Thursday, January 14, 2010

ReZounding Applause

I like to mix things up a bit every now and then, so while I'm still slowly picking away at the image reductions, I decided that a bit of a mix-up (pun intended) might also be nice. Using ReZound, I've been able to do the simple task of reducing ogg files to a 64kbps bit-rate and 30-second sample size, and get rid of some of that backlog as well.

I've only modified and uploaded one sound file so far, but I intend to complete several more before the night is out.

A little bit of variety to keep me from getting bored...

Drop by! There's something for everyone!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Automated... sort of

I've started in on non-free file reductions (because of copyright laws, files that are not free for general use should be much smaller than an original). As of right now, there are 7482 files that need to be reduced. Some of these are sound files, but a fair number of them are images that need to be made smaller.

I'm currently using a program called ImageMagick to automate the conversion to PNG format (where appropriate) and the reduction in size to a thumbnail version of the original. Using a small script, I've eliminated the need to use a more manual program (such as GIMP) for this repetitive task.

It might be possible to completely automate this process - i.e. set up a bot (with permission, of course) - however at the moment, not all JPG files are candidate for conversion to PNG. As a result, most of the process is still manual - I still have to download the appropriate images individually, upload them individually, update the {{non-free reduce}} tag for each image so it is {{non-free reduced}} instead, then test each image to make sure I'm not causing more problems than I solve.

Off I go, so wish me luck!

Sunday, January 10, 2010

The beginning of a saga

About 9 months ago I finally decided to bite the bullet and get an account on wikipedia. Numerous times I had encountered grammar errors, bad layout and even blatant lies. I've poked away off and on since then but this weekend I finally decided to do some major editing.

There are lists of backlogged edits that need to be made, things like finding more references for an article, updating style, shrinking oversized images into smaller ones (in the case of copyright issues), and many, many more.

A couple of hours here and there will make the (wiki) world a better place.

Come join me!