Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Ok seriously fantastic idea for a bit of software.

Just thought of this one as i was day dreaming of

returning to Tenerife to sunshine and cheap beer.

 

Here's the idea:

- A web app or desktop app

- 2 calendar controls + 1 text box

- User enters dates in calendar controls + sum of money in Textbox

- apps then uses a serious of http post/response commands

- http cmds are sent to RyanAir web site to check for flight between

Dates which are = or < amount entered.

 

This saves user a lot of hassle and could eb automated to run between

 today’s date to a certain range thus allowing holiday makers with a

destination in mind to keep an eye out for cheap holidays in advance of time.

 

An addition an extra drop down menu could “screen scrape” the departure

location and destinations from the web site

 

This approach could be used for several other sites where prices

are dynamic.

4 comments:

Gally said...

Not a bad idea except ryanair specifically make it difficult for screen-scrapers to work by changing layout frequently, limiting requests per min etc which would be an absolute pain in the ass to get around if not impossible to code. A standard across all airlines would be sweet, though their reluctance to this is underdtandable, web crawlers apparently almost brought ryanair's site to a halt http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=08&month=aug&story=reg-en-260808&pos=BANNER

Gally said...

Uh cant edit my comment? lame. This is just the link above.

Sean O'Dwyer said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sean O'Dwyer said...

Dynamic proxy useage ?
possible for apps which would run on a schedule ni the background so user not sitting waiting for results.