I recently came across this question in the Q&A section of a forum I belong to:
“I want to run once a day a script that will check whether the specific part of code has been changed, and if it did, we would get some return message (ideally directly to my email). What would be the easiest, simplest way to do that? I’ve read about web crawlers, web scrappers, but they seem to be doing far more than we need.”
Sure, if all you want to do is something as lightweight as monitoring a set of target pages for changes, then using a ready monitoring tool is probably way more than you need. You need to keep it simple. So, here’s a quick solution with Google spreadsheet.
In this article I’d love to revise few well-known methods of protecting website content from automatic scraping. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages, so you need to make your choice basing on the particular situation. None of these methods is ultimate and each one has its own ways around I will mention further.
Choosing a provider is not an easy task, you always want to find something «cheap and cheerful». However, quite often it is hard to find a golden mean and you have to choose between computing power, speed, and cost, not mentioning additional features such as DNS-servers, control panel, etc. In this article, I will present you test results for several providers of various sizes, and I’m hoping that it will guide you in a decision-making process of choosing a hosting. 
For simple web scraping jobs I often prefer a php + mysql bundle putting the project right to the web and working online. But as you work online a problem appears: how to backup your work results? 
Employee monitoring software has become commonplace. Many apps take monitor screenshots, capture keystrokes and mouse movements, monitor active applications and visited sites and, in extreme cases, can even take pictures using webcam. It seems to be fair to track what your employees do when they are being paid for their time. After all, if they exchange their time for money, it seems fair for the employer to know what they are paying for. So, why does it still feel morally inappropriate in some cases?
If you use Microsoft SQL Server to store and process your data, you are probably in the market for a convenient backup and restore tool. In this post, I’d like to share a very nice tool for backup and restoring of your MS SQL database in “three clicks”.