upper-left corner ( apparently, authentic god cards display neither brand name nor registered symbol on the back of the card. )
• Trademark signature (TM) missing from Yu-Gi-Oh logo in lower-right corner ( apparently, authentic god cards do not display a trademark signature on the back of the card. )
• Front of card lacks proper card gloss — surface similar to paper
• Colorization is too pale, or otherwise inaccurate

We hope this article is helpful to someone. If you have other examples of counterfeit Yu-Gi-Oh cards, we would love to hear about them. Update: new article posted highlighting Deana’s experience with a counterfeit Slifer card she had purchased on eBay (Originally posted on: 03/05/2008).

Star Burst Check out the slick online digital flower maker at zefrank.com.

Here is a nice collection of feed icons. All are in PNG format, and all have transparent backgrounds (Although they may not appear as transparent if you are viewing via Internet Explorer). Download them individually or as a zipped set. In addition to the icons displayed below, the zipped set also includes two 500×500-pixel feed icons, one in standard orange and the other in greyscale. Please save these to your server and kindly refrain from hotlinking. Thank you.

Download the entire collection [ .zip file | ~77KB | 8045 downloads ]

Aside from an occasional gang squirt, Moses Lake, Washington has no graffiti art scene of which to speak. Yes, there are many vast, open walls available for inspired artists to develop into colorful statements of creative expression. However, city officials and general public opinion frown on graffiti art as worthless, wicked vandalism. Granted, the city does offer several commissioned murals, mainly scenic visions of the ordinary rural variety. Unfortunately, those of us craving authentic expressions of genuine creativity must travel elsewhere to enjoy such diverse cultural fruit.

Imported graffiti art, picked fresh daily Or so we thought. Recently we discovered a daily supply of local, fresh graffiti. A short drive out Moses Lake's Wheeler Road reveals a west-coast freight-car loading station. And, as any connoisseur of aerosol art is aware, graffiti artists love to paint on freight cars. Sure enough, a quick drive into the loading area manifests a colorful line of beautifully decorated railcars. To see such dynamic and intense expressions of deliberation and purpose is like opening the window of youth and shooting up a truckload of rainbows. “..an unexpected pleasure — we are honored by your presence..”

Better still, the railcars are there on business, meaning they are constantly showing up, getting loaded, and taking off, thereby making room for the next set of traveling canvases. Every day, there is a fresh selection of imported west-coast graffiti art ripe for the pickinz. And pick I do — at least three times a week, every week, I drive out to the station early in the morning to examine, admire, and capture the daily gallery. For several weeks now, my collection of high-resolution digital photographs of west-coast graffiti has been growing.

Soon, the collection will be available at perishable.biz, which will feature artwork, digital photos, video chunks, audio turdz, and now, imported graffiti art. Why two Perishable websites? While perishablepress.com focuses on written material, code, and other text, perishable.biz presents creativity as expressed via aural, visual, and digital media. "You gotta keep 'em separated."

Indeed, this segregation of Perishable content enables us to consolidate an online resource (perishablepress.com) for news and information concerning everything associated with all of our creative endeavors. Further, an informational repository such as perishablepress.com enables us to focus entirely on artistic and other creative content at our other sites, such as perishable.biz, deadletterart.com, and artspacemagazine.com.

Ever imagine your website represented as a cluster graph? Well prepare your DOM and check out Sala’s Websites as Graphs project. Each map represents a single website page, each dot represents a different tag, and each color represents a different set of tags. Here is the graphical representation for Perishable Press:

Perishable Press DOM Graph