How do you ...

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Sharon Mehl

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Apr 14, 2012, 11:03:46 PM4/14/12
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I remember several years back there was a way to track a web page to get notified if someone modifies it ... and I'm sure things have changed since then ... I need to monitor a web page for ANY changes and be notified IMMEDIATELY when it happens either via e-mail or text ...

What do you recommend?

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Thanks so much!

Sharon

Luis E. Rodriguez

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Apr 14, 2012, 11:14:26 PM4/14/12
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See if they have an RSS feed available first, then there are many options.

Luis E. Rodriguez
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Bob Brown - WØNQX

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Apr 14, 2012, 11:36:32 PM4/14/12
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http://www.watchthatpage.com/



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Sharon Mehl

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Apr 15, 2012, 4:32:00 PM4/15/12
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Thank you ... I will try that ... we are one of over 700 families that adopted pets (granted some were cats) from 3 shelters in one weekend ... there is a waiting list for the trainer we want to use ... so I wanted to monitor his page and find out exactly when they start a new sign-up ... since they only accept I think it is 6 pets at a time ... this could take awhile before we get signed up if I don't get help watching a page ... so thank you Bob!!

Luis I didn't see any RSS feed links on the page ... I really haven't done much with the RSS feeds except on blog pages a couple of years ago ...

Thanks!
Sharon

Sharon Mehl

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Apr 15, 2012, 4:46:45 PM4/15/12
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Looks like it will only check once a day for page changes?  

Sharon

Luis E. Rodriguez

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Apr 15, 2012, 9:07:47 PM4/15/12
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You don't have a rolled up newspaper!? :)

Luis E. Rodriguez

Sharon Mehl

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Apr 15, 2012, 9:15:38 PM4/15/12
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This is a puppy dog that needs a LOT of training and discipline ... reminds me of 2 teens that reside here ... so hoping to get all 3 of them into obedience class ... so gotta find out the minute that class opens up and get them all in.    Boys don't want anything to do with a rolled up newspaper ... they think I'm trying to make them read ... 

Just hoping to find out when they update that page ... and occasionally I find a few other pages that I like immediate updates to ...

Sharon
338.gif

Chris G.

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Apr 23, 2012, 5:25:17 PM4/23/12
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Training tip: Withhold food. Get right up in its face with your finger, wave it a lot, yell loudly, and repeated beatings with a leather belt will do the trick.
 
As for the puppy, lots of cuddling and treats.
 
CG

Sharon Mehl

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Apr 23, 2012, 6:19:02 PM4/23/12
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LOL  you had me going there for a minute ... LOL

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Billy Crook

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Apr 23, 2012, 8:28:41 PM4/23/12
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while sleep 300; do newhash=$( curl http://your.page/index.html | md5sum ); if [[ ${newhash} != ${oldhash} ]]; then mail -s "page change detected" y...@yourmailprovider.com <<<"page has changed" ; fi; oldhash=$newhash; done

Bob Campbell

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Apr 24, 2012, 9:29:31 AM4/24/12
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Billy, is that a bash script?

On Apr 23, 7:28 pm, Billy Crook <billycr...@gmail.com> wrote:
> while sleep 300; do newhash=$( curlhttp://your.page/index.html| md5sum );
> if [[ ${newhash} != ${oldhash} ]]; then mail -s "page change detected"
> y...@yourmailprovider.com <<<"page has changed" ; fi; oldhash=$newhash; done
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 17:19, Sharon Mehl <sharonkaym...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > LOL  you had me going there for a minute ... LOL
>
> > On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Chris G. <ch...@chrisgannon.com> wrote:
>
> >> Training tip: Withhold food. Get right up in its face with your finger,
> >> wave it a lot, yell loudly, and repeated beatings with a leather belt will
> >> do the trick.
>
> >> As for the puppy, lots of cuddling and treats.
>
> >> CG
>
> >> On Sunday, April 15, 2012 8:15:38 PM UTC-5, Sharon wrote:
>
> >>> This is a puppy dog that needs a LOT of training and discipline ...
> >>> reminds me of 2 teens that reside here ... so hoping to get all 3 of them
> >>> into obedience class ... so gotta find out the minute that class opens up
> >>> and get them all in.    Boys don't want anything to do with a rolled up

ax0n

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Apr 24, 2012, 9:35:36 AM4/24/12
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Technically, it should work in any korn or bourne derived shell (including bash) so long as you have curl and md5sum installed and your mail configuration isn't borked.

Billy Crook

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Apr 24, 2012, 10:05:28 AM4/24/12
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On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 08:29, Bob Campbell <most...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Billy, is that a bash script?

Yes. Sometimes I start writing, and BASH comes out instead of
English. I'd call it a oneliner however, not a script. It does
exactly what Sharon asked.

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 08:35, ax0n <perm...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Technically, it should work in any korn or bourne derived shell (including
> bash) so long as you have curl and md5sum installed and your mail
> configuration isn't borked.

There is but one true shell, and its name is BASH.

