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3,629 Posts
We don't host your graphics anymore... so everything that follows is kind of a moot point.
The file attachment system is supposed to impose certain limits on the sizes and types of files that are attached to messages but it doesn't seem to work.
Can we please try to limit the WIDTH of any attached graphic to 640 pixels and keep them under 100k in file size. Use about 75% jpeg compression... not these huge 95% - 100% graphics I'm seeing.
02/03/05 - I guess some of us can't. I did some routine backups today... the database, the attachment files directory, the avatars, etc... and was appalled at the number of 250 - 300k graphics people have posted to the system. Offenders have had their upload privileges cut off. New members have no privileges. They have to ask and acknowledge having read this post... and affirm that they have the appropriate skills and tools to edit graphics to conform to our guidelines!
I've been going in and manually editing every graphic that's larger than that and it consumes a little more time than I care to spend, but it's necessary to keep the hard drive space under control, decrease our page load times and to prevent me from having to scroll sideways all over the screen to see the graphic.
I've found this program to be a fairly decent image processing tool. It's small (1M self-extracting zip file), has a lot of features, is fairly easy to use and will do batch processing on multiple images. If you download it I can walk you through the basics of prepping your images to meet our guidelines.
FSResizer - click to download.
This one is a more full featured paint program that's still fairly small (1.7M winzip file) and and has a ton of features. I can walk you through the basic steps on this too. It's also handy for creating custom avatars, etc.
Ultimate Paint - click to download.
Both programs will run on any 32-bit Windows OS (sorry, no Windows 3.1)
The file attachment system is supposed to impose certain limits on the sizes and types of files that are attached to messages but it doesn't seem to work.
Can we please try to limit the WIDTH of any attached graphic to 640 pixels and keep them under 100k in file size. Use about 75% jpeg compression... not these huge 95% - 100% graphics I'm seeing.
02/03/05 - I guess some of us can't. I did some routine backups today... the database, the attachment files directory, the avatars, etc... and was appalled at the number of 250 - 300k graphics people have posted to the system. Offenders have had their upload privileges cut off. New members have no privileges. They have to ask and acknowledge having read this post... and affirm that they have the appropriate skills and tools to edit graphics to conform to our guidelines!
I've been going in and manually editing every graphic that's larger than that and it consumes a little more time than I care to spend, but it's necessary to keep the hard drive space under control, decrease our page load times and to prevent me from having to scroll sideways all over the screen to see the graphic.
I've found this program to be a fairly decent image processing tool. It's small (1M self-extracting zip file), has a lot of features, is fairly easy to use and will do batch processing on multiple images. If you download it I can walk you through the basics of prepping your images to meet our guidelines.

FSResizer - click to download.
This one is a more full featured paint program that's still fairly small (1.7M winzip file) and and has a ton of features. I can walk you through the basic steps on this too. It's also handy for creating custom avatars, etc.

Ultimate Paint - click to download.
Both programs will run on any 32-bit Windows OS (sorry, no Windows 3.1)