Teklibri

What is a Screen Capture?

As I mentioned in a previous post, when you’re viewing the display of any modern computer, tablet or smartphone device, you’re actually looking at a bitmap image. Therefore, surely it should be possible to copy that bitmap into a file and save it for later use.

Why were the XML Formats Developed?

I haven’t found any clear statement of the motivation that prompted Microsoft to consider replacing its long-standing binary file formats with XML-based formats. However, I suspect that the primary motivations were competition and pressure from large users of the Office suite.

Should you Use Digital Color Palettes?

Palettization of an image is usually a lossy process. As I explained in a previous post [How to Avoid Mosquitoes], you should never apply lossy processes to “master” files. Thus, if your master image is full-color (e.g., a photograph), you should always store it in a “raw” state, without a palette.

What is a Ligature?

The word ligature has several meanings, but a linguistic ligature (which is what I’ll be discussing here) is a conjoining of two (or more) letters in writing, which may be done for various reasons.

How to Avoid Mosquitoes (in Compressed Bitmap Images)?

In this post, I’m going to explain how you can avoid mosquitoes. However, if you happen to live in a humid area, I’m afraid my advice won’t help you, because the particular “mosquitoes” I’m talking about are undesirable artifacts that occur in bitmap images. For many years now, my work has included the writing of user assistance documents for various hardware and software systems.