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And for this reason I wrote myself a script to wget the Macbook pro 15" refurb page, and parse it for: Price, manufacture year, and matte screen option. If it m
by JL2010 14y ago
And for this reason I wrote myself a script to wget the Macbook pro 15" refurb page, and parse it for: Price, manufacture year, and matte screen option. If it matched my criteria 3/3, then it would email me.
One morning I got that email and I no longer had an excuse :D
- mootothemax 14y agoAnd for this reason I wrote myself a script to wget the Macbook pro 15" refurb page, and parse it for: Price, manufacture year, and matte screen option. If it matched my criteria 3/3, then it would email me. I like what you did there, great stuff! I do wonder how many personal bots are out there, scraping sites for individuals' own gain like this. I remember a good few years ago, getting frustrated at having to wait six weeks for a driving test. I wrote a little script that ran every half hour, logged into the DVLA's site (in the UK), entered my details, and looked for recent cancellations. If it found one, it sent me the details, and I'd madly scrabble together to try and book the slot. After I failed my first test, it was even more useful :)
- specto 14y agoI know I do it all of the time. Often I connect it to a twitter bot as well so others can use the information. Using python with tweepy and twill makes it very easy. Once I set up a script I just run it in cron every 15-30 min and forget about it.
- Splines 14y agoI've done this too, scraping a doctor's site with flu shot information back when we had a flu scare a few years ago - my wife was worried about missing the notification for our daughter, so I whipped up something to ping me when more shots became available.
- sliverstorm 14y agoI used to use Yahoo! Pipes to scrape every major craigslist location in California when I was on the hunt for a certain model of car or motorcycle. I wasn't the only one, either, because eventually the RSS service started getting shut down every month when some arbitrary RSS bandwidth number had been exceeded. It was beautiful, transitioning from sifting through CL by hand, to having carefully filtered ads delivered to my inbox within an hour of being posted.
- pkamb 14y agoI use IFTTT.com to do the same thing on CL.
- bbrian 14y agoI've used Yahoo! Pipes and Boxcar.io iPhone app similarly to parse RSS feeds to find a fridge-freezer on Freecycle and a good apartment.