Baseball n' Stuff

I think I might parlay this into a baseball blog. Simply said, I could republish the items that others have carefully researched and worked on (or re-re-reposting as is usually the case in this medium) or I could offer unique insights on something I'm passionate about and reasonably sure I have an original opinion on. That said I'll still probably keep this domain despite the subject matter.

So, Ryan Braun. Enigmatic, wanna be, reluctant superstar. I don't think that makes any sense either, but it seems to be a truthful statement. Outside of Milwaukee and the fantasy baseball world, he's a surprising nobody. His persona seems to lend to this leave me alone situation; his ego and ambition speak differently.

This is a guy who gets pissed, feels dissed, and is supremely motivated to succeed. In an era without Pujols, this would be the THE guy in MLB at this stage. He seems to flirt with the spotlight with his sheer numbers and fledgling restaurant empire and his near captain status. For some reason there's some disconnect with fans outside of WI and I don't exactly get it.

I applaud him for not being a jerk in any way. He has the swagger to pretty much get away with bad behavior but seems to be a standup guy. What an enigma and what a player.

My Quest is at an End

So my prior blog posts, complaining about image scaling, are now moot thanks to a years old configuration in IE7.

Turns out that proper bicubic image scaling is turned off by default in IE7+. Gee thanks Microsoft. Who knew someone would want to actually see details in images they are resizing?

That said it's a stupid proprietary fix.

img {-ms-interpolation-mode:bicubic;}

Other (better) browsers will just ignore this CSS declaration but it is required for images to scale smoothly in Internet Explorer. Can't they just make IE8 a WebKit based browser?

On large images, unorthodox decisions, and browser scaling

Working for a software company, I'm constantly struggling with resizing screenshots for the web; most images resized by HTML or CSS in the browser just don't render clearly. Some "lovely" alternatives include manually rescaling all screenshots and maintaining two copies (thumbnail and full) or force the reader to scroll to see hidden portions of the images. You could also recreate all the screenshots in a vector format and export to Flash, but that's pure insanity.

When I decided to make my portfolio, I was forced with two choices:

1. Create itty bitty screenshots of my work and force the user to guess if they want to see a more detailed example
2. Create a scaled div that masks most of the image.

I reluctantly went with the latter. The larger size (hopefully) gives the user a better sense of color and placement without forcing much interaction on their part.

Of course this begs the question, why can't browsers scale images properly? Only one browser even comes close, Safari.

Here is a side-by-side example of browser scaling as compared to Safari. (Yes, I get the irony that these screenshot examples probably require you to scroll)

These images are unedited screen captures scaled at 50% of full. Notice how all of the text elements are garbled and noisy in every browser EXCEPT Safari. With pure photographs the general idea can be expressed, but with screenshots most of the key elements are lost in a sea of garbled mess.

My hope is that with the release of Firefox 3 and IE8, this post will be archaic. For now it's back to unorthodox and time consuming methods to fit your images properly or hope that your audience is using a browser with close to zero market share.

Safari + Windows: Missed Opportunities

My first post here was going to be about the fantastic image scaling in the Safari browser that blows the doors off IE, Opera, and Firefox, but Safari for Windows is still riddled with bugs.

Yes, Safari is a beta program. Google spoiled us with "beta" products that mostly work amazingly well. I can't help but feel Apple is dropping the ball here while the web developing world is waiting for Firefox 3 and IE8.

So until I can get a clean install of Windows to launch Safari, this will have to do.