URL service w/ thumbnail generation

[ageisp0lis]

Hello my fellow Bitcoin hackers...
I have made this service, like a TinyURL but not because I don't have a short domain.
The killer feature is the thumbnail generation. It's fast, free and has no watermark.
This uses a psuedo-hash involving base 62 encoding and prime numbers near the golden ratio.
Each website is stored with a unique integer value, so the "hash" will always be unique and there will never be a collision-- but furthermore, the same URL always has the same hash.
Also, I implemented an auto-complete using a very large dataset of Alexa's top sites.
I am not much of a developer, so I just made this for fun and to brush up on my PHP skills.
This is intended to be Bitcoin-friendly. . . if I can get a short domain I would be happy to deploy it there.
Feel free to use and share it!

http://ageispolis.net/url/

Update: Also at http://sv.gd !

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[someguy123]

I've changed SV.GD's A record to point to ageis's site, so now http://sv.gd will be the new (temporary?) short URL for ageis's URL shortner.

[ageisp0lis]

thanks someguy123, you're awesome.
I updated the codes a bit so it will deal more gracefully with being accessible at both locations.

=D

[gbl08ma]

Would you be interested in working with my URL shortener tny.im? The URL Preview page (see an example: http://tny.im/3A~ ) shows a thumbnail that is currently powered by thumbalizr, but I don't like it very much (too many "pictures queued"). I'm looking for a better thumbnail solution, and I'd like to know if you are interested in helping.
Credit would be given on the preview page and on the About page, and I could offer advetising space for anything SFW.

[ageisp0lis]

@gbl08ma my thumbnail solution is CutyCapt + xvfb. I will e-mail you the details to admin@tny.im

[gbl08ma]

Thanks! I have replied, I'll certainly not forget to mention your help on my website and at the partners list on http://i.tny.im .

[mc_lovin]

pretty neat!  but my thumbnail is over 1400 pixels high.  I guess BitcoinTrading.com is just too tall for thumbability. 

I don't directly need the thumbnail, I can photoshop one but I am just providing input on the service: you should provide max width/height sizes and/or options of thumbnail sizes.

but great service btw! it works well!  the bitcoin trading wallpaper seems to be missing though.

I tried to create one for WTCR.ca but it failed?  I think the URL works but the thumbnail 404's.

I think your 404 page is awesome though.

Then I tried to create it again, and it worked the second time, but the thumbnail is totally wonky.

[frisco2]

Hello,

I'm looking for a thumbnail service to preview linked urls, for my website Propster. For example, this page links to Seti@Home. I would like to show a thumbnail in addition to the link:

https://propster.me/tipjar/0cami8t

Do you have such an instant thumbnail service ?

Boris

[gbl08ma]

Hello,

I'm looking for a thumbnail service to preview linked urls, for my website Propster. For example, this page links to Seti@Home. I would like to show a thumbnail in addition to the link:

https://propster.me/tipjar/0cami8t

Do you have such an instant thumbnail service ?

Boris

He does not provide it, but you can set one up with CutyCapt and X virtual buffer as he explained. I believe such a solution will be faster and cleaner (no watermarks or API limits) than any other 3rd party API. To make things faster, you could thumbnail the website of the tip jar once it is created, save it, and only update the thumbnail again when an user requests so.

[frisco2]

Thanks, I would give CutyCapt a shot, but a simple 3rd party service for thumbnails would be good as well.

[gweedo]

http://phantomjs.org/ you can try this, i used to for on fly rendering and imaging

[frisco2]

http://phantomjs.org/ you can try this, i used to for on fly rendering and imaging

Thanks for the tip, this is a great project!

[gbl08ma]

http://phantomjs.org/ you can try this, i used to for on fly rendering and imaging

Interesting.

For a 3rd party service, I use http://www.thumbalizr.com/ . For free users, it puts all thumbnails of new URLs in a queue (and then you need to wait until it is captured for the thumbnail to be available), and has a small "powered by thumbalizr" message on every thumbnail.

[ageisp0lis]

As far as third-party services go, there is also BitPixels.com which I recommend ...it is rather similar in that the thumbnail is not available right away, you have to request it first, but there's no watermark.

My xvfb + CutyCapt solution happens in two lines of code, takes 2-3 seconds for capture and conversion, only uses about 20mb of RAM, and ends up with 12k average for 200px width thumbnails. Variable width is certainly possible, this is a feature I could add. However, I don't know what to do about excess height. I could crop them, but there's something I actually like about it.

If there is a demand, which there seems to be, then I could easily create an API for instant thumbnail generation and retrieval.
@frisco2 I would have no problem with you using my service once I develop this capability. Are you still interested or do you need help implementing it on your own server? I could send you some information which might be of use.

@mc_lovin, yeah it's not perfect. the WebKit rendering in CutyCapt can be a little off. Thanks for testing.

@gweedo PhantomJS, nice... thanks for this info. I did some experimenting with PythonJS rasterization, it takes about 150-200% longer time than my current method, but the render is more accurate. I might contemplate switching to this.

[frisco2]

@frisco2 I would have no problem with you using my service once I develop this capability. Are you still interested or do you need help implementing it on your own server? I could send you some information which might be of use.

I have to look at the 3rd party solutions that where mentioned here, as well as thinking if I should do it locally, before I can ask you to develop something specifically for me.