Luis E. Rodriguez

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Apr 24, 2012, 10:08:08 AM4/24/12
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Serious question, as a window user, where does Sharon copy and paste
that to? She can't right?

Luis E. Rodriguez

Philip Dorr

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Apr 24, 2012, 10:11:09 AM4/24/12
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cygwin

Billy Crook

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Apr 24, 2012, 10:24:14 AM4/24/12
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On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 09:08, Luis E. Rodriguez
<lrodrig...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Serious question, as a window user, where does Sharon copy and paste
> that to? She can't right?

Serious answer. Sharon is not a windows user. She is a human person.
All people have the license, at no cost, to use GNU software.

She can paste it into her BASH shell, on her GNU/Linux computer. I
guess there's a reason to keep those around then huh?

If she chooses to abstain from software freedom, she chooses to remain
unable to do simple things like that on her own computer.

ax0n

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Apr 24, 2012, 10:25:58 AM4/24/12
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Cygwin might work. She could also spool up a linode instance and paste it there. or learn how to run it from cron without the sleep 300 stuff. Getting one's feet wet in the UNIX shell is actually pretty easy. You never stop learning, though. I've been using some form of UNIX for more than 20 years now, and people like Billy and Andy Beals still teach me new tricks on occasion.

James Costello

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Apr 24, 2012, 10:30:30 AM4/24/12
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If only there were some.way to run another operating system on your computer at.the same time as your main OS.
You know "virtually"
(throws up the finger quotes)
</dr evil>

Billy Crook

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Apr 24, 2012, 11:18:12 AM4/24/12
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On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 09:30, James Costello <genes...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If only there were some.way to run another operating system on your computer

Linux' Virt Manager is gratis and libre, and it supports even
proprietary non-libre guest operating systems, like Microsoft Windows,
if there was a perceived need for such a thing.

Hal

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Apr 24, 2012, 11:25:01 AM4/24/12
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lol

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ax0n

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Apr 24, 2012, 1:54:33 PM4/24/12
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Sharon:

Start -> powershell

at the PS prompt, type:
set-executionpolicy unrestricted

Close the powershell window.

Download the attached file I included with this post. Save it somewhere convenient. 

Open the folder you saved this script in. Right-click it. Select "Edit"

Change the URL, your gmail account name, password and desired frequency to check the site. Save it.  Close the editor.

Right click the script again, and select "Run in PowerShell"

It will leave a window on your screen. You can minimize it. It will notify you via email (and with a status update in the command window) when the page changes in any way. 

This was quick and extremely dirty. Therefore, there are some caveats:
* Two randomly-named files are created in C:\Temp every time you run this script. Those files will remain in use for the entire duration of the window being open, but they will persist once you close the window.  You can delete them if you want when you're done.

* This script was designed specifically with gmail in mind, so if you need it to send to a yahoo or other ISP account, it will need some non-trivial tweaks. 

* Since gmail requires authentication, you will have to store some password in plain text in this script. That's not always highly recommended, but it is what it is, so safeguard the computer this runs on appropriately. 

* If you have GMail two-factor authentication, you'll need to set an "application-specific password" up and put that in this script instead of your primary GMail password.

Enjoy, and behold the wonder of powershell. It's markedly less graceful than a linux one-liner, but it should work.
urlcheck.ps1

Hal Gottfried

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Apr 24, 2012, 4:27:05 PM4/24/12
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Nice code Noah.

There are also a couple of extensions created for Chrome that do this too:


Or some free services


Or you can use the VB (
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rkhehnm53p6rd6p/bQApZ4_hm8 since I couldn't share it on the email)
  • The code uses the free Persits.MailSender object, which must be present on the machine running the script. It can be downloaded at www.aspemail.com(you don't have to install the full package, you can just manually extract the files from the installer and register AspEmail.dll with regsvr32.exe).
  • Remember to replace "smtp.yourisp.com" and "ale...@yourdomain.com" with the correct hostname for your SMTP server and the correct email addresses.

Andrew Beals

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Apr 24, 2012, 5:32:13 PM4/24/12
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Undo that new-fangled excess syntax and you have a /bin/sh script.

while sleep 300; do newhash=`curl http://your.page/index.html| md5sum `; test X${newhash} != X${oldhash} && (echo page has changed|mail -s "page change detected" y...@yourmailprovider.com ); oldhash=$newhash; done

Voila!


On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 8:29 AM, Bob Campbell <most...@gmail.com> wrote:

Sharon Mehl

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Apr 26, 2012, 5:24:22 PM4/26/12
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Do you all have any idea how far over my head all that was??  I had to call Scott (my 23yo) in to decipher it into English for me.    He actually did a really good job of it too.

...so it sounds like to me (I came up with this on my own) ... that if I power down my computer, it does not check the page again until I power up again?  Is this right?   

If my laptop is powered up on battery, and connected wirelessly to the internet ... would this script be using the battery up a bit faster if it were doing this work in the background???  Would I have to have Chrome or Firefox running on the computer at all times?

