Avast WEBforum
Other => General Topics => Topic started by: Lisandro on February 29, 2004, 02:18:24 PM
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In this forum: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=2;action=display;threadid=3000 was discussed a problem with signatures.
I found in Wilders forum a new policy for signatures and images that I post here a copy:
Policy: Member Signatures and Images « on: January 20, 2004, 06:13:08 AM »
This post is an updated policy regarding proper use of member profile signatures and images attachments.
Up to this point, Wilders Security Forums has not had a specific published policy on member profile signatures, or the proper use of image attachments in threads, but due to the ever-increasing growth of the site the Administrators have felt it necessary to publish our views on these points in the form of this policy statement.
Profile Signatures
Member signatures are primarily meant to be used to convey a short personalized message, provide information on the products you are using, or to provide a link to some website you find of interest. As time has gone by, some signatures have started to grow bigger, through the use of large fonts, or people have included image links in their signatures. Some of these have become too large and obtrusive in nature, so we'd like to set the following guidelines:
Signatures should not include IMG tagged links at all. Registered members have the ability to upload a personal avatar (or use one from the library of avatars), so additional images in the signature section should not be necessary.
Further, the fonts used in signatures should not be larger than the default forum font size, nor should the font selection be overly intrusive when viewed "in thread" (i.e. by use of either extreme highlighting or color selections). All links should conform to the forum Terms of Service.
Image Attachments
The primary use of the attachment upload facility is to allow members to show relevant screen shots or other images that help to document or better explain the points being discussed in a topic. The concept is basically that of "A picture is worth a thousand words."
Excess images in threads outside of Ten-Forward or the Test Forum can be disruptive. Off topic images (funny pictures and such) in the more serious threads can have a negative affect to the purposes of the thread and can negatively effect the forum, as well. Threads about serious security topics should generally be allowed to stay on topic.
We in no way wish to reduce the use of the attachment upload function in regards to useful and needed images in the general forum sections, nor do we wish to limit the use of entertaining images in ten-forward. By all means, let's continue to have fun. But, let's try to keep the social and entertaining threads in ten-forward. If people want to participate in those then they'll know where to find them. But, in other forum sections, let's keep the image use as directly on-topic as possible.
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in this matter.
What do the avast! users think about this?
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I totally agree. and of course off topic images should be posted in the off topic forum.
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well I dont think the length of the signature is an issue as there is a 300 character max on it already ;)
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well I dont think the length of the signature is an issue as there is a 300 character max on it already ;)
The problem is not the 'lengh' but the 'width' of images...
Large images can bring trouble for slow connections and big images could not fit in the screen of somebody :-\
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I thought this was about helping one another not, who can post the biggest picture. :)
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this is bad...but luckily avast forums is still much 'clean' :)
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shgoh,
Sorry about that but I guess I could have phrazed that a little better :-[
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shgoh,
Sorry about that but I guess I could have phrazed that a little better :-[
Bob, don't worry about it...
cojo
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Thanks COJO'
Can all of you see what S.Z.Craftec has done for me?
Just call me Captain Bob Kirk from now on ha ha. ;D
Thanks Sasha
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actually looking at the communicator it would be more like captin Bob Picard. the communicator was a diffrent style in Kirk's days
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I guess you might be right
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Thanks COJO'
Can all of you see what S.Z.Craftec has done for me?
Just call me Captain Bob Kirk from now on ha ha. ;D
Thanks Sasha
aye, aye Cap'n Bob ;D
cojo
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Ok I'll bite and start page two. If that makes me a cap'n, then what do i have to call Sasha?
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actually looking at the communicator it would be more like captin Bob Picard. the communicator was a diffrent style in Kirk's days
Actually, original face on that picture was from some black male...
I'm not sure who is that guy...
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hi captain bob ;D
i'm not refering to you....maybe i should rephase too ;D
i'm just saying that it would be bad if avast forums is flooded with large pics..
by the way...nice avatar!! ;)
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I'm just saying that it would be bad if avast forums is flooded with large pics..
Yeah :'(
It's becoming difficult to navigate with a lot of images, some of them too large and big... But it's just my opinion.
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what are you guys talking about ? Those desktop pictures sent by me and ReJzoR ? Those pictures were posted just to show our work on our desktops... now I don't mind to erase them, but that's something that moderators should do, not me... I can't do that from here. They have to delete those big photos from the server. I just sent them to show my work and no one need them any more, so you can freely erase them...
