Nick_Scott

I can think of a way to update the old list with a new one, in excel.

You could use the VLOOKUP command, combined with the advanced filter tab. But it seems like alot of effort?
Why not just use the new list?

Nick

abintra

I might play around with that thanks. How is that a lot of effort (I have no knowledge when it comes to spreadsheets)?

In regards to your question, I went through the entire list back in early December I think and moved the selection number column to the end and made the first column so I could place a mark, in my case just 'yes', to keep track of the titles that interest me. Using the new one every update would mean having to go through that list again.

Looking for a simple, quick way to just import the changes from week to week into that list much like what the html file shows online. Thusfar I just copy and paste any new titles I want and forget about all the rest of the info.

Nick_Scott

Well... thats a great reason!

The way that I would do it is:

Built a spreadsheet using VLOOKUP commands that access the REAL data-minor on a seperate sheet.
The selection number is unique, so they can base the query on that.

So, if you want to update your custom sheet, you can just cut/paste the new list onto the old list, and your custom sheet will be automatically updated.

Something like that.

-nick

bga

A new update is available. About 30 new titles, mostly pre-releases. I added a new column, sale price, which is only populated when the sale price says "no other purchase necessary".

bga

A new update is available. Only 6 new titles and 21 new enrollments. The new sale price column is also populated with the box set price. As always, my sale price may differ from other member sales prices (althought I suspect that it doesn't happen often).

MISS PEACH

bga . . . would you PM me with your email address? I wanted to ask you a question about your Perl script but I don't want to bog down the thread since it isn't related to DVDs. PM me if this is acceptable? Thanks hon.

MISS PEACH
books @xxxxx.xxx

bga

A new update is available. A lot of preorders.

MISS PEACH

BGA what I wanted to ask you about your perl script was if by any chance it was available (somewhere) as a shareware/freeware program?

The reason I was asking is because I'm looking for this kind of a "data mining" shopping application for Barnes & Noble's book listings, which are tedious to navigate and a real headache when you're trying to complete an order for free shipping and need to narrow down their inventory based upon price — this, with books as opposed to DVDs.

I would so appreciate any suggestions you might have.

Thanks!

MISS PEACH

bga

A new update is available. It looks like CH is adding some of the titles from their TV Greats division to the DVD club, and some of the Disney/Miramax/etc. titles are disappearing from the web site.

I wrote the data miner using LWP and LWP::ParallelAgent. It's really geared to the CH website, as it has a bunch of optimizations based on knowing that certain patterns in the URL links mean particular things (including dealing with session information stored in the URL), as well as picking out the DVD information from pages that are formatted with a particular style sheet.

lizard

Just thought I'd mention that bga's latest list shows price reductions on some noteworthy older movies:

0168500 The Caine Mutiny (1954), Humphrey Bogart 19.95
0191700 From Here to Eternity (1953), Burt Landcaster 19.95 (there is a superbit edition of this movie available elsewhere)
0155309 Gilda (1946), Rita Hayworth 19.95
2483709 The Guns of Navarone (1961), Gregory Peck 19.95
0153700 A Man For All Seasons (1966), Paul Scofield, Oscar winner, best picture, best actor 19.95

These might make good fulfillment purchases for film buffs.

Burzmali

I tried opening up two of the files with Open Office spreadsheet, and no luck. I have to copy and paste to get it to do anything. With paste special: unformatted text, only the Selection column shows up; with formatted text i just get the entire thing but with commas and not in cells.

Any idea on what is wrong with my open office?

abintra

It's not just you. The only way I've been able to open it with OO for awhile is to first start the spreadsheet, then open, then choose the file, and then in the drop down 'files of type' box choose Text CSV.

MISS PEACH

I guess I don't understand why you all use database programs to begin with. I drop it into TEXTPAD, run a macro, and positively fly with bga's list. I'd never waste my time using something as resource intensive (mine and the computers heh) as a spreadsheet program for this little guy. Much more fun to paste 'n sort. (not to mention BLOCK SELECT the entire titles column and place it in caps for my long-suffering eyeballs)

MISS PEACH

Marvin

I've never gotten any spreadsheet programs to work on that list so I just browse it as is. As long as the titles are on the left, I can deal with it.

vivarey

Because I have a greater range of options in terms of manipulating, marking up, and viewing the list. Resource intensive... maybe, but I'm more interested in time saving. And Marvin, it should open in just about any modern spreadsheet program. Try Open Office for a free alternative.

bga

The main reason, IMHO, to use this with a spreadsheet program is so that you can sort it by various columns, and pick the titles you want based on the sorting (like by # discs, price, etc.) without having to look through the entire list.

