ZZTools

Here is a simple script to monitor the Woot site, when a 'Woot-Off' is underway. The script can easily be customized to perform a similar function for any desired site. I use it under Cygwin on Windows, and when the Woot site is updated, a 'bell' is sounded, so that if I'm by this machine, I can take a look to see if the new item is the elusive 'bag of crap'! (So far no success - you need to be fast or lucky).

The script waits 30 seconds + a random number of seconds between 0 and 60 prior to its visits to the Woot site. The sound creation step is customized for Cygwin, if you are on Linux or a Mac, just use:

echo -en "\007"

(or something similar).

#!/bin/sh

while true
do
  wget -O - "http://www.woot.com/" | \
    grep "meta property=\"og:title\" content=" \
    > tmp.txt
  diff tmp.txt tmpold.txt > /dev/null
  ret=$?
  if [  $ret -eq 0 ]
  then
    echo "NO CHANGES"
    echo "Current item"
    cat tmp.txt
  else
    echo "CHANGES!"
    cat `cygpath -W`/Media/ding.wav > /dev/dsp
    cp tmp.txt tmpold.txt
  fi
  SLEEP=`awk 'BEGIN{srand(); print int(rand()*60+30)}'`
  echo "Sleeping for " $SLEEP " seconds"
  sleep $SLEEP
done