A simple way to turn a website into JSON

Recently, while surfing the web I stumbled upon an simple web scraping service named Web Scrape Master. It is a kind of RESTful web service that extracts data from a specified web site and returns it to you in JSON format.
How it works

Though I don’t know what this service may be useful for, I still like its simplicity: all you need to do is to make an HTTP GET request, passing all necessary parameters in the query string:
http://webscrapemaster.com/api/?url={url}&xpath={xpath}&attr={attr}&callback={callback}

    url  - the URL of the website you want to scrape
    xpath – xpath determining the data you need to extract
    attr - attribute the name you need to get the value of (optional)
    callback - JSON callback function (optional)

For example, for the following request to our testing ground:

http://webscrapemaster.com/api/?url=http://testing-ground.extract-web-data.com/blocks&xpath=//div[@id=case1]/div[1]/span[1]/div

You will get the following response:

[{"text":"<div class='name'>Dell Latitude D610-1.73 Laptop Wireless Computer</div>","attrs":{"class":"name"}}]
Visual Web Scraper

Also, this service offers a special visual tool for building such requests. All you need to do is to enter the URL of the website and click to the element you need to scrape:
Visual Web Scraper
Conclusion

Though I understand that the developer of this service is attempting to create a simple web scraping service, it is still hard to imagine where it can be useful. The task that the service does can be easily accomplished by means of any language.

Probably if you already have software receiving JSON from the web, and you want to feed it with data from some website, then you may find this service useful. The other possible application is to hide your IP when you do web scraping. If you have other ideas, it would be great if you shared them with us.



Source: http://extract-web-data.com/a-simple-way-to-turn-a-website-into-json/

Selenium IDE and Web Scraping

Selenium is a browser automation framework that includes IDE, Remote Control server and bindings of various flavors including Java, .Net, Ruby, Python and other. In this post we touch on the basic structure of the framework and its application to  Web Scraping.
What is Selenium IDE


Selenium IDE is an integrated development environment for Selenium scripts. It is implemented as a Firefox plugin, and it allows recording browsers’ interactions in order to edit them. This works well for software tests, composing and debugging. The Selenium Remote Control is a server specific for a particular environment; it causes custom scripts to be implemented for controlled browsers. Selenium deploys on Windows, Linux, and iOS. How various Selenium components are supported with major browsers read here.
What does Selenium do and Web Scraping

Basically Selenium automates browsers. This ability is no doubt to be applied to web scraping. Since browsers (and Selenium) support JavaScript, jQuery and other methods working with dynamic content why not use this mix for benefit in web scraping, rather than to try to catch Ajax events with plain code? The second reason for this kind of scrape automation is browser-fasion data access (though today this is emulated with most libraries).

Yes, Selenium works to automate browsers, but how to control Selenium from a custom script to automate a browser for web scraping? There are Selenium PHP and other language libraries (bindings) providing for scripts to call and use Selenium. It is possible to write Selenium clients (using the libraries) in almost any language we prefer, for example Perl, Python, Java, PHP etc. Those libraries (API), along with a server, the Java written server that invokes browsers for actions, constitute the Selenum RC (Remote Control). Remote Control automatically loads the Selenium Core into the browser to control it. For more details in Selenium components refer to here.



A tough scrape task for programmer

“…cURL is good, but it is very basic.  I need to handle everything manually; I am creating HTTP requests by hand.
This gets difficult – I need to do a lot of work to make sure that the requests that I send are exactly the same as the requests that a browser would
send, both for my sake and for the website’s sake. (For my sake
because I want to get the right data, and for the website’s sake
because I don’t want to cause error messages or other problems on their site because I sent a bad request that messed with their web application).  And if there is any important javascript, I need to imitate it with PHP.
It would be a great benefit to me to be able to control a browser like Firefox with my code. It would solve all my problems regarding the emulation of a real browser…
it seems that Selenium will allow me to do this…” -Ryan S

