DO NOT POST THIS ANYWHERE ELSE

I invented Wallet Scanner because I was sick of sitting, staring at the browser awaiting a new hot deal to arrive. Even more annoying were folks posting crap deals, or when I missed one of the better deal monger's threads and was too late for a deal.

So I invented FWScan. The features:

• Alerts you to new deals in Hot Deals forum via sounds and bringing program to topmost window
• Sends new deals to your pager or email
• Pop-up hint bar like Yahoo Msgr, click it to visit the new deal thread
• Customizable sounds and alerts
• Minimize to tray icon
• Ignore certain users, or add them as friends
• Supports regular expressions for message filtering
• ... a lot more

To start, download the program installation from here:

http://www.mydogatemyrebate.com/walletscan.exe

Once installed, setup your preferences but leave email options OFF for now. If you have email on during your first refresh, you'll spam yourself with 20+ messages.

Click Refresh button, which will fetch all the Hot Deal msg headers (since they're all new for now) and put little red dots beside them. Those dots indicate a new thread, and will vanish after 2 minutes. If a check appears left of a message title, that means "a friend" posted it.

Now click the "Email off, Pager off" at the bottom if you want those on. They'll show "Email on, Pager on" or whatever you chose.

View the main screen

When a new msg arrives, it'll open a blue hint bar at the top left of your screen (turn that off in Config if you'd like). Left click on the title of your new thread to open a browser and visit it. Right click to simply close. You can change how long this Hint Bar stays up in Config.

View the hint bar

FWScan will use MAPI to email any new threads. Normally that means you'll need your email program open, and hope it supports MAPI. Outlook, Eudora, etc work quite well, but you'll probably need them running for this feature.

Email configuration screen

General config covers friends and ignore list, opening a browser when friends post, etc. You should edit your friends and ignore immediately since my examples are poor.

General config screen

Regular expressions are fairly complex to the new user. They essentially allow you to search on various text, or ignore posts based upon their subject content. For example if you're sick of Quicken deals since you already bought it, add that to RegExp ignore.

If you have any problems or questions, please post here. Pleae uninstall any previous versions before using this one.

What's new in Version 1.3

• New HTTP library (third one's a charm)
• Remembers the newest topic, so listbox doesn't fill up when restarting
• Added "Reset Highest Msg ID" menu item
• Added status box to show various system msgs. Shows which filters were triggered, bytes downloaded, Highest msg ID, msg topic plus more
• Hint window can now be shown at bottom right of screen
• Debug mode added (double click the status box)
• No more http progress bar

Ummmm....shouldn't this be called BS Scanner???

Just downloaded it, works great! Now I have no need to go to FW

thank you very much!

I downloaded it and really like it so far. Thank you very much for sharing.

-woot- nice homeslice. i was waiting for you to release this...

Good job! Thanks!

Now that I fully understand what this is, I will download. Sounds like it may be a real useful tool.

Thanks! :D

uhm...can you port it to Linux?

You are awesome, Homeslice! :D

Wine should do the job for such an app, IMO.

Did I mention I really dont like wine? (Of course, if I have no choice...but I really dont like it)

Wouldn't be too bad in java, and could be a nice little Linux app. I'll start on it next weekend.

Well, let me just add this. I'm not a programmer or anything even close. I'm using linux but I'm not capable of "making things work" in it. (does that make sense? ) (We're a mostly windows free household here)

HomeSlice appreciate the fine work. It great having one more tool to find bargains. :D

There is one thing that bothersome. When I click on a topic, it uses the web page open (usually B$) to shows details on the deal. Now who is this Moron named ConsumerAddict?

I appreciate your (and the family)'s guts buddy --- it's a big leap of faith for your average Windoze users to start using Linux. That said, I only wish there were more people like you to break the M$ stranglehold. I might get around to using the FWScanner one of these days, and will let you know if it works in WINE...

Excellent so far.

Question though. I went in to edit and add some regular expressions, and clicking on the "edit reg exp" button does nothing. Maybe because the file required to exist doesn't? I notice that the other watch/ignore lists are in files, do I need to create a blank file for reg exp use?

Thanks!

shiweeeeeeeet! very cool -clap-

one extra feature request for the next update (or i can code it if you tell me what your using and you've properly done the abstractions)

how about the scanner scans this site too?

Feature request:

Can you log to a file the thread interaction? e.g. I deleted a bunch of threads and then had to restart my box. It turns out that just plain closing the program and then reopening it will cause all threads to show up, even previously deleted threads. Maybe have a "delete to ignore reg exp file" option where it would add a properly formatted reg exp to teh ignore list for you?

That could be, create two new textfiles in your fwscan directory named regwatch.txt and regignore.txt. Also copy topic.wav to regexp.wav.

Those are the files it uses.

I also fixed the install to include those three files if you wanna re-download it.



It's a shellexecute API call, which will always use the most recent browser window, or start a new one if none exist.

Thanks for the providing the info behind how your app works. I guess I'm so use to new windows opening while getting good deals.

