Greetings Bob,
>I've been using NetMind (www.netmind.com, probably) to monitor various
>web sites for changes. When it sees a page change, it sends me mail.
>
>I would like to stop using NetMind, and start doing the same thing on
>my own local machine. I could put a couple of perl scripts together
>in a few hours, but I'm lazy. Anybody know of an existing Linux
>program that will do that for me? Preferably one that's easy to
>set up.
I suppose it all depends on how many sites you want to monitor. Here is a
script I clipped out of a newsgroup posting.
NOTE: I have not used this so I don't know how well it works.
*** Begin Include ***
For the unix-shell endowed of you, here's a "stupid shell trick"
that saves me /hours/ per week in checking my favourite sites...
And the best things about it? It uses a fraction of the bandwidth
over eyeballing the pages with a GUI browser, and there's no lame
shareware fee. (It's so basic I'll make it Public Domain.)
The script requires bash, lynx, and gzip. The first time you add a
new site to the checklist it'll spew the whole page at you once (the
difference between 0 and non-zero is..) It also has problems with
some machine- generated pages (i.e. slashdot.org), and places that
modify pages on the fly like Geocites. (But Yvie is such a fine
artist, pressing space each time it checks her page doesn't bother
me...)
You are of course expected to put your own favourite sites in the
checklist. Be careful to not have any trailing spaces after the "\",
or bash won't pick up the line continuation.
--
Chris Baird,, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
-------- 8< -------- cut here -------- 8< --------
#!/bin/bash
# dcheck -- a simple check for web site for changes.
# --
# Requires bash, lynx, and gzip; and doesn't doo too well with some sites
# where the pages are machine-generated (i.e. Slashdot).
# --
# Chris Baird,, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
# Placed in the public domain December 1999.
# storage area for compressed pages; anywhere but /tmp (which is cleaned out
# every reboot)
#
D=~/.D
# make certain that there's a "\" on all but the very last line...
#
for a in \
"http://www.netbsd.org" \
"http://www.debian.org" \
"http://daily.daemonnews.org" \
"http://www.gnu.org/server/whatsnew.html" \
"http://www.fantod.com/" \
"http://www.teamartail.com/" \
"http://kedziek.simplenet.com/art/fan/"
do
b=`echo $a | sed -e 's/\//_/g'`
gzip -d $D/${b}.gz
echo $a
lynx -reload -dump -source $a >$D/$b.new
diff -b -U1 $D/$b $D/$b.new|grep ^+ |more
mv -f $D/$b.new $D/$b
gzip -5 $D/${b}
echo
done
-------- 8< -------- cut here -------- 8< --------
*** End Include ***
/\-/\ Dean Ridgway | Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
( - - ) InterNet [EMAIL PROTECTED] | I took the one less traveled by,
=\_v_/= FidoNet 1:357/1.103 | And that has made all the difference.
CIS 73225,512 | "The Road Not Taken" - Robert Frost.
http://www.peak.org/~ridgwad/
PGP mail encouraged, finger for key: 28C577F3 2A5655AFD792B0FB 9BA31E6AB4683126