Yes, that’s what we will consider below.
Scrape with Selenium

In order to create scripts that interact with the Selenium Server (Selenium RC, Selenium Remote Webdriver) or create local Selenium WebDriver script, there is the need to make use of language-specific client drivers (also called Formatters, they are included in the selenium-ide-1.10.0.xpi package). The Selenium servers, drivers and bindings are available at Selenium download page.
The basic recipe for scrape with Selenium:

    Use Chrome or Firefox browsers
    Get Firebug or Chrome Dev Tools (Cntl+Shift+I) in action.
    Install requirements (Remote control or WebDriver, libraries and other)
    Selenium IDE : Record a ‘test’ run thru a site, adding some assertions.
    Export as a Python (other language) script.
    Edit it (loops, data extraction, db input/output)
    Run script for the Remote Control

The short intro Slides for the scraping of tough websites with Python & Selenium are here (as Google Docs slides) and here (Slide Share).
Selenium components for Firefox installation guide

For how to install the Selenium IDE to Firefox see  here starting at slide 21. The Selenium Core and Remote Control installation instructions are there too.
Extracting for dynamic content using jQuery/JavaScript with Selenium

One programmer is doing a similar thing …

1. launch a selenium RC (remote control) server
2. load a page
3. inject the jQuery script
4. select the interested contents using jQuery/JavaScript
5. send back to the PHP client using JSON.

He particularly finds it quite easy and convenient to use jQuery for
screen scraping, rather than using PHP/XPath.
Conclusion

The Selenium IDE is the popular tool for browser automation, mostly for its software testing application, yet also in that Web Scraping techniques for tough dynamic websites may be implemented with IDE along with the Selenium Remote Control server. These are the basic steps for it:

    Record the ‘test‘ browser behavior in IDE and export it as the custom programming language script
    Formatted language script runs on the Remote Control server that forces browser to send HTTP requests and then script catches the Ajax powered responses to extract content.

Selenium based Web Scraping is an easy task for small scale projects, but it consumes a lot of memory resources, since for each request it will launch a new browser instance.



Source: http://extract-web-data.com/selenium-ide-and-web-scraping/

Data Recovery Services - Be Wary of Cheap Prices

Data recovery is a specialized, complicated process. Proper hard drive recovery can require manipulation of data at the sector level, transplantation of internal components and various other procedures. These techniques are very involved and require not only talented, knowledgeable technicians, but also an extensive inventory of disk drives to use for parts when necessary and clean facilities to conduct the work.

Unfortunately these factors mean that, in most cases, recovery services are quite expensive. Technician training, hard drive inventories and special equipment all come with a cost.

If you search for disk recovery services, you will likely find several smaller companies that offer hard disk data recovery for a fraction of the prices usually quoted by larger, more experienced organizations. These companies often operate from small offices or, in some cases, private homes. They do not possess clean room facilities, large disk drive inventories or many other pieces of equipment necessary to successfully complete most hard drive recovery cases.

When you take into account all of the training, parts and facilities necessary, you can see how it is impossible for a company to charge $200 for a hard drive recovery and not operate at a loss.

What these companies usually do is run a software program on the hard disk drive. Sometimes, if there is no physical damage to the disk drive, this program is able to recover some of the data. However, hard disk data recovery is much more than just running software. No software can recover data from a hard drive that has failed heads, damaged platters or electrical damage. In fact, attempting to run a hard drive that is physically damaged can make the problem worse. Trying to use software to recover data from a hard drive with failed read/write heads, for example, can lead to the heads scraping the platters of the drive and leaving the data unrecoverable.

Another way these smaller companies conduct business is by forwarding data recovery cases they cannot recover to larger organizations. Of course, the smaller companies charge their clients a premium for this service. In these cases it would have actually been cheaper to use the larger company in the first place.

You will also likely find that many smaller recovery companies charge evaluation or diagnostic fees upfront. They charge these fees regardless of whether or not any data is recovered. In many cases clients desperate to recover their data pay these fees and get nothing in return but a failed recovery. Smaller data recovery services simply do not have the skills, training, facilities and parts to successfully recover most disk drives. It is more cost efficient for them to make one attempt at running a software program and then call the case unsuccessful.