Thanks....I will admit we do have one windows machine...its got games on it and thats it. :D (We have my son using Linux and are trying to convince the girl-child its not as bad as she thinks )

I installed this via winex...install went fine, but it wont start up for me. I'm getting exception EReaderror in module fwscan.exe and error reading memo1. lines.strings: RichEdit line insertion error

You will be my hero if you do this! (now, can you beat on the Bioware people to get the NWN linux client up and running? )

Thanks, that's a nice feature.

It uses several Microsoft controls. You won't be able to WINE it unfortunately.

AH! Thanks for clearing that up!

Thanks, adding the missing files fixed it.

Are you only able to have one reg exp in the ignore file?

I have several reg exps that all work if they are the only one in the file, but as soon as I try to put multiple reg exps on multiple lines, I get nothing returned at all.

I have trouble using the email notification. Every time I start the program it downloads the whole list again and email all of them to me.

Next version will remember "where it was" in the threads after restarting.

For now, when it starts up click Email On/Pager On at the bottom until it says both are off. Then click Refresh, and after all threads are downloaded turn them on again.

Wow! This is a nifty programme, thanks! It really sorts out a lot of FW's garbage... :D

Amen! Now I can get down to some serious lurking finally!

I am not sure I see the advantage of this program yet...I went through and deleted some topics, only to have them re-appear the next time I started the program. Am I missing something? For example, is there a way to only show threads that have Staples in the title?

Read the last full paragraph in the first message, it's probably your browser cache settings.



It's designed to alert you of new posts on FW without having to actually visit the site and sit there waiting for a good deal. It doesn't track threads, or save them off, etc (yet, that's on the list for later). I have better things to do than refresh that site repeatedly, waiting for a sweet coupon or discount.

With the scanner, I can browse, chat, play and glance at a post title to see if it's worth checking out. I also use it to page me deals at work - during a meeting if I see a "Palm 515 $140" or whatever, I'll make a note to check that thread out when I'm back at my desk. If nothing but crap scrolls by on my pager, then I don't bother opening up IE.

Make sense? FW Scan isn't a great program for everybody, it's kinda a niche item.

Cool. Thanks HS.

HomeSlice

Might there be a way to filter the crappo threads out of the Wallet Scan listing. I am guessing 20 to 25% of the topics are, IMHO a farking joke. I think the app is really great program, -clap- except I get burnt out from reading too many -doggie- :crap: FW HT postings.

Just found on FW today:

Posted by FatWallet.com:
----------
w/ regards to an agent, we will actively block automated scripts that poll more than once per hour. This is due to the potential for a denial of service attack when thousands of users start scanning at a rapid rate.

I'd expect to have a more immediate notification system that is not as taxing on our systems soon.
----------


Here's a link to the thread: (This post is about 20 posts into the thread)
Thread

What do you think about that? Was this directed at you HS?

Yip, he's trying to block my agent. Since mine's still working just fine, I guess he's formulating a plan on how to detect me. I'll write him a letter to see how we can work together to minimize the impact on his site.

We don't have "thousands of users", only a couple hundred. I've purposely kept this program private because I feared the same thing he's describing and I don't necessarily want to DOS FW.

I got the following error today - i think it was refreshing at the moment:

"Access Violation at address 00497A44 in module 'fwscan.exe'. Read of address 00000004.

I also noticed my Dans Deals only comes every 3hours where it used to come every hour.

1 fwscan hangs with error:
http component is busy.

2 I see messages in the debug window but not in the main window.

wow this is great, any plans to expand this to scan anandtech too?

HS, you're saving me so much time everyday! So what are the plans for the future? Any plans for connections to AT or TechBargains, or here?

Yeah, I was thinking perhaps a tabbed-based interface? Maybe you could even generalize it for most forum software, with regular expressions to replace the token for the topicID. Then you could just update the data files (of regexps), sort of like AdAware etc.

i see multiple ways where FW can detect your scanner:

a set time interval. normal ppl refresh rates are random. (easily doable - just tell your program to randomly generate a # between 2-5mins in seconds)

the browser info. when connecting to a website, they take certain info such as your ip, your browser, your screen resolution and etc. if you cloak the program as IE or Mozilla or Netscape, i think it'll be hard to detect it too.

//krunk (^_^x)

great program.

feature request:

open browser window in background (behind fwscan) when double clicking a post.
remember last window settings like position, size, column width.

this is good stuff man.. love you work thanks a bunch! It reminds me of newsgroup readers.

man oh man..I gotta look around all these forum more carefully..I just found this! been going back and forth to look for deals...this should prove useful...too bad my work place prevents me from installing software.....but I'll certainly will try this at home..great job Homeslice..THANK YOU!!-banana-

For Mac users, Linux users, people behind firewalls, people using company computers, and anyone with Internet connection:

Try Dans Deals email list.

Emails you an aggregrate list of all new topics posted every 3 hours from the following websites:

Anandtech
Fatwallet
Dvdtalk
.....
more


Enjoy.

Sweet program thanks!! :lol: