WWC - Find out, Which Websites Changed

ABSTRACT:

I have a number of bookmarks, that I check for changes on a regular basis. Most of these websites do not change too often, so I spend too much time looking for changes where there are none. Therefor I designed this tool, "Which Website Changed" that looks for changes in a list of websites on a regular basis (once a day) and notifies me by email, when one of the websites has changed.

DOWNLOAD:

Sourceforge Project Site

PREREQUISITS:

Here's what you need to run WWC:

cron - to start wwc once a day
wget - a program to download webpages
a mail subsystem that allows you to send emails using the 'mail' command
cmp - to compare the new file with the old file

INSTALLATION:

make a directory that you have write access to (e.g.: ~/.wwc/)
put a list of websites to watch in this directory (e.g.: ~/.wwc/wwc.cfg)
if you have the wget or the mail command in an unusual location, then edit the wwc.pl script accordingly
copy the ww.pl script to a location of your choice (e.g.: /usr/local/bin/wwc.pl)
add a line to your crontab to start wwc once a day (using crontab -e):
```
0 8 * * * /usr/local/bin/wwc.pl /home/bichler/.wwc/wwc.cfg
```
to start it every day at 8:00

FORMAT OF WEBSITE LIST:

The first line of the config file must contain an email address, that the reports will be sent to.

The following lines start with a descriptive name for the website, followed by the address of the website. Everything up to the first http:// or ftp:// is considered to be the name, everything after to be the address.

Empty lines and lines starting with '#' are ignored.

TODO:

make an installation script, that performs the actions from the INSTALLATION paragraph above automatically.
Only show a website as changed, when more than a few characters have changed.