ChangeDetection.com

[Midon]

I just stumbled on this interesting service ChangeDetection.com which will notify you via email if the text contents of a web page changes. Is anyone using this service? Is it reliable, safe, etc.?

Mitch

http://www.midondesign.com

[Rupp]

A friend of mine tried it and started getting so much spam that he had to changes email address. They do say they do not sell email addresses but they do SHARE them with the sites you monitor and I wonder if they sell them? I think it's just another clever way of getting valid email addresses. If you have a junk email address then it may be worth a shot.

-Rupp
Isn't Disney World a people trap operated by a mouse?

[Jim Doolittle]

Why not write a script that checks for the change. First, use hs.getURl to retrieve text and use FileSystemObject to store it in a text file. Then, use hs.getURL to periodically retrieve text and compare it to the text stored on disk. Should work fine for monitoring a few sites.

You could use the old DOS command "fc" to compare. The program is still distributed even with Win2K/WinXP.

Here is fc's help screen:
<pre class="ip-ubbcode-code-pre">
FC [/A] [/C] [/L] [/LBn] [/N] [/OFF[LINE]] [/T] [/U] [/W] [/nnnn]
[drive1:][path1]filename1 [drive2:][path2]filename2
FC /B [drive1:][path1]filename1 [drive2:][path2]filename2
/A Displays only first and last lines for each set of differences.
/B Performs a binary comparison.
/C Disregards the case of letters.
/L Compares files as ASCII text.
/LBn Sets the maximum consecutive mismatches to the specified
number of lines.
/N Displays the line numbers on an ASCII comparison.
/OFF[LINE] Do not skip files with offline attribute set.
/T Does not expand tabs to spaces.
/U Compare files as UNICODE text files.
/W Compresses white space (tabs and spaces) for comparison.
/nnnn Specifies the number of consecutive lines that must match
after a mismatch.
[drive1:][path1]filename1
Specifies the first file or set of files to compare.
[drive2:][path2]filename2
Specifies the second file or set of files to compare.
</pre>

Mitch, I am now feverishly working on DooTEMP08.

Jim Doolittle

[Midon]

I was actually trying to see if I should use this for my news page on the Midon web site for any users wanting to keep up to date. I've got a trial in process with them - I'll let you know how much spam it generates.

Jim: I am waiting patiently!

Mitch

http://www.midondesign.com

[djanse]

I use the product. I can't really say whether or not it generates spam for me, but it does provide me with updates on sites that I don't normally check on a regular basis. It normally runs about 24 hours behind. I know this because I monitor my home page as well as others.

Peace,

Dave

[Michael McSharry]

Detection of a change in a web site is one of the basic capabilities of WebAgent which is available via the updater.