[Imc-web] some web site suggestions

[Barry Isralewitz]

Hello,

   I'm a local grad student who occasionally goes to IMC events.  I'm impressed
by the UCIMC web site, and by the obvious time and care that has gone into
making it.  While I was using the site to check on local events and news
stories a couple of suggestions occurred to me.  Please let me know what you
think (and if anyone even reads mail to this address!)..


  Respectful suggestions:

   1)  Use anti-aliasing when reducing picture size.  About half of the
front-page thumbnail images seem to have been reduced via simple pixel
sampling, which greatly lowers image quality. (e.g. "Channel X")  For example,
the "convert" utility of the free, famous "ImageMagick" suite produces a
beautiful, smooth  50% size image with
   convert -geom 50% original.jpg original-smaller.jpg
, to constrain the image to a maximum of 150 pixels along its longest edge,
  convert -geom 150x150 original.jpg original-smaller.jpg
(See www.imagemagick.org for downloads, Linux, Macintosh, Windows, etc.)


  2) Use reduced-size images in the Media Gallery.  Often the images there are
full sized images with size tags.  This slows page loading, and in most
browsers, leads to "jaggy"  and sometimes squashed pictures, since the browser
itself is doing crude pixel sampling. Using reduced-sized images, produced as
in 1), will make the page load faster and much improve thumbnail image
quality.

 3) Add an "upcoming events" box to the main page.  A good example is seen on
the main page of the Ithaca IMC.  http://ithaca.indymedia.org/



  Let me know what you think, and thanks for the great web site!

					Cheers,

					Barry

--
Barry Isralewitz   Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group, UIUC
Beckman 3121   Office Phone: (217) 244-1612  Home Phone: (217) 337-6364
email: isralewi at uiuc.edu      http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~barryi