Saving Space When Every Byte Counts
One of my many activities today has been to track down methods that will help compress some of the massive databases on my server. With about a dozen (most likely more) blogs and several web sites, saving space is a top priority.
The hosting and customer support service I receive at Rackforce are amazing, and I’m happy to be hosting there, but sooner or later (hopefully later) storage space is going to be an issue. Hence my hunt for a way to minimize it.
My thanks go out to the folks at Techyard.net. That’s where I discovered this highly useful plugin for Wordpress users who tend to upload photos and other media. Media itself is a storage hog, so when I found WP-Smushit I was immediately thrilled.
The WP-Smushit plugin does all the compression work for you, and entirely in the background. Just use the link above, download it and upload it to your plugin folder in your wp-content area. Then log in, activate it, check the settings (there’s only one setting and that is for whether or not you want your gifs turned into png files (I said no)), and you are good to go.
Then, the next time you upload that photo of your Uncle Joe making a fool of himself at your graduation party (just kidding to all the Uncle Joe’s out there!), WP-Smushit works automatically to squeeze it down to its smallest size. The picture quality doesn’t change (in fact on one instance I think I see an improvement to the quality).
Reducing media by 4.5% here and 1.8% there (or more or less depending on what it is and what can be done) really adds up quickly. Leaving you and your hosting with more room to breath.
Techyard.net also recommends three more compression tools to resize images, so be sure to visit!
Happy Labor Day (US) and a great weekend to all!
Tags: compressing images, compression tools, images, media storage, media storage compression, saving space, storage space
September 9th, 2009 at 7:38 am
Huh, I clicked on the comment section for the entrecard bar post and it brought me to the Rackforce post???
vein´s last blog ..Um….
September 9th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Hi Vein, Ah no… I mention that I host at Rackforce, but the one you wanted to click on is the WS-Smushit to get the plugin for image squeezing
Several links in the post, you just picked the wrong one 
September 9th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Always great and useful information found here…Thanks!!
Barbara´s last blog ..Relax With Barbara On Wednesday 52
September 10th, 2009 at 10:00 am
I am scared to even think about when I run out of space. It will happen one of these days. Until then, I am in denial.
September 18th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
I didn’t even know that space would be an issue on blogs. I won’t worry about it until I have to!
ConnieFoggles´s last blog ..Lose The Ugly LG Bliss Contest
September 19th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
It really depends on your hosting. An individual blog on it’s own ip doesn’t take up that much space – but bandwidth can be a big issue if it’s extremely popular. Squeezing as much as possible space wise is always a good think-ahead strategy
October 3rd, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Sounds like a good idea. I need to clean off my laptop as well
Maureen´s last blog ..Multiple Streams of Income: Blessing or Curse?