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Author Topic: Automated site capture  (Read 3823 times)

rgdot

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Automated site capture
« on: October 29, 2011, 10:28 AM »
Is there a program that can, via an internal browser or perhaps other method, automatically load a site and take a screenshot of it? For example I want to take a screenshot of example.com every day at 3PM.
I am thinking if such a program doesn't exist may be an existing website capture program can be set to do it with an external task scheduler?

Any ideas? :)

Ath

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Re: Automated site capture
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2011, 10:30 AM »

Ath

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Re: Automated site capture
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2011, 10:32 AM »
And a free one: http://www.sadmansof...pshot/screenshot.htm
Disqualified, not from webpages, sorry.

rgdot

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Re: Automated site capture
« Reply #3 on: October 29, 2011, 10:38 AM »
I really did google it, don't ask how I didn't find that  :-[
Thanks, although freeware would be better seems exactly what I need, this might be the shortest thread ever on DC  ;D

IainB

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Re: Automated site capture
« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2011, 10:05 AM »
...this might be the shortest thread ever on DC
Don't speak too soon. A lot of websites nowadays seem to have coded-in detection of crawlers and downloaders that behave badly - e.g., start firing off hundred of queries a second, which overloads the server. To protect the server, if a norty crawler  is detected, then that crawler/downloader is blocked.
This has the potential effect of making some site-scraping software obsolete.

rgdot

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Re: Automated site capture
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2011, 11:48 AM »
Good point, these tools have the potential to abuse. As for me I will be doing one site - one page - once a day.

IainB

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Re: Automated site capture
« Reply #6 on: November 02, 2011, 08:01 AM »
Good point, these tools have the potential to abuse. As for me I will be doing one site - one page - once a day.
Sorry, I did not register this till just now.
If you have not already tried it, then I would recommend you take a look at: ScrapBook
It's very handy indeed. I use it all the time.