I take my laptop with me a lot ... here and there ... on the road ... so would I need to maintain a constant internet connection (and power) in order to receive notification in a timely manner?  IOW if my laptop was in the van powered down, I wouldn't get an e-mail notifying me to get online and get to the page ... right?  ...so I would need to dedicate say my netbook to being online all the time in order to monitor pages in real time and be notified immediately?  This isn't life critical ... I'm just thinking of future uses ... 

I remember a few years/several years back there was a web page/company (at no charge) that had this type of service ... you typed in the URLs and how often you wanted it checked ... and it e-mailed you when the pages would change.  Is there anything like that now...not sure what it would be called in order to google it.

Careful ... don't blow my mind with your responses ... talk real sloooooowww and maybe I'll catch on.    I DO DO DO appreciate all the help everyone gives here!!!

Yay it's Thursday!

Sharon
Thanks so much!

Sharon

330.gif
33B.png

Luis E. Rodriguez

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Apr 26, 2012, 5:33:55 PM4/26/12
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Maybe an app exists or something could setup to alert your phone?

Luis E. Rodriguez

On Apr 26, 2012, at 4:24 PM, Sharon Mehl <sharon...@gmail.com> wrote:

Do you all have any idea how far over my head all that was??  I had to call Scott (my 23yo) in to decipher it into English for me.  <330.gif>  He actually did a really good job of it too.

...so it sounds like to me (I came up with this on my own) ... that if I power down my computer, it does not check the page again until I power up again?  Is this right?   

If my laptop is powered up on battery, and connected wirelessly to the internet ... would this script be using the battery up a bit faster if it were doing this work in the background???  Would I have to have Chrome or Firefox running on the computer at all times?

I take my laptop with me a lot ... here and there ... on the road ... so would I need to maintain a constant internet connection (and power) in order to receive notification in a timely manner?  IOW if my laptop was in the van powered down, I wouldn't get an e-mail notifying me to get online and get to the page ... right?  ...so I would need to dedicate say my netbook to being online all the time in order to monitor pages in real time and be notified immediately?  This isn't life critical ... I'm just thinking of future uses ... 

I remember a few years/several years back there was a web page/company (at no charge) that had this type of service ... you typed in the URLs and how often you wanted it checked ... and it e-mailed you when the pages would change.  Is there anything like that now...not sure what it would be called in order to google it.

Careful ... don't blow my mind with your responses ... talk real sloooooowww and maybe I'll catch on.  <33B.png>  I DO DO DO appreciate all the help everyone gives here!!!

Sharon Mehl

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Apr 26, 2012, 8:48:06 PM4/26/12
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I love apps ... point me to one!  

Sharon
B0C.gif

Hal Gottfried

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Apr 26, 2012, 9:58:06 PM4/26/12
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When I first read that, I saw wife sleep and old hash.

On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 4:32 PM, Andrew Beals <andrew...@gmail.com> wrote:

ax0n

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Apr 27, 2012, 9:39:50 AM4/27/12
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On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 4:24 PM, Sharon Mehl <sharon...@gmail.com> wrote:
Do you all have any idea how far over my head all that was??  I had to call Scott (my 23yo) in to decipher it into English for me.    He actually did a really good job of it too.

...so it sounds like to me (I came up with this on my own) ... that if I power down my computer, it does not check the page again until I power up again?  Is this right?   

Correct. Computer off = no worky. 

If my laptop is powered up on battery, and connected wirelessly to the internet ... would this script be using the battery up a bit faster if it were doing this work in the background???  Would I have to have Chrome or Firefox running on the computer at all times?

It would need to be powered on and connected to the internet in order to work. This script sleeps most of the time (literally, sleeps!) and wouldn't cause any noteworthy increase in battery drain.  It uses a built-in web browser to pull the page contents down behind the scenes, so you can close all your browser windows, or leave them all open. This won't have any impact.

I take my laptop with me a lot ... here and there ... on the road ... so would I need to maintain a constant internet connection (and power) in order to receive notification in a timely manner?  IOW if my laptop was in the van powered down, I wouldn't get an e-mail notifying me to get online and get to the page ... right?  ...so I would need to dedicate say my netbook to being online all the time in order to monitor pages in real time and be notified immediately?  This isn't life critical ... I'm just thinkin of future uses ... 

This script was meant to run on a desktop computer that's running all the time and always connected. if you don't have one of those, then you'll be out of luck. It will still run if your system is locked, as long as you leave the script window open (it can be minimized, but it has to stay running) 
330.gif

James Costello

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Apr 27, 2012, 9:42:24 AM4/27/12
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Your windows home server should be able to run this script as well.

330.gif

Sharon Mehl

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Apr 27, 2012, 10:44:05 PM4/27/12
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Oh that is a good idea James ... I hadn't thought of running it on the server!   Thanks for the suggestion ... and thanks Noah for the explanation ...

Sharon
330.gif

Andrew Scott Beals

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Apr 28, 2012, 8:12:14 AM4/28/12
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GET OUT OF MY BRAIN!!!!

Hal

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Apr 28, 2012, 10:13:41 AM4/28/12
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lpl.



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