Archive for the 'lab' Category


Solid State Drive Pricing Getting Competitive 31

Posted April 28, 2009

The marketplace for SSDs is getting more and more competitive. Intel just slashed prices on many of their drives, and all the other manufacturers are doing the same on a regular basis. Capacities are going up, prices are coming down, and performance is getting better - especially with the advent of the new PCIe based cards which lap SATA II.

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Introducing a New Open Source Apache Module: mod_graphics Comments Off

Posted November 6, 2008

mod_graphics is a new Apache module built using ImageMagick that allows you to generate simple graphics from a web site using a REST-only syntax.  Currently, the module has 2 primary features:

  • Circles – generate circles of any size with a specified foreground and background color
  • Gradient – generate a 1 pixel x any length rectangle that has a 2 color, linear-gradient fill in horizontal or vertical orientation
The module is designed to allow web page theme designers and developers to create rounded corners and resizeable dynamic modules without having to generate custom graphic files in photoshop for every adjustment.
There is an amazing variety of ways to create Web 2.0 style ’rounded corners’ including:
I am hoping that some of the developers who have created these approaches might integrate mod_graphics into their techniques to make their solutions fully automated.
Some key features:
  • Apache 2 Licensed Open Source
  • Entirely C/C++
There are probably a handful of bugs for getting it to work on every flavor of linux, but we’ll get those hashed out as we hear about them.  Instructions to compile and install are in the readme.
View the project, or download the code (Subversion) and let me know what you think.  Feature ideas and patches are welcome.

An Experiment in Visual Price Comparisons – SATA2 Drives Comments Off

Posted August 3, 2008

This is the first ‘labs‘ experiment that I’m posting on the site.  It’s a simple widget that allows you to visually explore the price, capacity and size of hard drives from an online retailer.  It’s an experiment in alternative ways of comparing items that makes it easier to assess all the options and (in this case) find the best deals.

SATA2 Internal Hard Drives

This experimental widget lets you explore real-time prices for SATA2 hard drives at one of the better online stores for computer gear.

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Read more about how the widget was constructed here.

It would be great to see more innovation from e-tailers in the variety of ways they help you find products.  Faceted navigation, and sophisticated search are requirements today, but visual search can also be a powerful tool.  Take a few minutes to explore the visual search tools at Etsy if you haven’t seen them before.  They make it fun and interesting to shop for regular stuff.

A simple visualization like the drive comparison, gives you 4 dimensions of information to share with the user – 2 dimensions along the X and Y axis, as well as bubble color and size.  There is a lot that can be conveyed using those extra dimensions.  It’s much easier to find high-lights and low-lights than with textual search results lists – as you find on most sites today.

It’s possible to add animation as well, which can introduce time-series into the mix – possibly an enhancment for the future.  Animated data visualization is something that both Google and Microsoft have expressed interest in, so it’s something to keep an eye on.