Joshua Eichorn has a reminder about the WebThumb (a PHP-based website thumbnailing service) contest that he's having.

The WebThumb contest ends on the 15th. I know there are couple projects out there that haven't officially entered. If you want to have a chance to win an upgraded Webthumb account make sure to get your entries in, the contest website has all the details.

The WebThumb service is a web service that allows remote users to request a thumbnail of a site and, when it's ready, automatically fetch it to be used however they want. You can even defined custom heights and widths for the browser to use.

Joshua Eichorn has a reminder about the WebThumb (a PHP-based website thumbnailing service) contest that he's having.

The WebThumb contest ends on the 15th. I know there are couple projects out there that haven't officially entered. If you want to have a chance to win an upgraded Webthumb account make sure to get your entries in, the contest website has all the details.

The WebThumb service is a web service that allows remote users to request a thumbnail of a site and, when it's ready, automatically fetch it to be used however they want. You can even defined custom heights and widths for the browser to use.

Joshua Eichorn has posted an update on his blog today about a change to the PHP-powered WebThumb API service - the addition of "EasyThumb".

Like the rest of webthumb its still in beta but it makes adding thumbnails too a site much easier. Easythumb gives you a simple interface to WebThumb letting people with minimal PHP skills integrate WebThumb into there site.

He includes a basic example script to get you started with the new feature as well as a bare-bones code example for the same kind of thing.

Joshua Eichorn has posted an update on his blog today about a change to the PHP-powered WebThumb API service - the addition of "EasyThumb".

Like the rest of webthumb its still in beta but it makes adding thumbnails too a site much easier. Easythumb gives you a simple interface to WebThumb letting people with minimal PHP skills integrate WebThumb into there site.

He includes a basic example script to get you started with the new feature as well as a bare-bones code example for the same kind of thing.

Joshua Eichorn has posted the official contest rules for the WebThumb Contest announced a short while back.

The contest runs until November 30th, and the top 5 submitters will all win upgraded WebThumb accounts. The top submitter will also win a copy of my book, Understanding AJAX.

Since previously, all that was required was a comment on this blog entry, people who've posted there need to listen up - an official submission needs to be made. Check out this page for the complete rules and all of the information you need to include in the submission email.

Joshua Eichorn has posted the official contest rules for the WebThumb Contest announced a short while back.

The contest runs until November 30th, and the top 5 submitters will all win upgraded WebThumb accounts. The top submitter will also win a copy of my book, Understanding AJAX.

Since previously, all that was required was a comment on this blog entry, people who've posted there need to listen up - an official submission needs to be made. Check out this page for the complete rules and all of the information you need to include in the submission email.

On the Zend Developer Zone today, there's a tutorial put together by Cal Evans showing how to use the WebThumb API via a PHP 5 script.

It's a simple service on the surface. You hand it a URL, it gives you back a thumbnail of that web site. At first glance you may think..."ok, why?" The answer to that is of course, "it depends".

He gives examples of reasons it would be needed (designers wanting to show off screenshots of a site or a replacement for Alexa's thumbnailing service) and the code that is needed to make things work. The script asks for the three properties the API needs - a URL for the target site, the height of the browser "window" taking the shot, and the width of this same "window".

Cal show examples of the messages sent back and forth and includes the code for the PHP 5 class to make the request along with some sample usage code. The class makes a basic HTTP request to the API with the XML payload and waits for the response - an estimate of the time for the job and the URL that the results can be found at.

On the Zend Developer Zone today, there's a tutorial put together by Cal Evans showing how to use the WebThumb API via a PHP 5 script.

It's a simple service on the surface. You hand it a URL, it gives you back a thumbnail of that web site. At first glance you may think..."ok, why?" The answer to that is of course, "it depends".

He gives examples of reasons it would be needed (designers wanting to show off screenshots of a site or a replacement for Alexa's thumbnailing service) and the code that is needed to make things work. The script asks for the three properties the API needs - a URL for the target site, the height of the browser "window" taking the shot, and the width of this same "window".

Cal show examples of the messages sent back and forth and includes the code for the PHP 5 class to make the request along with some sample usage code. The class makes a basic HTTP request to the API with the XML payload and waits for the response - an estimate of the time for the job and the URL that the results can be found at.

In light of the popularity of his WebThumb site thumbnailing service, Joshua Eichorn is implementing a new feature to help reduce the number of requests to the server. The most popular request is made to see if a thumbnail is ready, and the new feature - a GET callback to the server making the request - will help to reduce them.

If you wondered an API that requires polling isn’t a very good thing for scalability. On my current setup I can pretty easily handle about 20 status requests per second on top of my normal traffic, the problem is its not hard for a bad polling implmentation being run by one user to make that many requests.

To solve this problem im adding an addition to the Webthumb API that will allow you to skip polling all together. The basic idea is that your make an API request and when your thumbnail is complete i’ll make a GET request back too your server telling you that the request is complete.

It's a simple matter of including a new "notify" tag in the XML message to the server with a URL to make the callback to. He even includes some sample PHP code to get you started with the new feature. The script handles the automatic download of the thumbnails when called from the WebThumb service.

In light of the popularity of his WebThumb site thumbnailing service, Joshua Eichorn is implementing a new feature to help reduce the number of requests to the server. The most popular request is made to see if a thumbnail is ready, and the new feature - a GET callback to the server making the request - will help to reduce them.

If you wondered an API that requires polling isn’t a very good thing for scalability. On my current setup I can pretty easily handle about 20 status requests per second on top of my normal traffic, the problem is its not hard for a bad polling implmentation being run by one user to make that many requests.

To solve this problem im adding an addition to the Webthumb API that will allow you to skip polling all together. The basic idea is that your make an API request and when your thumbnail is complete i’ll make a GET request back too your server telling you that the request is complete.

It's a simple matter of including a new "notify" tag in the XML message to the server with a URL to make the callback to. He even includes some sample PHP code to get you started with the new feature. The script handles the automatic download of the thumbnails when called from the WebThumb service.