Genii Weblog

Watching every byte

Tue 17 Aug 2004, 04:13 PM



by Ben Langhinrichs
Here is something you may never have noticed, but it sneaks a few bytes (or more than a few) onto just about every Domino webpage.  You know those little images that Domino puts on webpages to show doclinks, file attachments, view icons, etc.?  Buried in just about every one of those is a string which says "Optimized by Ulead SmartSaver!" followed by two nulls.  So, each and every icon loaded when your Domino webpage is displayed loads an extra thirty two bytes.  Not a whole heck of a lot in these days of broadband, but it is overhead that seems completely unnecessary.

The question I have is, does Ulead Smart Saver Pro really add this to every optimized GIF file?  Or perhaps, does this only get added by the trial version?  If the former, doesn't it seem idiotic to optimize a file and then add thirty two unnecessary bytes?  If the latter, doesn't it seem idiotic to avoid paying the $34.95 for the professional version given that  these icons are used in a product like Notes/Domino that is used all over the world by umpteen gazillion users?

Which is it, or is there a third option?  Inquiring minds want to know.  

(OK, one inquiring mind, but maybe one or two of my readers will also want to know, and then it would be inquiring minds... so there!)

Update: It appears that a few of these were fixed in ND6.  The doclink.gif file no longer has the string, but the action and view icons still do.

Copyright © 2004 Genii Software Ltd.

What has been said:


195.1. Stan Rogers (08/17/2004 01:44 PM)

Okay, you can make it "minds" as of right ... now.


195.2. Richard Schwartz (08/17/2004 05:02 PM)

What happens if you play it backwards at 45 rpm instead of 33.33? ;-)

-rich


195.3. Ben Langhinrichs (08/17/2004 05:38 PM)

It says "Notes is not dead... yet"


195.4. Ben Langhinrichs (08/17/2004 08:02 PM)

It appears that the link icons, which were updated from R5 to ND6, no longer have this string, while the view and action icons still do. I'll update the main post to reflect that.

In some ways, it makes the problem even more idiotic. If the tool used to change/fix the doclink icon can avoid the extraneous characters, wasn't it just lazy not to update the other icons?


195.5. Richard Schwartz (08/19/2004 06:31 AM)

It's not laziness. They're dead! How can you expect them to be able to opimize GIFs when they're dead! The evidence is overwhelming. Sheeesh! ;-)

-rich