Inching in Images

So you like all the pictures on the web, and you want pictures on your web page? It is easier than it looks! Let's take a first of two looks at images.

Images can be really terrible about wasting memory. There are several workarounds that computer people have come up with. Remember these are the same people who call a simple address a URL, so we should expect to have to learn some new terms.

The first term is the one you will probably run into most often. It is a file named for its extension (.jpg). It is pronounced J Peg. J Peg is wonderfully friendly to memory. Your screen on your computer is not capable of producing the high resolution that comes in a photograph. Your eye will see a "good" picture on the computer at a resolution that measures about 72 dots per inch. Dots per inch is abbreviated dpi- see I told you those computer guys would do it again. JPEG takes the information about a picture and compresses it into a much smaller format. It gets rid of some color information in order to save space. Some quality is lost through JPEG-but not much.

The pictures Mr. D takes of you around the class are in standard JPEG format, and often they show quite well on the computer screen. Even if the kids are sometimes goofing off.
Click on me

This is a simple image and one that I used often to complain about rising gas prices this summer. Too simple for you? Don't complain- I could have sent you my picture instead.

Instead of a jpeg, this is actually a gif file. Gif is preferred over jpeg for noncontinuous tone images or those with large areas of the same color. JPEG is preferred for photos.

They each stand for something, but all you need to remember is jpg and gif are extremely friendly to browsers.

Okay, okay! I hear you murmuring now. What do I do to put the stupid picture in, whether it's this gif thing or a jpeg?
I am so glad you asked. The syntax (another fancy computer word for command) looks like this. <img src="key.gif" Align=right>

Notice the key to the right. Everyone says, "Education is the key to success." But I wonder where the dang door is. Do you know where the door is? I have the key. After all, I am a teacher.

And that's not all I have to say about that! There's a part two on images coming to a theatre near you - or at least it is coming to your computer.