Woot Alert?

[stevea]

I would think that as nerdy as we all are, I am not the only one who likes to see what is up at WOOT (http://www.woot.com). I was wondering if anyone had looked at creating a Woot Alert similar to the CNN breaking news. I could see a pop-up message on my BetaBrite when something good was in a Woot Off. If we made it really cool, you could configure it with some number of keywords for either things you were interested in or specifically not interested in. Of course announcing things over the whole-house audio could be a bit much (not good for WAF), but that could be configurable too.

I would guess I could hack something together, but... Any of you "pros" want to take it on? Does anyone else even think it would be worthwhile?

Steve

[jon00]

I see that Woot has a RSS feed so would be relatively easy.

I've not tried it but if you load this into my RSS package and set it to display 1 item (title) only, the item for today should automatically be available in a virtual device.

[drozwood90]

Jon,

What's your webpage again? I can't seem to locate a link to it.

--Dan

[jon00]

Dan,

Have a look at the bottom right-hand side of my banner

[anogee]

Of course announcing things over the whole-house audio could be a bit much (not good for WAF), but that could be configurable too.

Especially since new items go on sale at midnight.

[jon00]

Ok,

I have something nearly done - a bit of tidying up to do!

[jon00]

OK, this is my first stab at this. See what you think.

May need dressing up a bit but run out of time for today.

Edit. You can now download this script on my site - click on my banner below.

[DeLicious]

today's woot-off would be a good test :-)

i'll try it this evening when i get home.

[jon00]

Don't get too excited...being in the UK, I've never seen this site before until today, never mind a woot-off!

Currently, all it does is to read the title of the item currently being displayed and allow you to announce/update a virtual device/trigger another script (with the item title/description passed to the script) with each change of item on sale.

Each time a new item appears, it can be checked against a list of keywords. A match can either trigger or not trigger depending on the settings. You can ignore the list completely if you wish.

It will probably need some more work doing to the script.

[DeLicious]

Hi Jon

Everything looks okay so far. I have the script installed, and the virtual device is showing up on my status page. I didn't have the speaker client started when I first ran the script, and the item hasn't changed, so I haven't had a chance to hear the announcement.

One enhancement that I would ask for would be a standard feature on W00t! desktop widgets that check the items, and that is to have configurable the time between checks to be different for a normal W00t! (one per day, typically a 5 or 10 minute period between checks) and for a W00t!-off (typically 30 seconds between checks). I know this will probably be difficult since the recurrence is set by the event rather than by the script, but I thought I'd mention it anyways.

I have my recurring event set at 5 minutes for now. I'll probably modify the script to make the announcements over my audreys as well. I'll let you know if I have any problems over the course of the W00t!-off tonight.

thanks for doing this!
Adam

[stevea]

OK, this is my first stab at this. See what you think.

Wow! I type in a suggestion for something new before I go to work, and by the time I get home from work Jon's done it. I wish I had that kind of productivity in my programmers at work!

Thanks for doing this Jon. I'll give it a try.

Steve

[jon00]

Guys,

Good stuff...I'll wait for a little more feedback before making any changes.

I'm still not too sure what happens during a Woot-off. I think I was experiencing it when writing the script yesterday as the items kept changing!

BTW - Writing the script is easy. It's all the fluff that goes with it (documentation, icons etc) that takes the time!

[drozwood90]

At woot, they sell one thing a day, and only for that day, for a REALLY good price. it keeps thier overhead WAAAAY down. This is even if it sells out. Then it's just on there as sold out for the rest of the day.

During a woot-off, they sell a bunch of stuff, one after another. Generally one and hour, depending on how fast they sell out (limited quantity stuff).

I've also been using http://www.wootaholics.com/ during a woot-off, as it refreshes ever 90 seconds or so.

However, this script I think will be great at home, during normal things as I can push the information to my quick-information page on my Audrey, to view when I wake up.

--Dan

[drozwood90]

Dan,

Have a look at the bottom right-hand side of my banner

Yes, that was what I was looking for. When I posted that there was "" in your signature.

Thanks!

--Dan

[stevea]

BTW - Writing the script is easy. It's all the fluff that goes with it (documentation, icons etc) that takes the time!

Jon,

It's the "fluff" that often gets completely ignored by people who produce things to work with Homeseer, yet I think it is the most important. It is far less "sexy" and fun than just writing the script / asp pages. Anyway, I really appreciate the quality of the package you put together in the nine or so hours that I wasn't looking (and no kidding - I am amazed!).

I installed it and ran it manually a couple of times. I like the concepts you've used: Filling in the device string with the description and image from the item description. I haven't tried setting up some key words and some events to alert me. Still trying to figure out the right amount of alert to do and not impact my WAF (since the wife and kids have no appreciation for WOOT at all). Still, since I asked for this I feel an obligation to exercise it to its fullest potential.

Steve