Web on Jackenhack

YouTube now defaults to HTML5

Wed, 28 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

YouTube now defaults to HTML5

YouTube Engineering and Developers Blog:

Four years ago, we wrote about YouTube’s early support for the HTML5 tag and how it performed compared to Flash. At the time, there were limitations that held it back from becoming our preferred platform for video delivery. Most critically, HTML5 lacked support for Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) that lets us show you more videos with less buffering.

Over the last four years, we’ve worked with browser vendors and the broader community to close those gaps, and now, YouTube uses HTML5 by default in Chrome, IE 11, Safari 8 and in beta versions of Firefox.

JPEGMini an easy way to reduce size of large photos

Wed, 10 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

JPEGMini

What if you could reduce the size of all the jpeg pictures on your hard disk? Do you have problems sending full resolution jpeg images via email because of size restraints? Is your iPhoto library too large? Let’s face it; pictures is one of the things that sucks up space on your drives. It’s even more annoying if you are using a newer Mac with an SSD disk where cost is premium. Upload speed when sending emails or uploading images to the web can be slow and annoying. An application called JPEGMini claims to help you with reducing your pictures with up to five times while retaining all the quality. I got a bit curious if the team at JPEGMini and their patented image compressor really could reduce large JPEG photos without losing quality. I’ve tried the application before when I wrote my article about comparing the best jpeg compressor applications for web use. But even though JPEGMini is geared more towards large megapixel pictures, not small images usually used on web pages, my test shows that it stacks up well against the competition even on more modest photographs. Many web pages now use pictures optimized for high-resolution images like for Retina display and high-resolution mobile devices, so the use of an image compressor is getting even more useful for web use.

But how well does JPEGMini retain quality on megapixel images in JPEG format? How much do you lose in quality by using compressing?

Image Compression JPEG Tools for Web

Mon, 01 Sep 2014 00:00:00 +0000

There are several JPEG image compression tools available that takes a jpeg file and reduces the size of the photo without altering the quality. But which one works best for posting images on a website? I was curious, so I took the tools I usually use and put them through the compress photo function. All applications tested claims not to lower the quality of the image. I’m concentrating on testing jpeg files here, and do a followup article later with results for optimizing PNG files.

Google Reader joins graveyard of dead Google products - Slate Magazine

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Google Reader joins graveyard of dead Google products - Slate Magazine:

It’s hard to lose a loved one, especially if that loved one is a Google service. That’s why we’re opening the gates of the Google Graveyard, a virtual space for grieving. Buried in these hallowed grounds are some of Google’s ill-fated services. Some, like Google Reader, lived long, prosperous lives, full of admiration and glory. Most, like Google Wave and Google Buzz, struggled to carve out a place in this harsh, unforgiving world where technologies continuously clash and innovation reigns king. But whether these services transformed our productivity or only polluted our inboxes, they all touched our world in some way.

Ubuntu Server WordPress with W3 Total Cache install

Mon, 04 Jun 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Initial installation Ubuntu Server

Last time I configured my web server with Ubuntu Server, I had problems finding all the instructions on what and how to install everything needed to get a WordPress blog with W3 Total Cache, CDN, Apache2 MPM Worker and fcgi working. So this is my attempt to write down the steps needed to get the server going. You might find it of interest if your needs are similar to mine. Here’s the requirements for my WordPress blog.

Apache MPM Worker threaded version
APC PHP Opcode optimizer
All the required modules for W3 Total Cache
Graphics libraries for Mint statistics

vsftpd on Ubuntu server 530 login incorrect error - fixed

Tue, 22 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

When setting up my new web server I had a problem when installing vsftpd on Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS. After doing the sudo apt-get install vsftpd and enabling login for local users, I got a “Server 530 login incorrect error” when trying to connect with a local user. The settings for disabling anonymous login and allowing local users where set in /etc/vsftpd.conf. [cc lang=“bash”]anonymous_enable=NO local_enable=YES write_enable=YES[/cc] But the ftp server still refused to let me login with any of the users on the system. I tried remove and reinstall, but the problem persisted. Finally I found a thread where others had the same problem. And here’s how to fix the problem. [cc lang=“bash”] sudo apt-get remove vsftpd sudo rm /etc/pam.d/vsftpd sudo apt-get install vsftpd [/cc]

Web server with SSD disk

Mon, 21 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

SSD

My old web server built on old spare parts had a hard disk crash a month ago. So I had to put it up on my BlueHost account while waiting to get hold of a new disk. I decided to try out a SSD disk, so I got hold of a 60gb IBM SSD disk. Without any optimizations, it can now handle double the traffic! I’ll continue to optimize tomorrow to get the most out of it. I’m doing an article on how to set up a LAMP server on Ubuntu Linux for WordPress with all the stuff needed to get W3 Total Cache, APC and other stuff working, because I can’t find a good article that describes everything. I will start writing on it tomorrow.

Make Safari browser Faster, More Secure and Crash proof

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Safari Browser

Safari, the standard web browser that’s included with Mac OS X is fast, stable and has some great features. But there are some ways of improving it to make you’re browsing experience even faster, more secure and pleasurable. Here’s a walkthrough of my favorite extensions for Safari.

permalinks in Wordpress - changing without losing Google rank

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

When changing permalinks in Wordpress from an old format to a new, you risk losing Google page rank.

On my blog, I’ve had my permalink set to /archives/year/month/day/name-of-article. Looking at my web server log, very few used the archives sidebar, so I removed it. To make the link shorter I needed to remove everything except the article name. But when changing the permalink, all the incoming links will get a 404 error from all old connections, and the search result from Google, lowering your Google ranking. Not good.

Upgrading to Nginx and getting WordPress to work

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 +0000

So, after doing an upgrade of my Apache installation all my web content stopped working. It continued to give 403 errors. After spending hours changing permissions and checking every little detail I gave up. So I installed Nginx instead. It’s a bit scary to start using a totally new web server software, but why not live dangerously? Anyway, it’s fast! Really fast. The only problem I had was to get all the redirects to work. And I also removed my gallery2 installation and moved the blog to /

MAMP WordPress Error establishing a database connection

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve installed MAMP on my Mac to do some changes to my blog. I tried to set the WordPress wp-config.php file to connect to localhost:8889, but got an error that It could not connect to the database. After replacing localhost:8889 to 127.0.0.1:8889 it works. My quick guess is that permissions for the root user is set to allow connections 127.0.0.1, but not localhost. Anyway, it works now.

My wp-config.php file looks like this: