Alchemy Mindworks

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’ »

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 Validation’ »

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’ »

While you can create sophisticated banners and other complex animations using Alchemy Mindworks’ Animation Workshop – and nothing else – adding animated objects to Animation Workshop will unquestionably drop it into hyperspace. Alchemy Mindworks offers a suite of inexpensive, easy-to-master tools to build animations.

Animation Workshop will import animations from a number of popular formats. The two you’re most likely to get involved with are GIF and MNG. While conceptually similar, it’s important to understand the distinction between them.

Continue reading ‘Building Animation Objects for Animation Workshop’ »

PNG/MNG Construction Set and the newly-updated animation plugins with alpha-channel support – the 3D Effects #1 plugin set, as of this writing – allow the creation of animations with sophisticated translucent shadows. Place such an animation over a textured surface or a photograph and its shadow will darken the details of its background, but not obscure them.

Continue reading ‘Building an Alpha-Shadow Animation’ »

While its sounds like a fragment of dialog from a 1980s science fiction flick shot on a budget in an unnamed eastern European country, alpha channels are actually a profoundly useful feature of graphics… as long as you know what they’re really up to.

Continue reading ‘An Introduction to Alpha-Channel Animations’ »

Many of the Alchemy Mindworks applications – including GIF Construction Set Professional, Graphic Workshop Professional, Animation Workshop, PNG/MNG Construction Set and Presentation Wizard – have internal Paint functions that call Windows Paint. At least, they do if it’s been installed.

Should you click on Paint in one of our applications and discover that nothing much happens – or if the application hangs – you’re probably looking at a total absence of the Windows Paint application.

Continue reading ‘Quest for the Missing Paint’ »