What are scripts and how do they work?

 

I like many of us are looking ways to score deals which are only available for minutes.

Please, pleaaaaaaaaaaase guys, talk about your scripts here and no more in threads dedicated to sets !

Edited October 30, 201411 yr by biniou

Either you can learn code, or there are sites out there that can help you. Some of the sites like NowInStock very slow to update however and aren't really going to help you in this case.

share, guys.

share.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scripting_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scripting_language

not necessary those.

 

I actually use purely java ...

 

I know, not the best choice.

not necessary those.

 

I actually use purely java ...

 

I know, not the best choice.

I use Google Script from Google Spreadsheets (ImportXML) - that's even worse than Java...  Jeez, I need to learn Python...  that's gotta be like 5 lines of code in Python

To keep to the Big Picture there are essentially two types of "updates" if you will that will notify you of product availability.

 

The first and the easiest are websites that monitor for you. Like NowInStock, ChangeDetection etc. While these are effective in notifying you of changes made to websites they are for the most part too slow to notify you in enough time for you to grab that "at the moment" deal. (Deals that have limited stock and invole EOL items)

In addition to websites that monitor there are browser specific add ons or extensions that can notify you of changes to websites. These involve a little more research and reading up on basic code to use. This method requires you to be in front of your computer b/c the notifiers are on your screen)

 

The second type is much more involved where a level of code programming is required. This is where the term script comes from.

Those that use this method are writing code to notify them of specific changes made to websites. These scripts or lines of code are usually sited on a Linux server.

not necessary those.

 

I actually use purely java ...

 

I know, not the best choice.

 

My friends use mostly java too and some perl.  I told them to keep it to themselves, because I'd spend too much.

 

There are app servers and run-time environments that run on Windows as well, but usually not free.  My friends just use a hosting company where they can get a Linux VM environment for very little cost per month and host scripts/apps there.

not necessary those.

 

I actually use purely java ...

 

I know, not the best choice.

 

If you like using Java, you would love Groovy.

I started reading that wiki and my brain started to hurt.

I would encourage people to share their works and help each other.

 

If you have programming skills and you did build something, give others a link or add someone else on your email list.

 

This is just like Ed knowing some sets going retired and he hints about it.

I started reading that wiki and my brain started to hurt.

don't need to be.

 

I started with no knowledge at all. And as I go, I find it is a fascinating world for all the computer science stuff.

I built a website for my personal fun that was initially created to find pricing mistakes. I obtained a Product Advertising API from amazon to ping their servers for pricing and in/out of stock information. This runs as a series of php cron scripts on a server and pushes its data to a SQL DB. It took a few weeks of free time to set up.

My entered over 500 Lego sets to monitor and it does the job quite well of listing deals including lists of the present warehouse deals. But it was a lot of work and I would only recommend it to folks who have web development experience.

Again, this was just a personal exercise and I don't plan to expand on it much since it takes a lot of effort. If I make any changes to it, it would be to make some sets have a super-high query rate for the hard-to-finds with email notification. If anyone is interested in it, you can PM me, but other than the amazon warehouse deal list, it doesn't really give you anymore info than some of the other sites including BP.

I haven't actually used it much myself because the pricing errors haven't been as productive as finding hard-to-find sets. And on those, I've just been using the Chrome Page Monitor with Regex expressions on specific HTML tags or page text. I have to be in front of the computer, but since I work a desk job, that's not a problem for 8 hours a day. This has been, by far, the most useful for catching stuff and it didn't require much work at all.

It would be nice to be notified when I'm not at the computer, but most of the time you guys would ****** it up before I could pull it up on my phone anyways :)

Ha! Apparently a word that rhymes with latch and starts with Sn is unconditionally in the naughty word list here. I expect the use of this word on this website is most likely an anagram of "grab" as opposed to the derogatory name.

I built a website for my personal fun that was initially created to find pricing mistakes. I obtained a Product Advertising API from amazon to ping their servers for pricing and in/out of stock information. This runs as a series of php cron scripts on a server and pushes its data to a SQL DB. It took a few weeks of free time to set up.

My entered over 500 Lego sets to monitor and it does the job quite well of listing deals including lists of the present warehouse deals. But it was a lot of work and I would only recommend it to folks who have web development experience.

Again, this was just a personal exercise and I don't plan to expand on it much since it takes a lot of effort. If I make any changes to it, it would be to make some sets have a super-high query rate for the hard-to-finds with email notification. If anyone is interested in it, you can PM me, but other than the amazon warehouse deal list, it doesn't really give you anymore info than some of the other sites including BP.

I haven't actually used it much myself because the pricing errors haven't been as productive as finding hard-to-find sets. And on those, I've just been using the Chrome Page Monitor with Regex expressions on specific HTML tags or page text. I have to be in front of the computer, but since I work a desk job, that's not a problem for 8 hours a day. This has been, by far, the most useful for catching stuff and it didn't require much work at all.

It would be nice to be notified when I'm not at the computer, but most of the time you guys would ****** it up before I could pull it up on my phone anyways

their regex is a bit weird... or i am not proficient enough in regex...

I suck at coding and decided it was not a skill I wanted to spend the necessary time mastering  

On the other hand I do not suck at paying other people to do work for me.

 

The out of the box sites and monitors all frustrated me for one reason or another so I had a custom one built.

Still in its infancy but I wanted email and SMS alerts as well as the flexibility to host with multiple IP's and/or proxies to avoid the amazon site bans.

 

It is not advanced.  Advanced would be if it auto-buys the items when it sees they are in stock.. 

their regex is a bit weird... or i am not proficient enough in regex...

 

I agree. There are many flavors out there, wish they would have went with something a little more standard because I couldn't easily figure theirs out. Or I could just be an idiot.

yes the regex is a strange language but there are simple anchors that can be used once you determine what you want monitored

Ha! Apparently a word that rhymes with latch and starts with Sn is unconditionally in the naughty word list here. I expect the use of this word on this website is most likely an anagram of "grab" as opposed to the derogatory name.

 

In your experience does the api monitor catch changes faster or slower then the amazon site itself?

yes the regex is a strange language but there are simple anchors that can be used once you determine what you want monitored

I meant their regex interpreter is a bit different from usual ones. not clear why. So, in addition to complexity of the regex itself, you have these dialects...  

 

BTW, anyone ran into issues with Amazon anti-bot measures when using Page monitor?

I meant their regex interpreter is a bit different from usual ones. not clear why. So, in addition to complexity of the regex itself, you have these dialects...  

 

BTW, anyone ran into issues with Amazon anti-bot measures when using Page monitor?

 

Frequently.  I'm betting the api method may circumvent that limit.  Not sure though.

I meant their regex interpreter is a bit different from usual ones. not clear why. So, in addition to complexity of the regex itself, you have these dialects...  

 

BTW, anyone ran into issues with Amazon anti-bot measures when using Page monitor?

 

Yes. Intermittent. 

yes. today is the first I've seen it.

i use the notifier in chrome, but Firefox with preloaded BP linked page for purchases.

Frequently.  I'm betting the api method may circumvent that limit.  Not sure though.

well, amazon does have a limit on a rate of API calls, so maybe a little botnet with separate API accounts would be in order...