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Advice needed

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    Advice needed

    Good Morning,

    I'm making a Contact list for possible potential customers.
    I'm getting the information I need from the Verizon Yellow pages site. On there site you can have a listing of 45 "possible customers" per page. So I can copy and paste 45 potential clients. I'm not sure as to what the best method would be to get them into my alpha database. As of now the best way I have found is to copy the "possible clients" and paste them into a Works database, rearrange everything into there correct fields then import them into the alpha database.

    Is anyone aware of a better method??? The cutting and pasting in the works database is getting very old quick

    Thanks for any advice,
    Brian

    #2
    RE: Advice needed

    Brian,

    While the Verizon site displays 45 names per page, are you sure that there are no options on the site to download, copy to buffer, etc.? Sometimes you can find such features on sites which make copying much easier. My 2 cents.

    Steve

    Comment


      #3
      RE: Advice needed

      Hi Steve,

      Unfortunately, I have not been able to find one. That would make my life a little to easier then the gods would stand for. Besides it probally would not help there CD sales.
      Thanks for your "2 cents".

      Brian

      Comment


        #4
        RE: Advice needed

        It might be (slightly) easier to copy & paste into Excel & save as a dbf?
        Peter
        AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

        [email protected]
        https://www.alphabasesolutions.com


        Comment


          #5
          RE: Advice needed

          I haven't seen the page you refer to, but I've done similar things like this:

          Copy and paste to a Word doc, and then save as text. If you're lucky, it will approximate rows and columns, which you can import using the Import operation. The ASCII TABLE option works well (sometimes) because you can define the length of each field.

          I've also created a script in which I used file.read() to read each line of the text file, and pull what I need from it. This isn't exactly easy, but it's not impossible either, and I've been able to extract data this way.

          You'll still have to copy and paste, but after that you can use the operation or script to automate the rest.

          If you want to pursue this and would like more info, please feel free to email me. I could get back to you sometime next week.

          Comment


            #6
            RE: Advice needed

            Good Afternoon,

            I was wondering if someone could take a minute to educate me. I have been copying and pasting into a Works database. I am unfamiliar with Excel. I am able to copy 45 potential clients into the database all at once but then have to move each piece of information one at a time into there correct fields,as you can imagine this gets old very quick. Especially considering I have done all of this once before and your girlfriend accidently erases it.

            I noticed while copying that when I right click on the web page there is an option to export to excel. Once again, I have never used Excel before. I tried to highlight all 45 potential clients and right click to find the exporting options is not available. So as far as I can tell I would have to do 1 at a time. I was wondering as to why it is the popular opinion to use Excel over Works??? Is anyone familiar enough with Excel to know how I could use the exporting option to speed things up a bit??? Any push In the FASTER direction would be great. Below is the address I am using:
            http://yellowpages.superpages.com/listings.jsp?SRC=&STYPE=S&PG=L&CB=1&R=N&C=&CID=00000486757&cbdt=Restaurants&catID=13014&T=&S=VA&PS=45&RR=&search=Find+It

            I have to first open all the "Phone" and "EMail" links.

            Sorry for the length,
            Brian

            Comment


              #7
              RE: Advice needed

              Good Afternoon,

              I was wondering if someone could take a minute to educate me. I have been copying and pasting into a Works database. I am unfamiliar with Excel. I am able to copy 45 potential clients into the database all at once but then have to move each piece of information one at a time into there correct fields,as you can imagine this gets old very quick. Especially considering I have done all of this once before and your girlfriend accidently erases it.

              I noticed while copying that when I right click on the web page there is an option to export to excel. Once again, I have never used Excel before. I tried to highlight all 45 potential clients and right click to find the exporting options is not available. So as far as I can tell I would have to do 1 at a time. I was wondering as to why it is the popular opinion to use Excel over Works??? Is anyone familiar enough with Excel to know how I could use the exporting option to speed things up a bit??? Any push In the FASTER direction would be great. Below is the address I am using:
              http://yellowpages.superpages.com/listings.jsp?SRC=&STYPE=S&PG=L&CB=1&R=N&C=&CID=00000486757&cbdt=Restaurants&catID=13014&T=&S=VA&PS=45&RR=&search=Find+It

              I have to first open all the "Phone" and "EMail" links.

              Sorry for the length,
              Brian

              Comment


                #8
                RE: Advice needed

                Hello Brian,

                I went and took a quick look at the url and copied and pasted into a text editor (file attached). The data, at least from this quick sample, looks very well organized. I would not use any other tool except for Alpha Five and a text file that you've pasted into. IMHO, you need to write or have written for you, a relatively simple script to parse the text file and write directly into a table. Then you are only limited by your copy and paste skills :-)

                Good luck,
                Jim

                Comment


                  #9
                  RE: Advice needed

                  Good Morning,

                  Did I read your post correct? It would be possible to write a script to import the values from a text file in the same format as your attachment?

                  eg.

                  = Backyard Burgers
                  155 Crown Dr Danville VA 24540
                  (434) 791-3211

                  Backyard Grill & Bar
                  13999 Metrotech Drive Chantilly VA 20151
                  (703) 802-6400

                  Bad Water Bills BBQ Barn
                  33840 Old Valley Pike Strasburg VA 22657
                  (540) 465-4988

                  Bad Wolf Bar-B-Q
                  3005 Plantation Road Northeast Roanoke VA 24012
                  (540) 362-9095

                  Baganakis John
                  1509 Richmond Road Williamsburg VA 23185
                  (757) 229-7613

                  Above would be 5 seperate records. With fields for client,address,blah,blah,blah.

                  This is probally way over my head but I'd like to give it a go. Could I get a few hints as to go about it??
                  Should the records somehow be put into an array?? Any help at all I would be grateful.

                  BG

                  Comment

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