Writings

Greg isn't what you'd call a prolific author, but he has written a few things on occasion. Here are some of them:

PNG Lossless Image Compression - Lossless Compression Handbook, Academic Press (now part of Elsevier Science), December 2002

A more academically oriented work, edited by Khalid Sayood, covering lossless compression techniques from ``generic data'' to images to audio. Greg's chapter (19) covers PNG image compression, but in considerably more technical detail than the corresponding chapter in his own book (below).

Interview with Greg Roelof[s] - Designing CSS Web Pages, New Riders, September 2002

Christopher Schmitt's designer-oriented book is primarily focused on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), of course, but images are almost always involved, too. Greg was interviewed via e-mail for Chapter 7, Utilizing PNG and SVG with CSS, and much of the interview is included. So are screen shots of several pages from the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) Home Site. (Alas, Greg's last name is misspelled throughout the chapter, but such are the slings and arrows of . . . something or other.)

NFS-Root Mini-HOWTO - Linux Documentation Project, 26 January 2002, 20 September 2002

Greg wasn't the original author of this HOWTO, but after it had lain dormant for more than four years, he performed a one-time update and then handed it off to a new maintainer . . . or so he thought. Eight months later nothing further had happened, so he submitted one more update and left it at that. Additions included information on the Linux 2.4 kernel series, DHCP booting, developing for embedded systems, and setting up and troubleshooting the NFS server. In all, the update added more than 50% to the size of the document. (OK, Greg can be a tad verbose sometimes.)

PNG, MNG, JNG and Mozilla M17 - Slashdot, 26 June 2000

Another status update on PNG, emphasizing the features most useful for the Web and the browsers that best support them. As with the previous article, a cleaner and corrected version is available from the PNG site.

XV Viewer - Web Review, 10 December 1999

A mini-review of the premier Unix image viewer, XV; part of a special ``Cheapskate Edition'' of Web Review that covered 14 low-cost (less than $100) utilities, HTML tools, and graphics and multimedia tools.

PNG Gaining Acceptance - Web Review, 13 August 1999

An update on the 1997 article; also part of a special feature issue covering three ``new'' image formats for the Web: PNG, SVG and JPEG 2000.

PNG: The Definitive Guide - O'Reilly and Associates, June 1999

A fine tome covering all aspects of the PNG image format, from its history to application support to PNG image-creation to writing programs with PNG support. There's even source code to three real, live, PNG demo applications (two viewers and a converter), and Greg wrote up some notes and a timeline on the whole process.

The Story of PNG - Slashdot, 18 March 1999

A status update on PNG, with particular emphasis on clearing up misinformation and generally attempting to provide a fair comparison of PNG and other image formats. A ``printer-friendly'' and slightly updated/corrected version of the article is available from the PNG site.

The Future of Linux - Linux Journal, October 1998

An informal report on the panel discussion of the same name, which took place in Silicon Valley in July 1998. An updated version of the article is also available locally.

PNG's Not GIF! - Web Review, 9 May 1997

A general overview of PNG's features and capabilities, written primarily for web designers.

History of the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format - Linux Gazette, January 1997, and Linux Journal, April 1997

A quick overview of the events leading up to the creation of the PNG image format and of its progress over the next couple of years. An updated version of the article is also available at the PNG home site. (The updates are in the form of Author's Notes at the end.)

Take Command: unzip - Linux Journal, January 1997

A short how-to covering the most basic UnZip tasks: listing, testing and extracting a Zip archive.

Radial Motions in Spiral Galaxies - University of Chicago / UMI, December 1995

Greg's dissertation, which considered the possibility that some ``warped'' spiral galaxies might actually be flat but oscillating radially. (Answer: probably not.)