Ski Comparison Tool

[mark]

My friend and I have been developing a Ski comparison tool. It is
still a beta version (though it already has 250+ 06-07 skis) but we
would love your opinion and any suggestions on how it can be improved.
You can leave feedback here (I will check this forum). The tool can be
found at:

http://www.spadout.com/ski.php?ski_t=2

Thanks,
Mark

[VtSkier]

Two things come to mind, one involves the use of the tool
immediately the other is for the future.

1) My assumption is that the ski description is what the
manufacturer says, that there is no attempt for skiers to
have an opinion on the ski. Also, there is one category
missing. The "one ski quiver" category. There will be a bit
of overlap from several other categories here. The reason
for this is the fact that skis are SO expensive these days
that it would be nice to let people know what might be
good for *most* conditions.

If you don't, I'd say somewhere that this is a guide to
narrow the selection, but "nothing beats demo-ing". Skis
are such personal things.

2) Quite a number of people like to buy last season's or
older skis at a discount. It would be nice if you could
keep your information up for a few years and have a way
to access it. The manufacturer, of course, wants to us all
to buy new stuff and so it's hard to find old info on
skis.

[MoonMan]

Two observations

1) the basic mode is too simplistic and just gives a long list of skis (and
a far too high length range in my opinion)

2) The details in the advanced mode just apear to consist of manufacturers
advertisising blurb, it would probably be better to specify for example core
material (wood, foam, honeycomb or whatever) and possbly Construction type
(though I think most skis ar monocoque now).

Chris

[Bill Tuthill]

Cool, or cO0L! as the genXers say.

Everybody else likes to complain, so I will too.
I wish it could find "all skis that are red".

Perhaps the wizard could further differentiate between
"mostly groomers sometimes off-piste" and "mostly off-piste".
Or maybe that distinction is total BS.

[mark]

VTSkier thanks for your reply.

1) Yes the manufacture descriptions are all from the manuf right now.
We are considering allowing people to add comments. Ya, regarding the
'one ski' this is where a review and 'Spadout Choice' would eventually
play in. It is hard to say one ski can do it all though with
everything from frontsider carvers, big mountain to freestyle in the
market.

2) Thats a great idea. We will store the data and mark it as older
models so the data won't expire for a few years. Though at the same
time we went to set it up so people can only sort by only current
models.

Thanks for the reply and keep the feedback coming.

[mark]

Thanks for the reply Moonman.

1) Keep in mind that the average person that buys skis literally does
not know what a frontside carver, all mountain etc. is. We tried to
develop a system that a complete new skier could appreciate and learn
from. I do believe though that the list is way to long. Narrowing it
is tuff though. Any tips?

2) Most skis have core, construction and technology information. Which
ski were you looking at?

Thanks!

[VtSkier]

mark wrote:
> VTSkier thanks for your reply.
>
> 1) Yes the manufacture descriptions are all from the manuf right now.
> We are considering allowing people to add comments. Ya, regarding the
> 'one ski' this is where a review and 'Spadout Choice' would eventually
> play in. It is hard to say one ski can do it all though with
> everything from frontsider carvers, big mountain to freestyle in the
> market.

Skiing mag or was it "Powder", I forget, I get both of them,
suggested a category of skis that do "most" things quite well
and then went on to tell which ones did what better.

> 2) Thats a great idea. We will store the data and mark it as older
> models so the data won't expire for a few years. Though at the same
> time we went to set it up so people can only sort by only current
> models.

Thanks, this is a quandry I have come up against. I see a pair of
skis for sale at some point and I know it's several years old,
but it's hardly used. What was it made for? Since I no longer
work in a ski shop I don't keep up with models and therefore
have no clue what a ski is for if there isn't a description
somewhere.

> Thanks for the reply and keep the feedback coming.

You're welcome. BTW could you give a pronunciation for your
name? As a typical English speaker, I'd pronounce exactly
as spelled: "Spad-out". But it might be French, then:
"Spa-doo" with the emphasis on the second sylable. I'm
not being a wise-ass here, I'd just like to know. Thanks.

[mark]

Thanks for the reply VtSkier. It stands for SPort ADventure OUTdoors.
The name is pronounced spad-out (though the 'ad' is pronounced like
'add' or 'adventure').

[NickB...@gmail.com]

The tool looks quite useful. If you could sort the results - say by
price, or otherwise, it would improve the functionality.

Cheers,

Nick

[mark]

Interesting that you mention that Nick. I am actually working on the
sorting feature as we speak. The sorting feature is actually more
difficult then most would guess (complex database structure). Price
and Name is easy. Making it sortable by radii, length etc. (anything
size related) is much more difficult. It will work but will take a few
days.

[Richard Henry]

mark wrote:
> Interesting that you mention that Nick. I am actually working on the
> sorting feature as we speak. The sorting feature is actually more
> difficult then most would guess (complex database structure). Price
> and Name is easy. Making it sortable by radii, length etc. (anything
> size related) is much more difficult. It will work but will take a few
> days.

When I got my CS degree, I learned that it was easy to sort on
numerical values.

Do you have the numbers stored as character strings, so that
"thirty-two" is greater than "forty-five"?

Is it a big-endian vs. little-endian thing?

The world wonders.

[mark]

The data is stored numerically. It is really not that hard (one hour
pain that I will get around too ... the website to-do list is hundreds
of items long). The pain is that it is stored in sizes and we are
comparing it by ski. Therefore to order by ski radii (which is unique
to every size), an average must be determined before sorting.
Therefore it is a game of linking 3 tables together, computing averages
and then sorting based on these averages. Name and price are static
for all sizes so no averages need to be calculated.

Thanks for all the tips so far.