From the browsershots.org website:
“Browsershots makes screenshots of your web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your website in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.”
4 Platforms (Linux, Windows XP, Mac, Debian).
Almost 80 browser / version / OS combinations.
What I love most about the site… is not just what it can do, though it is pretty fantastic. What I really love is it’s use of distributed computing. The ‘distributed computers’ that they are using are actually computers that have been volunteered for use by folks on the web. Browsershots.org makes available a downloadable installation (written in Python) that is responsible for receiving screenshot requests and then fulfilling those requests, uploading them to the mother ship after it is completed. Genius.
Since the early-90’s and the RSA Challenge, I’ve been fascinated by the concept of distributed computing, particularly volunteer / open source distributed computing that makes use of available cycles / resources on people’s otherwise unused computers. Seti@Home uses this method to ‘listen’ to the results of mountains of data coming from space telescopes around the globe in a search for extra terrestrial life. FightAIDS@Home helps to identify candidate drugs that have the right shape and chemical characteristics to block HIV protease. Many of these projects have latched onto IBM’s ‘World Community Grid‘ program, running on the ‘BOINC‘ platform at about 2 Petaflops, and over 500,000 volunteered computers.
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) with web services provides a great method for accomplishing some of these things. Now I want to build a distributed computing application. 