jr conlin's ink stained banana

A few quick programming notes (as in code, not TV):

• PHP's GD library has some rather annoying quirks, including:
  1. imagecreatefrompng() doesn't understand Alpha transparencies, it instead just uses a black background.
  2. imagecreatetruecolor() does understand alpha channels, but uses a black background
  3. regardless of whatever tricks you try to pull, copying an alpha png to a truecolor image background will not cause an proper merge because the freaking png is on a black background!
• If you want to stamp any and all images being leeched from your site with a sponsor tag, it's pretty easy to do. First add to your .htaccess file:
  RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} myspace.com
RewriteRule (.*(gif|png|jgp)$) /stamp.php?i=$1
  then, create your stamp.php file.
  Feel free to modify that file to append an "image footer" if you like.
• Yeah, those myspace folks tend to grab images, but hey, think of them as "ads for you".