The latter problem was a simple fix. The Shift This WordPress Thumbnail Size Plugin creates a new configuration page that allows WordPress admins to specify the max dimensions for thumbnails. (I use 192px.)

The problem of poor jpeg thumbnail quality isn’t as clean to fix. The only solution I could find requires changing a line in the source code. As explained here in the WordPress support forums, the fix requires editing the wp_create_thumbnail function in wp-admin/admin-functions.php.

The following code takes the resampled image data and saves it as a file on the server.

// move the thumbnail to its final destination
if ( $type[2] == 1 ) {
	if (!imagegif( $thumbnail, $thumbpath ) ) {
		$error = __( "Thumbnail path invalid" );
	}
}
elseif ( $type[2] == 2 ) {
	if (!imagejpeg( $thumbnail, $thumbpath ) ) {
		$error = __( "Thumbnail path invalid" );
	}
}
elseif ( $type[2] == 3 ) {
	if (!imagepng( $thumbnail, $thumbpath ) ) {
		$error = __( "Thumbnail path invalid" );
	}
}

The following line from the above code handles jpeg images:

if (!imagejpeg( $thumbnail, $thumbpath ) ) {

The imagejpeg function can take a third argument that specifies the quality (0–100) of the resulting file. If that argument is not provided, it defaults to a value of “about 75″ (according to the PHP manual). I think a value of 90 is more appropriate, so therefore I edited the above line to:

if (!imagejpeg( $thumbnail, $thumbpath, 90 ) ) {

The result is greatly improved; however, as the comparison below demonstrates, it’s still not quite as nice as what I can get using the application that I’ve been using for years to do thumbnails manually—ThumbsUp. The reason is that ThumbsUp provides options for antialiasing and sharpening the thumbnails that it generates.

Left: WordPress-generated thumbnail (after applying the above hack)—clean, but kinda fuzzy.
Right: thumbnail generated using ThumbsUp—nice & sharp.

Incidentally, the thumbnails on the previous post were all generated using ThumbsUp (to replace the ones that WordPress had originally generated with all the compression artifacts). I had hoped the above hack would keep me from having to do that again; however, it looks like I may have to continue using ThumbsUp as my source for thumbnails.

Design Preview

[update - 5/28]:

The move of my blog posts from Movable Type to WordPress was quick, simple, and painless. Unfortunately, the Textile (formatting) plugin for WordPress doesn’t seem to support all the shorthand mark-up that the Movable Type plugin does, so I have to reformat all my posts in standard HTML. I also moved my old blog image directory on my server to keep things tidy, so I have to edit all the image URLs as well. On the plus side, this is giving me the opportunity to file everything into categories. Keep an eye on the Uncategorized category to see my progress.

Here’s how it works. Whenever you attempt to visit a web page, your browser sends an HTTP request to the server, which specifies the file that you want as well as some other information about your browser and such. If you request a page by clicking on a link, the URL of the document containing that link is sent in the HTTP request. Web servers log these HTTP requests and then log analysis tools can generate statistical reports.

My stats have been publicly available (if you knew where to look), and one of the parts of the reports is top referrers, so I can see where traffic to my site is coming from. The addresses in the referrer report are live links, so when Google’s web crawler indexes my site, it sees these top referrers as sites that I have linked to, which increases their PageRank score. Therefore, if a devious individual can have a bunch of zombie computers make a bunch of bogus HTTP requests with the perpetrator’s site as the referrer, this nefarious person can get a link to their site on mine and thus increase their web site’s rank in Google searches (or perhaps more likely the weight that Google gives to their site when determining the rank of the pages that others may pay them to link to).

I’ve known that this sort of thing has been going on for some time, but the referrer spam that I’ve seen has always been rather light—just a small (though not insignificant) percentage of the traffic on my site. Last night, however, my server was being hit so hard that the server was being overloaded and my web host had to block all web access.

You’ll notice that web access has been restored, although, for now, only if you enter the address directly. Referred traffic is still blocked, so trying to access my site from a link on another site will still be blocked. Perhaps I’ll go in and unblock some of the legitimate sites that I know link to me.

Anyway, I present my wiki: SteveWiki

Thus I present to you: My RSS Feed. Subscribe away!

Meanwhile, check out the new Bookshelf. Be warned, however, there’s nothing cataloged yet.

The result? After only a few days of use, and two additions to the block list, MT Blacklist reports: “Comment spams blocked: 174″. Wow! That’s 174 comments I didn’t have to delete manually. Most impressive. Take THAT spammers.

Unfortunately, this has not stopped the “texas holdem” spam. On the plus side, this particular spam uses the same author name on every comment, so I can easily clean them all out every once in a while by using a simple SQL command on the MySQL database where my blog data is stored.

DELETE FROM `mt_comment` WHERE `comment_author` = 'texas holdem'

It looks like it may be time to upgrade my blog engine and install some anti-spam counter-measures.

I probably had to delete about 50 comments from various posts, which took a good deal of time and was highly annoying. Stupid comment spammers, we don’t want your filthy wares. GO AWAY!!!

Anyway… This week’s musical find is the Scissor Sisters. You may be familiar with their disco infused radio hit “Take Your Mama”, however I’m a little more fond of the unique sound of “Laura”. The video is also fun.