MacUpdate.com

[BaddMann]

I've been Eyeing macupdate.com as a central place to see if we need to update applications.
Unfortunately they don't offer easily spread sheeted data formats.
So I've used Feed43 to create an RSS feed.
I soon hope to have it cross referenced (Via Google Sheets) with our application data from our casper database.
Anybody done this before, or have any better suggestions for finding out what we have and what's the latest version in use.
Here is the rss feed: http://feed43.com/macupdates.xml

[malroy]

Cool, Keep me posted BaddMann

Thanks

[jstrauss]

From what I'm reading, all you want to do is determine what versions of software you currently have installed in your environment and whether the software version is older than what the watch list version is. Is that right? That seems pretty straightforward to me. :)

Also, MacUpdate creates their own RSS feed directly on their watch list page, so no need for a third party.

[BaddMann]

Malroy
Will Do.

jstrauss
Yeah sort of. I'll try out the watch list, it looks promising, just annoyed about user creds.

I've been required by our CAB to submit a request a week in advance of what needs to be updated on the following week. Biggest problem has been just knowing what needs to be updated and then checking with our users on if they want it or not.

We have some demanding users that want everything yesterday and some that want to still be in the stone age.

As this was way to much work to do manually and I'm always over thinking things I want to build a script that checks for updates, Emails the users that qualify for updates with a form that requests their approval. Return statistical results of form requests to CAB, and have them approve or disapprove the update for the next maintenance cycle. That way my users and my IT leadership have buy in on the updates that take place. So if they take to long, mess up a system or other unforeseen issues arise I've got electronic consent for the change that can stop them from scape goating on me.

Google App Scripts can do it very easily once I scrape the macupdate site successfully and import our casper data.
I'm using ImportXML function now for import, and it's promising, but I'd like to include URLs and the darn xpath string is hard as heck to figure out with multiple selections.

Anyway, if you want to follow along with my progress here is my function so far:

=importXml("https://www.macupdate.com";"//[@id='apptable']/child::")

Just plant that sucker in a google sheet and You'll be where I am.

I'm going to escalate to google app scripts soon, but it's nice to have this much data in one simple function. Another option will be using the importdata() function and reg expression at the raw html level. I'll explore that more later.

If any one can figure out the xpath that extracts the title, rating(via alt text) and url in one xpath statement; I will be forever gratefully in your debt.

[Sonic84]

You can create your own custom watch lists which has a RSS feed on macupdate with a paid subscription. Sometimes a free 6mo subscription is included in their Mac Bundle Promos. Otherwise I think it's $20 for 1 year. The nice thing is even after your subscription lapses, the watch list remains, you just can't add/delete any apps till the subscription is renewed.