While searching the internet for information on using the PHP GD image library to create images on the fly, I a killer way of graphically displaying information using the GD library. Sparklines are described by Edward Tufte as

"intense, simple, wordlike graphics."

Not much development has happened on the PHP sparkline package, but it is definitely a good starting point for putting sparklines on your own site.

I was luck enough to already have browser tracking code implemented on this site. It has been collecting IP, browser, page requests, etc. for the last year. It was very easy to connect the database information to the sparkline package to provide sparklines of unique visitors, page requests, browser popularity, etc.

Sparklines could be something so much larger though. The company I develop owns a real estate company. Sparklines could be used in the admin area of the site to graphically show the different searches performed over that past 12 months, track property prices for the current homes listed, etc.

Andrew over at infosthetics.com has a great example of how sparklines can be used.

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Hello, nice site End ^) See you