Sometimes you may get lucky working with a smaller data recovery company, but in most cases you will end up paying for a failed recovery. In the worst case scenario you could end up with a damaged hard drive that is now unrecoverable by any data recovery service.

You will waste time and money working with these services. You could even lose your valuable data for good.

If your data is important enough to consider data recovery, it is important enough to seek a reputable, skilled data recovery company. All major data recovery services offer free evaluations and most do not charge clients for unsuccessful recoveries. Sometimes you only have one shot to recover data on a disk drive before the platters are seriously damaged and the data is lost for good. Taking chances with inexperienced companies is not worth the risk.

The Data Recovery Services, part of ACE Data Group, specializes in recovering data from corrupted RAID/SAN/NAS systems, hard drives, CD/DVD, solid state drives, tapes and proprietary devices. Logical recovery expertise is in whole spectrum of file systems and reverse engineering, experts in hard drive recovery and RAID data recovery services.




Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Recovery-Services---Be-Wary-of-Cheap-Prices&id=4706055

Limitations and Challenges in Effective Web Data Mining

Web data mining and data collection is critical process for many business and market research firms today. Conventional Web data mining techniques involve search engines like Google, Yahoo, AOL, etc and keyword, directory and topic-based searches. Since the Web's existing structure cannot provide high-quality, definite and intelligent information, systematic web data mining may help you get desired business intelligence and relevant data.

Factors that affect the effectiveness of keyword-based searches include:
• Use of general or broad keywords on search engines result in millions of web pages, many of which are totally irrelevant.
• Similar or multi-variant keyword semantics my return ambiguous results. For an instant word panther could be an animal, sports accessory or movie name.
• It is quite possible that you may miss many highly relevant web pages that do not directly include the searched keyword.

The most important factor that prohibits deep web access is the effectiveness of search engine crawlers. Modern search engine crawlers or bot can not access the entire web due to bandwidth limitations. There are thousands of internet databases that can offer high-quality, editor scanned and well-maintained information, but are not accessed by the crawlers.

Almost all search engines have limited options for keyword query combination. For example Google and Yahoo provide option like phrase match or exact match to limit search results. It demands for more efforts and time to get most relevant information. Since human behavior and choices change over time, a web page needs to be updated more frequently to reflect these trends. Also, there is limited space for multi-dimensional web data mining since existing information search rely heavily on keyword-based indices, not the real data.

Above mentioned limitations and challenges have resulted in a quest for efficiently and effectively discover and use Web resources. Send us any of your queries regarding Web Data mining processes to explore the topic in more detail.



Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Limitations-and-Challenges-in-Effective-Web-Data-Mining&id=5012994

Data Mining Process - Why Outsource Data Mining Service?

Overview of Data Mining and Process:
Data mining is one of the unique techniques for investigating information to extract certain data patterns and decide to outcome of existing requirements. Data mining is widely use in client research, services analysis, market research and so on. It is totally based on mathematical algorithm and analytical skills to drive the desired results from the huge database collection.

Information mining is mostly used by financial analyzer, business and professional organization and also there are many growing area of business that are get maximum advantages of data extract with use of data warehouses in their small to large level of businesses.

Most of functionalities which are used in information collecting process define as under:

* Retrieving Data

* Analyzing Data

* Extracting Data

* Transforming Data

* Loading Data

* Managing Databases

Most of small, medium and large levels of businesses are collect huge amount of data or information for analysis and research to develop business. Such kind of large amount will help and makes it much important whenever information or data required.

Why Outsource Data Online Mining Service?

Outsourcing advantages of data mining services:
o Almost save 60% operating cost
o High quality analysis processes ensuring accuracy levels of almost 99.98%
o Guaranteed risk free outsourcing experience ensured by inflexible information security policies and practices
o Get your project done within a quick turnaround time
o You can measure highly skilled and expertise by taking benefits of Free Trial Program.
o Get the gathered information presented in a simple and easy to access format

Thus, data or information mining is very important part of the web research services and it is most useful process. By outsource data extraction and mining service; you can concentrate on your co relative business and growing fast as you desire.

Outsourcing web research is trusted and well known Internet Market research organization having years of experience in BPO (business process outsourcing) field.

