script to tell us when the lollapalooza front page changes, so that we can get in on ticket deals quickly

lolla.py

#!/usr/bin/python
 
# script to tell us when the lollapalooza front page has changed, presumably to get ticket deals
 
import urllib2
import time
import md5
import smtplib
import random
from email.mime.text import MIMEText
 
people          = [ ] # put people to notify here
urltowatch      = 'http://www.lollapalooza.com/'
smtpserverURL   = 'smtp.gmail.com:587'
smtpserverLogin = 'yourlogin@gmail.com'
smtpserverPass  = 'yourpassword'
 
pagehash = None
while True:
  page = urllib2.urlopen(urltowatch)
  print page.geturl()
  print page.info()
  oldpagehash = pagehash
  pagehash = md5.new(page.read()).digest()
  if oldpagehash != None and oldpagehash != pagehash:
    msg = MIMEText(urltowatch)
    msg['Subject'] = urltowatch + ' has changed!!'
    msg['From'] = smtpserverLogin
    msg['To'] = ''

    # send the message
    print 'connecting to smtp server...'
    server = smtplib.SMTP(smtpserverURL)
    print 'connected'
    server.starttls()
    server.login(smtpserverLogin, smtpserverPass)
    server.sendmail(smtpserverLogin, people, msg.as_string())
    server.quit()

  time.sleep(60 + random.randrange(4, 16)) # every minute + human noise