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Show HN: Thumbomatic - Amazon pricing for thumbnails

12 points by terryjsmith ↗ HN
Hi HN! A while back, while working on another weekend project, I realized I needed thumbnails. After reviewing 5 or 10 different services, most of which had severe restrictions on size or had base monthly plans, I created Thumbomatic: Amazon style pricing for your thumbnail needs :)

Check it out and let me know what you think: http://www.thumbomatic.com/

6 comments

[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 17.3 ms ] thread
matomesc
This is sweet! I'll consider using it for an upcoming project.
jrsmith1279
Very nice! I've been thinking of doing this in the app that I'm working on.
vitovito
What is the stack you're using to generate and serve these?

If two people request the same URL, do they get the same thumbnail? Is it de-duped on the back-end?

If I request the same thumbnail twice, do I get a fresh one every time?

Do you have protections against DoSing the requested URL?

terryjsmith
It is built on AWS, and we are using PHP and a custom framework for the actual site, and on the backend we're using CutyCapt[1] to generate the thumbnails, which is based on Qt and Webkit.

Yes, we automatically de-dup on the back-end. If the thumbnail you requested exists in the size you want, the information is just returned and you are not charged for the generation. You can tell this happens by looking at the 'created' timestamp in the returned object.

If you request the same thumbnail twice, you will get the same one back twice; however, there is a force_new parameter that can be passed to the generate method that will force it to fetch a new version each time.

We do not have explicit protection right now for DoS attacks, and I thank you for raising that point. In all honesty, the system right now is limited by our ability to handle traffic; you couldn't likely surpass a couple requests a second if you were trying, but it is something we will be thinking about moving forward.

I hope that answers everything for you; if you have any other questions, please let me know.

[1] http://cutycapt.sourceforge.net/