If you want to more information about data mining services and related web research services, then contact us.




Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Data-Mining-Process---Why-Outsource-Data-Mining-Service?&id=3789102

What is Data Mining?

Data mining is the process in which there is analysis of data forming different angles and perspectives and summarizing the same data into the relevant information. This kind of information could be utilized to increase the revenue, cutting the costs or both.

Software is mainly used for analyzing data and also assists in accumulation of data for the different sources and categorize and summarize the given data into some useful form.

Though the data mining is new term, the software used for mining the data was previously used. With the constant upgradations of the software and the processing power, the market tools, data mining software has increased in its accuracy. Formerly, this data mining was widely used by the businessmen for the market research and the analysis. There were few companies that used the computers to examine through the column of the supermarket data.

The data mining is the technique of running the data through the sophisticated algorithms for discovering the meaningful correlations and patterns that would have otherwise remained hidden. It is very helpful, since it aids in understanding the techniques and methods of business and you can accordingly apply your own intelligence fitting in the current market trend. Even the future performances get enhanced by the predictive analysis.

Business Intelligence operations occur in the background. Users of the mining operation can just see the end result. The users are in apposition to get the results through the mails and can also go through the recommendation through web pages and emails.

The data mining process indicates the invention of trends and tactics. The moment you discover and understand the market trends, you have the knowledge of which article is sold more and which article is sold with the other one. This kind of tend has an enormous impact on business organization. In this manner, the business gets enhanced as the market gets analyzed in a perfect manner. Due to these correlations, the performance of business organization increases to a lot of extent.

Mining gives a chance or opportunity to enhance the future performance of the business organization. There is a common philosophical phrase that, 'he who does not learn from the history is destined to repeat the same'. Therefore, if these predictions are done with the help and assistance of the historical information (data), then you can get sufficient data for improvising the products of the business organization.

Mining enables the embedding of the recommendations in the applications. Simple summary statements and the proposals can be displayed within the operational applications. Data mining also needs powerful machines. The algorithms might be applied to a Java or a Dataset code for using the same. Data mining is very useful for knowing the trends and making future predictions based on the predictive analysis. It also helps in cost cutting and increase in the revenue of the business organization

This article is part of Expertstown. You can visit Experts Town's Business Intelligence Blog for more information.




Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?What-is-Data-Mining?&id=3816784

Better Business Management by Using Data Entry Services

Data entry services are integral part of any company that has data that needs to be managed. Most of the companies use internet for online data entry, so it is vital for the people doing it, has sufficient computer literacy. Data entry work is time consuming and lengthy therefore outsourcing online data entry services to India does the trick. When you outsource this service, the team of professionals handles your work effectively.

Having updated and correct data round the clock is of utmost importance, so that when the data is required it is there. For every business, data holds much importance. Many Website Design Company from India does the data entry job and outsourcing to them lightens the burden of data management. Study the website design portfolio of the website design company to get an idea about the work of the company. These companies have trained and skilled workforce that can handle data entry services efficiently.

Selection of data entry outsourcing firm depends upon the amount of data that is to be managed. You can hire data entry operator working on part-time or full-time basis for shorter or longer duration of time. If your company requires data handling on regular basis, then outsource your work to reliable outsourcing company.

These companies can handle successfully different types of data related to your business. It may include data conversion, documentation, data entry of the visitors and so on. Data entry services are also useful in keeping track of debit and credit card transactions, online forms filled in by the website visitors. In this competitive business atmosphere having up-to-date and organized data goes a long way in ensuring success, conquering your competitors.

Many companies carry out online survey to figure out the responses of the customers, data entry outsourcing helps in keeping track of the responses being entered and what are their wants. Data about the survey data along with mailing address, contact information, etc are stored so that they can be informed about any special change, addition or scheme in your business.

Whether your business is small scale, medium or big scale one; data outsourcing takes care of all data entry operations that form important part in business success. A good website design outsourcing company from India providing data entry services ensures better service quality and on-time delivery of result oriented services.




Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Better-Business-Management-by-Using-Data-Entry-Services&id=1600148