Last night on the D train to Brooklyn, I spotted a MakerBot. I looked up to find Bre Pettis sporting his stylish Octopart tee shirt! We chatted for a bit about MakerBot, NYC Resistor and capacitors before we parted ways at Atlantic Avenue.

Spring is here and if you're anything like us, you want to spend less time searching and more time enjoying the weather. So, to help you enjoy Spring, we've been working on a new part search interface optimized for engineers:

The tool was built entirely using javascript, html, css and the Octopart API. We wanted to release it as early as possible but after some cleanup we'll open source the code so anyone can build their own custom version fairly easily. Please let us know what you think of the tool, if you find any any bugs or have any feature requests (contact@octopart.com).

A few months ago we launched an open API to give everyone access to our database and search technology. Since then, the most requested feature has been a way to access individual parts by id. Today we're happy to report that the feature is live! Now it's possible to build user-centric apps like project managers and shopping carts. We can't wait to see what developers will come up with!

If you're interested in building an app using the Octopart API, check out the documentation here: http://octopart.com/api/.

Today we're happy to announce a partnership with EETimes: Octopart now powers EETimes' product search. You can now find your favorite transistor or microcontroller right from the EETimes website.

I remember leafing through a stack of the large format EETimes magazines back in 2006 to get a feel for the Electronics industry before we publicly launched Octopart. It's great to be working with EETimes now - there are lots of exciting applications which are possible when you combine media with up to date product information.

If you want to build an application on our part data, you can! Check out our open API.

If you're a manufacturer or distributor and want to add your part data to our database, please create an Octopart account and sign up for Company Tools. If you have any questions, feel free to email me directly.