If you’ve always wanted, just like me, a way to scale images used in CSS sprites: there’s a way [1]. It essentially comes down to a clever overlaying of a mask on an image:
1. a div with overflow:hidden and of a fixed size
2. an img pointing to the sprite is placed inside the div using scaling and absolute positioning so that only the desired portions shows through the div
[1] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2430206/how-can-i-scale-an-image-in-a-css-sprite
George's Techblog 