We made a flurry of changes to the site this week. As always, its your job to let us know if they're useful or unusable.

The part list has been given a makeover and a few new features. You can now import parts to your projects using csv or txt files containing part numbers. Once you've organized your parts, use the e-mail feature to send them to co-workers, friends, or your parents.

An Octopart user, Rory Nugent, generously wrote an OpenSearch plugin for Firefox. If you're a Firefox user, just download the plugin and you'll see Octopart appear as a search option on your search toolbar. If you're not a Firefox user, this is a good opportunity to reflect carefully on how often your browser crashes and switch. Thanks Rory!

Last but not least-we set up an RSS feed for all of our loyal blog readers. Catch up on the latest developments here using your favorite RSS aggregator.

Four weeks ago I spent my days worrying about microscopes, signal to noise ratios and tracking particles. Now I lose sleep over lag times, internet security and cross-browser compatibility issues. I turned my back on four years of grad school and a guaranteed job to work on a three month old internet startup-I don't regret a thing.

It is easily the riskiest decision I've ever made. In many ways it's also the first real decision I've ever made. I was ready to stop being a student years ago. Octopart swiftly brought me out of that world. I'm no longer working to get somewhere else. I'm exactly where I want to be. I'm working with friends - sure we have arguments but, no matter how heated they get, we trust each other implicitly. I've always loved the feeling of tinkering around in the garage to make something cool and Octopart captures that feeling to a T. Truth be told, working on Octopart doesn't even feel like work, the four weeks I've spent attached to my MacBook Pro have been closer to a vacation than a job.

And, at the end of the day, I love where I am because we're working around the clock to make something other people care about. From the e-mails we've received, I know we've already made a good start and struck a chord with many people. I hope we stay on track and continue to make your lives easier.

After a marathon programming binge, we've released two new features: data feeds and part lists.

Building an index of all electronic parts is our number one priority and to that end, we worked out a deal with Newark to receive daily feeds. All the Newark parts on our site have up-to-date availability numbers and the numbers will get more and more accurate as we work with them to automate the process. Hopefully we'll have more data feeds soon from other distributors.

Our other priority is to make searching through our part index as simple and intuitive as possible, so we have been working on a part list feature so that you can keep track of parts and build projects as you search. A friend of ours, Harish, dropped out of physics grad school to join us and the feature is his brain-child. He says that more features (like online publishing) are coming soon and that you should email him with bugs or feature requests. I asked him to write a blog about dropping out of grad school and pulling all-nighters to get the part list out in time, so he'll be posting that soon. Don't forget to congratulate him on dropping out.

Hope you like what we are doing with the site!