Paid Offer Status Updates

[TaoPhoenix]

Could be easier, just static pages that are updated to host status in tabular format, simple scrolly down list.

Your updating things manually anyway, so why not have one place where you collate the info into one list, so at least everyone knows what the hell's going on

If you want I could do a real simple to edit set of pages for you, no programming no spidering techniques, although if you can get html responding/not responding data that would be good as an indicator for you to visit and see if the hosts still there.

I can see good things on long term monitor/report but I can't see that anyone gets any benefit if it's not visible, and the hosts are kind of jumping through hoops to try and be in the top list.

As for a comment that it only takes a minute to update with a post while we go into meltdown, if I was a client of theirs I'd tell them to stuff the posting and get my site working again minute or not (oops there goes another sale/client scenario (as in that minute a really good one looked and you weren't there, so they went elsewhere)

Hope you appreciate it's all meant as constructive crit

Well I'll take any help I can get on this one, so let's chat. I was doing text pages because they are not only simple to begin gathering data but all kinds of programs can import text. Before I knew any help was coming I was reducing my goals to just do July as a sampler because of the sheer amount of data. When you mention "simple edit of pages" that's an FYI that it's more work than it looks!

If we had the whole set from JJW or Seraphim or you etc, one obvious presentation is a spreadsheet because then you can play with filters and do calcs.

[Decker]

Now your looking at more complex pages with scripts involved

Simple to edit means you know how to use FTP and some basic HTML freebie, then you change the numbers and any text.

If you want the whole set then you might as well go the whole hog and have full blown sheets with pivot tables and dynamic updating through trend changes.

But if you still want the simple one you can handle after I simply hand it over then let me know no phone support included

[TaoPhoenix]

"Beggars can't be choosers!" Heh I initially was just thinking of posting manual downloadable spreadsheets, not ultra fancy pages. I'd settle for a scraper tool that can just read the ad board, and output info much like my text files that can then just be pasted into the ongoing spreadsheet. That's why I started humble and low tech, and help received is entirely dependent upon y'all's enthusiasm!

[TaoPhoenix]

Anyone thinking over the high-tech methods have any progress, or should I just be content with a one or two month snapshot of manual data?

[JJW]

I will be working on it just been busy with a few other things.

[jennyjackson]

well if any person needed help about programming i am willing to help.

[Decker]

If you can get me the details as to how your getting the info now I should be able to work it in, again depends on how it's being done, and conversions for downloadable formats whether to a human being with notepad or a spreadsheet or most other things really should be easy enough, even to 'get' from a server for automated updates to something or other.

Now you've got me thinking you git - yes it does hurt, a lot!!!

[JJW]

really right now i am looking to scrape the data from teh forum and have tried a few vb forum scrapers but nothing has worked yet.

[TaoPhoenix]

If you can get me the details as to how your getting the info now I should be able to work it in, again depends on how it's being done, and conversions for downloadable formats whether to a human being with notepad or a spreadsheet or most other things really should be easy enough, even to 'get' from a server for automated updates to something or other.

Now you've got me thinking you git - yes it does hurt, a lot!!!

I'm gathering the admins didn't want to get involved in a data dump, so the next item below talks about scraping.

Did I get the great Decker thinking!? Maybe whatever Familiar is after Fluffy Bunny week might be able to help you think!

[Decker]

really right now i am looking to scrape the data from teh forum and have tried a few vb forum scrapers but nothing has worked yet.

So nothing there then? And will you stop spelling 'the' as 'teh' that's just annoying.

[TaoPhoenix]

So essentially (in a nutshell) what you're doing is reviewing the paid hosting offers that were made here one year ago and then documenting their current status to see how many of them are still around one year later.

Heh some more time has passed! I think I will do a few more of these reviews soon!

[TaoPhoenix]

http://taophoenix.deckerservices.com...e30%202010.txt

http://taophoenix.deckerservices.com...1-4%202010.txt

All the hosts labeled as up in July are still here.

[TaoPhoenix]

At this time unless I either get some research assitance or other folks chose to join in, these examples should be considered like a poll of average data rather than exhaustive. There appear to be some 3-12 offers posted per day, so I will not be able to keep up in realtime.

http://taophoenix.deckerservices.com...July5-2010.txt


http://taophoenix.deckerservices.com...July6-2010.txt

http://taophoenix.deckerservices.com...July7-2010.txt

All the hosts labeled as up in July are still here.