No need to panic... just wipe them... ;D ;D ;D
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hi sasha...
me & technical are in no way refering to you ;)
we are talking about having large pics in signatures...please do not misunderstand :)
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Sasha, you know what I mean... Just my opinion and it's posted in the head of this thread: The problem is not the 'lengh' but the 'width' of images... Large images can bring trouble for slow connections and big images could not fit in the screen of somebody.
Keep your good work with avatars... Where is mine? ;D
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I know what you mean, and I'm not angry... I'm just telling you that I'm aware of those large pictures I sent before... only two of them, though... and I really want them to disapear, 'cause I know that those pictures can make some problems to users on dial-up...anyway, I always optimize all my pictures that I post in here, so no picture is bigger than 140 kb, ever...
Cheers !
P.S. Technical, you just have to tell me what kind of avatar do you want... that's all. When I catche some tome, I'll make it for you... Today I made 3 avatars for our friends on this forum, and now I have to get some sleep for tomorrow...
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Paintshop Pro has some great optimizatiopn methods to shrink GIF,JPEG and PNG images without bigger loss of quality. I think i always get best mix of size and quality.
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Yeah, and Macromedia's Fireworks is made for that purpose... it's not some turbo professional program for drawing with all those fancy effects like in Adobe Photoshop, but it's main purpose is to optimize pictures for faster loading from the web... it has web optimization integrated in intself. When you want to save your picture file, you are not just able to choose in between standard color palletes, but also, you are able to save your pictures with only 3, 6, 7, 21, 43, 41, 29 colors... whatever you want... you can choose how much colors you wanna see in that particulat picture file... you want picture with only 5 colors ? No problems, you can do that... you also have option to eliminate all those colors that are in standard palete, but were not used by your picture file anywhere in picture area... wonderful features. I can shrink file size from 300 and something kb, to just 25 or 40-and-something kb... great for web designers...
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Hm,i'll give it a try :)
I saw a picture that was 1280x1024 with no JPEG artifacts and it was only around 50KB in size. I mean picture looked like a uncompressed BMP not a JPG image! (it was a detailed digital picture of Radeon 9800XT from up close). I'm wondering how they managed to do that...
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I agree with you shgoh. It would really slow this forum down.
Thanks on the avatar but i had a masters help.
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Most of the Avatars I have seen are suitable but could be trimmed a bit.
The 'signature' block has been a problem lately and users have put very very large pictures there, and other "decorative" photos.
Unfortunately, as Moderator, I can not select a portion of the post to remove. The entire post is subject to deletion.
I would rather see restraint.....rather than forced Moderation :o
Techie
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Dear Techie 101,
Isn't one just a substitut for the other?
Only the former is self imposed and the latter is fored upon you. :D
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Most of the Avatars I have seen are suitable but could be trimmed a bit.
The 'signature' block has been a problem lately and users have put very very large pictures there, and other "decorative" photos.
Unfortunately, as Moderator, I can not select a portion of the post to remove. The entire post is subject to deletion.
I would rather see restraint.....rather than forced Moderation :o
Techie
Yeah... maybe... maybe... I don't know... I can shrink them, but you won't get anything better... pictures will not be so clear...
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Dear Sasha,
Please don't shrink the avatars, as evident in your examples, you loose to much clarity. Besides, your avatars are not oversized. Impressive, definitly YES.
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Hi gang,
I think the admins (or maybe it's "engraved in stone" by YaBB) set the size requirements for avatars quite nicely. I tried adding mine over at Wilders, but there the limit is 60 by 60, and this one looks like hell shrunk that far. At another site (totally different software) they permit up to 100x100, and that took only a minor down-sizing of mine so it worked quite well.
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Yeah, and Macromedia's Fireworks is made for that purpose... it's not some turbo professional program for drawing with all those fancy effects like in Adobe Photoshop, but it's main purpose is to optimize pictures for faster loading from the web... it has web optimization integrated in intself. When you want to save your picture file, you are not just able to choose in between standard color palletes, but also, you are able to save your pictures with only 3, 6, 7, 21, 43, 41, 29 colors... whatever you want... you can choose how much colors you wanna see in that particulat picture file... you want picture with only 5 colors ? No problems, you can do that... you also have option to eliminate all those colors that are in standard palete, but were not used by your picture file anywhere in picture area... wonderful features. I can shrink file size from 300 and something kb, to just 25 or 40-and-something kb... great for web designers...
Sasha, is it good for beginners?
cojo
thinking of trying new things! aw, come on...stop screaming "oh no!" ;D
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COJO.
Your funny.
I'm sure you know a whole lot more than you 're letting on.
The only novice on this subject is me.
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COJO.
Your funny.
I'm sure you know a whole lot more than you 're letting on.
The only novice on this subject is me.