I'm surprised that people are reporting that they can't get it to work with any spreadsheet. I've downloaded them to Windows 98. Windows XP, and FreeBSD, and used Office 97, Office 2000, and OpenOffice 1.0 and 1.1 with it. I prefer OO 1.1 because it allows me to set the Selection column as text, and not lose the leading zeros in some selection numbers. I think I usually use Mozilla/FireFox to download though (although just worked for me with IE on XP). I do download to disk rather than automatically starting an application though.

MISS PEACH

Which TEXTPAD can do, up to 3.

Which TEXTPAD can do. Again, it can sort up to 3 columns at once, each either ASC or DESC, at whatever tab/character position you designate. It can also delete duplicate lines. It can also . . . 'nuff said.

For which TEXTPAD boasts one powerful advantage that no spreadsheet program has (to my knowledge) — the ability to colorize (I believe it is unlimited) any phrases/words/characters you define in the document extension you create in TEXTPAD.



Guys, I'm surprised I'm not hearing from other TEXTPAD people. ((Earth to TEXTPAD fans)) ((Earth to TEXTPAD fans)) jump in here 'n help me out! ha ha. Usually (any forum) posts with random TEXTPAD comments elicit GIGANTIC fan response. I posted one in the DVD Talk forum some time ago — hunt it down and you'll net fellow affecionados of this unbelievably light, powerful UNIX-based text manipulation program.

For the uninitiated, a 2-step primer on how MISS PEACH uses bga's list in TEXTPAD:

First, in TEXTPAD I defined a class of text document with the extension ~.dvd (cute huh?). You have incredible control over the file once you define it with its own proprietary "class," not the least of which are tab settings and colorized hilights. You don't even need your ~.dvd files to use a fixed-pitch font. Mine do (for finely-tuned columns parameters) but you can use whatever font you want for your ~.dvd class of document. The extension "dvd" is associated in Windows with TEXTPAD once you create it, so double clicking the file out of Explorer brings it up instantly.

Next, I set my TAB SETTINGS UP for bga's list in its native format.

The fun stuff begins from there, not the least of which being that (no offense bga) I created a second TEXTPAD class for the purpose of BLOCK-SELECTING ENTIRE COLUMNS and moving them to my preferred position in the chart. This understandably required a different tabulature, thus a separate class. For example, I need the "number of disks" and "runtime" columns up front. You do this instantly in TEXTPAD and it is a sight to behold.

Check it out friends!

MISS PEACH

Marvin

BGA,
I hope it didn't sound like I was complaining. I really appreciate
your generating of these lists. It's just that I'm not too interested in sorting by price, or anything other than what movies I'm interested in, and I don't think any spreadsheet can figure that out. So I've gone thru the whole list a few times and then just check the updates.
So thanks a lot for everything!

bga

I didn't realize TextPad was such a full-featured text editor. I guess you don't need a spreadsheet after all to do fancy searches. In general, if all you want to do is eyeball the list, that's fine too.

I'm surprised you had problems with OpenOffice. I think that it might require a lot of memory and a recent version of Java, though.

divemaster

It works kindof funny for me. First, I download it to my desktop, then right-click to open as an Excel spreadsheet. Every time I do this, I get a "file not compatible" error.

So, I download it again the exact same way and the second time it always works! I don't do a single thing different.

Then, I sort by price and enrollment.

Go figure.....

MEJHarrison

The same thing happens to me often. But not always. But generally I just update my existing spreadsheet with all my notes already in it.

bga

A new update is available. Not much new. The Disney (et. al.) sale is still going on, and there are another 17 titles sold out, including 2 I was planning on buying had I not procrastinated until Friday.

Marvin

I don't mean to clutter up this thread but I've tried several times downloading the list and then opening it with Microsoft Word Viewer 97. All I get is the raw, unformatted list, no matter which "view" option I select. Does the list not work with this Viewer?

bga

I doubt it. My files are actually plain text files in a "Comma Separated Values" format which Excel, OpenOffice and other spreadsheet programs convert into a native format. The Microsoft Excel Viewer 97 can probably only handle Excel 95/97 native format files (and the Word viewer probably only does Word files). If you really want to be able to sort, you probably need to get a real spreadsheet, like the ones in MS Office, MS Works, OpenOffice, StarOffice, and Corel WordPerfect Office. Or, as Miss Peach does, use a really powerful editor with macro capability.

bga

There's a new update available. There are about 120 new titles, including new preorders and new CH TV Greats selections and about 40 new enrollments. The biggest surprise is that some of the Disney titles, like Holes and Remember the Titans are back on the website (but don't seem to be on sale).