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WHAT IT IS FOR ************** I used to check over a dozen websites each day to see if new versions of the software I use had been released. This was time consuming and error prone. VerCheck automates this process by checking the websites of the programs you use to see if the version numbers have changed. It comes preconfigured from the factory with 113 applications. HOW IT WORKS ************ For each application, you give the URL of a page to check. You also specify some string that is on the page, usually containing the version number. If this string is not present, presumably something has changed. You have to then manually figure out what, and install the new software, then adjust VerCheck to look for the new version number. USE *** To add a new application hit (+), then enter an application name, an URL and the marker -- an expected response string that will be embedded in the web page returned if the version has not changed. Click"Check-for-New-Versions to check the entire list of applications to see if any have changed. Click Restore-Defaults to restore the factory setting URLs, and markers. You would do this most commonly after using a new updated version of VerCheck. Your own app settings won't be affected, but any of the factory apps will be updated. You can adjust the widths of the columns by dragging the separator lines between the column headers. This utility is an implementation of the Version Checker student project described at versionchecker in the projects section of the java glossary. The results of daily running this utility with the factory settings are posted under utilities in the Java glossary. ADVANCED USE ************ you can use Java regular expressions in the marker field for matching. Just prefix them with the string regex: e.g. regex:version[- ]+9.9