Smushit operates like an online png crush or web image optimiser. The premise is pretty simple - upload an image (or a zip of images) and Smushit will do its best to reduce the size of the image.

I use the image export option in Fireworks when exporting images for our templates and so the images are already pretty lean, but Smushit still manages to get in and remove some of the file size. On a well optimised file already the saving might be minimal but this may well be a useful tool to use when optimising images for the web if you dont already have a good image crusher on your desktop or you want to shave just that little bit more off the size of your image files.

Check it out …

Raphael at Ecolibria has just launched a sub-site for his Building Biology website. Phonetowers.com.au is a site dedicated purely for highlighting the dangers surrounding microwave radiation emitted from mobile phone towers (cell phone towers). The site itself is using one of our as yet unreleased templates for Joomla. Find out more about phone tower radiation.

Hot on the heels of the J1.57 release Joomla 1.5 has been upgraded to v1.58. From the looks of the docs and release notes the bug squad has been working overtime to bring us this release. Each revision means that Joomla 1.5 is becoming more and more stable and Joomla 1.0 is looking more and more old school. If you are running a 1.5 site be sure to upgrade as soon as possible to the 1.58 release.

Well it seems that this is the week I discover tools for posting to wordpress. Earlier this week I mentioned the wordpress iphone app, then scribefire and now Im going to talk about Mars Edit.

On first glance it looks incredibly easy to use. I started writing this post only seconds after installing it here. Setting up Mars Edit to access wordpress is really very simple. Type the url, click auto detect for the blog api url and enter your admin login details.

Im not sure that Ill necessary convert to using Mars Edit as ScribeFire seems to do everything Mars Edit does - just in a bigger window - but it might grow on me and I might consider forking out the $29 USD to register my copy.

This is a really handy article for the css challenged and experts alike. Some really nifty ways to fine tune cross browser compatibility for your designs as well as reducing your overall markup. Some of the fixes include the perennial box model hack, the IE double margin float bug, minimum height for internet explorer 6, centering a block element and more … Check it out.