Copernic Tracker ($49.95) monitors web pages you’re interested in and, when it finds a change, shows a message on your computer, sends you an email with the changes highlighted or even sends a message to your cell phone. It can watch for specific keywords to show up on a page or look for new images or links. You can set Tracker to look for changes as often as you want – even every few minutes if needed. And it can keep copies of pages so you can compare changes over time.
I’ve been using the program for at least 8 years – which includes changes through several versions of Windows, including Vista, and have yet to have problems with it.
Let’s say I want to know when new papers are added to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) abstract database. In particular, I’m interested in any new research dealing with retirement planning. I could go to that particular page on the SSRN website and check it every once in a while. Of course, that means I must remember to do it, must remember which page it is that I wanted to check and, after I get there, remember what was on the page earlier so I can figure out if anything changed. That would require the use of too many brain cells.
Copernic Tracker does it automatically. Let me share an example of how I use it.
After installing the software, you’ll find a small icon on your Internet Explorer toolbar. (Tracker only supports IE – probably because the program itself hasn’t been updated since 2004. If you don’t use IE – and I usually don’t – you have to work around this. I’ll tell you in a moment how I do it.)
When you find a webpage that you’re interested in tracking, click on that icon. (You can also click Tools on the menu and then “Track Page Using Copernic Tracker.” Or right click on a web page and the same choice is available.)
The “New Tracking Task” window opens. Tracker fills in the URL and the name of the page [1] for you. Next you decide how often Tracker should check the page [2]. The 4 preset choices are multiple times a day, daily, weekly or monthly. Elsewhere you can customize the schedules.
You can manage pages with folder and subfolders. I have separate folders for personal planning and business planning. Within the personal planning folder, I have separate folders for web pages that deal with charitable planning, elder law, estate planning, retirement planning, etc.
You can also tell Tracker [4] to trigger an alert if new links are added to the page or if there are new images.
You get to customize how Tracker decides there have been changes you’re interested in. By default it’s based on how many words have changed on the page [3] since the last time it checked. How does the program decide when to let you know a page has changed? Sometimes I set that number higher if the page has lots of changes that are ‘noise’. For example, the page may include download counts. Or it may have information in sidebars that changes constantly but has nothing to do with the meat of the page.
You can also tell Tracker to let you know when keywords or a certain phrase [5] show up on the page. This is like doing a search. If a few words or phrase are not enough, you can create a Boolean query [6] with multiple levels of parentheses and quotes. (”Split dollar” NEAR “life insurance”)
Next you tell it how to let you know a page has changed [7]. You can set a default method that applies unless you change it for a specific page. For example, my default is to not display anything on my desktop but to send an email alert to an email I set up just to receive these alerts. If you have it send an email, it defaults to sending an email with the web page (changes highlighted) in the body. You can tell it to send the web page as an email attachment. I like it in the email itself – you’ll see why in a moment.
There are lots of advanced options if you’re a power user. On the “Advanced” tab [8] you can tell it to save images from the web page or let you know if there’s a problem in downloading the page. The “ignore” options [9] are useful if you’re looking for changes based on keywords or a query.
“Cleanup” [10] lets you decide how many revisions of a page to keep. You can put a number in there (there doesn’t appear to be an upper limit) or you can tell Tracker to keep copies of all revisions. When it does this, the program keeps a copy of the page (with changes highlighted) every time it finds changes on the page. In a minute I’ll tell you why that’s a very important part of this program – and one that’s saved my bacon more than once.
The last section [11] lets you set up the information needed if the website requires that you log on. If it only requires a username and password, the first choice (”Page requires login”) is easy. If it’s more complicated, you can use the other options – but unless you know something about how websites are set up, you may need expert help to know how to configure that advanced set up.
Once you’ve set up the tracking task your work is done. It’s now up to the software to do its thing and let you know when it finds changes.
If you asked for email notification, you’ll get something like this [12]. The subject line tells you the name of the page and how many changes there have been since the last time Tracker checked it. The subject line also includes a link to the page itself in case you want to go to it. Notice that Tracker highlights changes so you can easily identify what has changed. This is why I like Tracker to send me an email with the page in the body — instead of sending the page as an attachment. If Tracker sent it as an attachment, I’d have to open the attachment to see the changes. That’s an extra step before I can see the changes. This makes it easy. With Outlook I can see the changes without even opening the email. The highlights draw my eye right to what has changed. (Can you imagine trying to identify changes just by looking at a web page and trying to remember what was on it the last time you checked?)
If you open Tracker itself, you can look at the pages you’re tracking and see any changes. It tells what page you’re looking at, how often Tracker is checking and when it last found a change. Notice that if the changes are further down on the page, Tracker automatically scrolls to the first change – another little time saver. If you’re like me, saving a few seconds here and there throughout the day is important. It can mean having time to do things we like to do but otherwise couldn’t justify if there were still a lot of “have-to-do” things in the inbox.
You can click “Next” [13] and go to the next change on the page. You can also open the actual web page [14]. If you’d like to email a copy of the page (with changes), click the “Send” button [15] and Tracker creates a new email for you with the web page in the body. The subject line shows the name of the page, the date and time it was downloaded by Tracker and the URL of the page. Type an email address and you’re good to go.
Earlier I said that Tracker gives you the ability to, effectively, keep an archive of changes in a web page by keeping multiple “revisions” of a page over time. Why is this so valuable? I can remember a few times talking with people in different departments about a position they had taken that I or customers had relied on. They denied they ever said that. Fortunately, Tracker had been told to track the page with that policy. Bingo! Put up the history of changes in that page. Find the one with the statement we had relied on. Click on “Send”. Include an explanation saying something like, “Here is a copy of the web page we relied on. You’ll see in the subject line when it was downloaded.”
Here’s an example of a page that didn’t have many revisions over a long time. With Tracker, I can tell this page had significant changes in July 2007, in March 2008 and finally in February this year.
As mentioned earlier, Tracker only supports Internet Explorer. If you regularly use Firefox – like I do – you have several options. You can open Tracker using the Start Menu and then create a new tracking task. You can also have Tracker add a shortcut to your desktop or to the quick launch toolbar – that will save a few mouse clicks in opening Tracker. But all those options mean you must manually open the program and click “New Tracking Task.” When you do that, you’ll see the web address and name of the page are blank. You’ll have to copy and paste the web address and type in the name of the page. Too much work.
If you’re like me and want to do things the easiest way possible, do what I do and install the IE View add-on to Firefox. When you come across a web page you’d like to track, right click your mouse. You’ll see a menu item that says “View this page in IE”. Click on it and Internet Explorer opens to the same page. Now you can just click on Tracker icon and you’re on your way! Most of the time you’ll find both Firefox and Internet Explorer open on my computer.
Tracker costs $49.95. Go to the Copernic website to download a free 30-day trial or to see a demo.
My take? It’s another software product that goes on any new computer I get.
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