Alchemy Mindworks

The current editions of Alchemy Mindworks’ software – beginning with version 12 – are available in 32- and 64-bit editions, and as we’ll get to later in this section, if you’ve registered a license for the current release of Graphic Workshop you’re welcome to install either – or both on the same computer.

For most users of our software, the 64-bit editions will prove to be quicker and more capable. Should you find yourself in a hurry, you can stop reading this post now.

Continue reading ‘Architecture – 32- and 64-Bit Software’ »

The Windows Defender application that installs with Windows 10 is an estimable security application, with a rigorously-maintained database of threats. That it costs nothing to use has a lot to be said for it as well. Like most security software, however, it likes to wander into the insanely-paranoid section of the theater from time to time.

Left to its own devices, Windows Defender will avail your computer of a laudable degree of protection from malware and other intrusions by cybercretins. It can also substantially reduce the usefulness of the system it’s running on.

One of the more questionable features of Windows Defender is its real time protection. Real time protection scans every file that arrives on your computer – in real time, as its name implies – to defend you against invading e-mail attachments, venomous downloads and malicious web browser plugins, among many other things.

Continue reading ‘Windows Speedup: Disabling Defender’s Real Time Protection’ »

The GIF format – the animation standard for web page animations for pretty much as long as there have been web page animations – was originally created in 1987. While there were technically computers back then, chances are you’re presently wearing a watch with more processing power than a circa-1987 PC.

The GIF format was designed using late twentieth-century compression technology, for use with late twentieth-century display hardware.

It’s also probably worth mentioning that GIF was never intended as a medium for storing web page animations… there having been no web upon which to launch pages back in 1987. They did have electric lighting back then, apparently, so there’s that.

The first web browsers to support animation arm-twisted the GIF format to store them because it was kind of close to what was needed at the time, and it actually existed. Web page designers – and everyone else – have been stuck with it ever since.

Cue gratuitous profanity.

Continue reading ‘A Quick Introduction to Animated PNG’ »

The WebP format was developed by Google as a twenty-first century replacement for the aging hoard of mutant armadillos which has previously served the web as graphic standards. It can be used in place of still image formats, such as JPEG and PNG, and it really gets up and dances when it’s used to replace the medieval relic that is GIF to manage animations.

WebP offers both lossless image compression like PNG and lossy image compression like JPEG. It uses vastly more effective image compression than existed when the foregoing formats were originally created back at the dawn of human civilization, resulting in both smaller animation files and better looking ones. It supports full alpha transparency.

It also handles timing in milliseconds, rather than in the hundredths of a second that GIF uses.

A Digression On Compression

In case the whole lossless and lossy compression issue sounds a bit like two Martians discussing what to order for lunch, here’s a brief digression on the matter.

Graphic files are by their nature sort of huge, and huge files can be a bit of an issue if you have a finite amount of storage space, such as on the SD memory card of a digital camera, or a finite amount of bandwidth over which to transmit said files, such as the Internet if you didn’t spring for a gigabit fiber connection.

Continue reading ‘A Quick Introduction to WebP Graphics and Animations’ »

From time to time, Alchemy Mindworks releases software updates to deal with security issues. This sounds a bit scary – with good reason in some cases – and as such, it probably deserves an explanation.

Regrettably, the world includes a substantial number of flakes, idiots and malevolent swamp-dwellers who spend their mean little lives trying to attack the computers of the rest of us. When they’re successful in doing so, they can:

• Install malware to steal personal information, such as credit card numbers and banking passwords.
• Connect the afflicted computers to botnets, such that they can be used to attack other networks.
• Encrypt the files on your hard drive and demand a pile of bitcoins for the key to decrypt them.
• …and probably a lot of other stuff we’d rather not know about.

Continue reading ‘Security Issues and Software Vulnerabilities’ »

The 2015 major upgrade for Alchemy Mindworks’ software – stepping up to version 6 – will initially embody most of its changes “under the hood.” We’ve devised an improved software architecture to allow our applications to make better use of contemporary multi-core microprocessors, larger memory footprints and Windows 7, 8 and 10.

The most notable feature of this upgrade for most users will be full Windows 10 compatibility.

You can’t really see a new architecture unless you work here and read the source code, but it will enhance the performance of the upgraded software – the version six applications should run faster, and consume fewer system resources while they’re doing so.

The updated architecture will also allow us to add new features to Graphic Workshop, GIF Construction Set, Presentation Wizard and the other Alchemy Mindworks applications that were impractical or genuinely impossible under version 5.

Continue reading ‘Version Six Upgrades’ »

While it’s thankfully uncommon, we have encountered instances of the version 6 Alchemy Mindworks software refusing to validate, and displaying a message that says “There has been an error creating the specified file.” We’ve yet to reproduce the beast in house.

Contrary to rumors and innuendo in this matter, this problem does not lie with either frenzied weasels creeping into our offices late at night in search of leftover pizza, or with the depredations and treachery of left-wing politicians… although you can never be entirely certain of the latter.

Continue reading ‘Error Creating the Specified File during Version 6 Validation’ »

Earlier releases of Windows – most notably the much-beloved Windows XP, now something of a fond memory – included the elegantly simple and occasionally berated Windows Paint application. For the most part, it was about as useful as a left-leaning politician in a riding with absolutely no bribable voters – but there were situations in which its childlike simplicity and twentieth-century dearth of features made it the ideal software for manipulating a few pixels.

By comparison, Windows Paint under Windows 7 and Windows 8 resembles the drooling idiot offspring of a cheap date in which neither participant was demonstrably human. It’s just sophisticated enough to allow its imperfect antialiasing, questionable drawing tools and counter-intuitive user interface to get in the way.

Long-time users of Paint from a bygone era can often be heard mourning its loss.

Continue reading ‘Classic Windows Paint for Windows 7 and Windows 8’ »

Most of the Alchemy Mindworks applications are updated several times a year. A few of the more active ones – Graphic Workshop, GIF Construction Set, PNG MNG Construction Set and so on – have seen upgrades once a month.

Users of these products have at times inquired whether it’s necessary to install all the updates, and how important these updates really are to the functioning of the great cosmic clockwork that drives the universe as we know it.

Continue reading ‘A Word About Updates’ »

The process of installing updates to Alchemy Mindworks’ version 4 applications is somewhat more involved than was the case for their ancestors. While doing so will unquestionably entail more clicking than users of our products may be used to – for which we’re suitably contrite – you can minimize the additional work required if you understand what the little man behind the curtain is up to.

Earlier releases of our software used a custom installer that we wrote, and as such, that we were able to nuance into being a fairly effortless installation experience. It was typically done with an installation so quickly as to make describing its activities as an “experience” just this side of pretentious.

Continue reading ‘Version 4 Updates in 30 Seconds’ »