:)
no, Bob, I am not kidding...and many here will testify to my novice status (even after months of being here!) ;D
cojo
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Just remember cojo that time alone doesn't make some one smart
or, I'd already be a genious. ;D
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Sasha, is it good for beginners?
cojo
thinking of trying new things! aw, come on...stop screaming "oh no!" ;D
I don't know CoJo... When I started to use that program (Fireworks) I already was into Photoshop, so it wasn't so bad... The program is not complicated at all, you just have to paly in it little bit... but, if you just want to be able to shrink, resize, enlarge pictures, nothing is easier than Fireworks... Just load your BMP picture file (or whatever), go to EXPORT PREVIEW, choose the format (jpg, PNG, GIF etc...), choose how much colors do you want that picture to contain (more colors, larger phisical size of exported file), and click it on SAVE or SAVE AS... as simple as that...
Cheers !
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Since we seem to be in doubt as to how big avatars can be......
If the avatars start to take up too much space in the reply box, or fill up the signature area, then you may get an IM from one of the Moderators to remove or shrink it.
Large pics increase page loading time and just clutter up the posts.
Yes, they are really nice to look at, but I think that this avatar thing is going the way of "Karma" if we do not put ourselves in check now.
Thanks
Techie
PS: To start...I am going to shrink mine down as soon as I get a few minutes.
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I must say that shrinking of avatars doesn't necessary means shrinking of file size. I can make avatar 110x110 pixels, only 4 kb large or better say, small. If you want me, I can make avatar 30x30 pixels, and 50 kb in size... see ? Biger is not always, larger phisical size of the file... I'm trying to keep all my avatars below 7 kb, and I think I succeded.
WEB page is slow on loading only if you have large and unoptimized pictures. My all pictures are always fully optimized.
I wouldn't shrink anything if you ask me...
Here is your avatar Techie101 shrinked to 100xsomething (from 200xsomething). File is just 1 kb large, but can't see a thing...
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Sasha,
Yes, you are correct. I did not fully explain my view.
However, the point is the same. Large physical pics take up too much space on the post.
We need to keep things cleaner. Your avatars are fine.
I am speaking of the pics that users add through the signature area or include as full screenshots.
Techie
Oh, thanks for the "mini" logo. ;)
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cojo,
If you are looking for a real easy to use program for resizing your photos, and avatars, see what I just stumbled onto:
PIXresizer is a photo resizing program to easily create web and email friendly versions of your images with reduced file sizes. The reduced files are saved in a different folder, so your original images are not altered at all. PIXresizer offers several different resizing methods to choose from and can automatically recognize image sizes to calculate the best fit. In addition, it can convert between image formats (JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG and TIFF), rotate images, convert to grayscale and resize multiple images in batch mode. A great companion for webmasters and digital photographers.
The best part, this program is FREE. No addware or spyware.
Go here for all of the info and for the download:
http://bluefive.pair.com/pixresizer.htm (http://bluefive.pair.com/pixresizer.htm)
Enjoy
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cojo,
If you are looking for a real easy to use program for resizing your photos, and avatars, see what I just stumbled onto:
PIXresizer is a photo resizing program to easily create web and email friendly versions of your images with reduced file sizes. The reduced files are saved in a different folder, so your original images are not altered at all. PIXresizer offers several different resizing methods to choose from and can automatically recognize image sizes to calculate the best fit. In addition, it can convert between image formats (JPEG, GIF, BMP, PNG and TIFF), rotate images, convert to grayscale and resize multiple images in batch mode. A great companion for webmasters and digital photographers.
The best part, this program is FREE. No addware or spyware.
Go here for all of the info and for the download:
http://bluefive.pair.com/pixresizer.htm (http://bluefive.pair.com/pixresizer.htm)
Enjoy
Bob, thank you!
I will definitely check this out...
I appreciate it, my friend :)
cojo
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I will definitely check this out...
Dear Cojo,
Since we're on the subject of photos, this one is for every one that uses a digital camera and needs some help with improving the picture quality.
This is also FREE. It also has no spyware, nagware, or addware.
They also make a professional version but, this one works fine and it's very easy to use.
The program is by MEDIACHANCE and its called Free DCE.
You can read all about it and get it here:
http://www.mediachance.com/digicam/enhancer.htm (http://www.mediachance.com/digicam/enhancer.htm)
Enjoy
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waay cool, Bob!
I may get to be expert at this yet ;D
my son's ordination is next week and I want great pictures for it...thanks for your suggestions :)
cojo
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I guess that means congratulations are in order Cojo. We both know that doing a good job of raising our kids is probably the most important job we have in life. :)