Does anyone know of a data feed that is just the data accessible over the net?
I have looked around and a lot of them offer their own software that will grab the data, and then perform some limited range of functions on it.
Then there are options like QuoteTracker that does that, but allows you to select a range of data feeds for it.
Is there anything out there that will let me poll it - a url, or a port on a server - and then it will return data in either ascii or xml, or even a Java serialized object would work - but I would prefer to avoid that.
The reason I ask is twofold:
1) I want to write my own code to analyze it, I don't necessarily like the way other places do it - so a built in tool isn't what I necessarily want
2) I am on a Mac, and all of the tools are geared towards the Windows crowd. There are a few Java things - but not in the way that I want and also Java performance (through a web browser) on the Mac is currently not that great.
I have Windows machines as well, but I prefer my PowerBook.
I can program anything that I need at this point, I just need the data.
I had/have a subscription to www.stockwatch.com and it is okay (server crashes about once a day or at least disappears and gives an error for a few minutes when you hit the site), but they have now told me that if I want to get the data from an interface that isn't their web page, I am then limited to only 150 reloads for the day even though I am allowed unlimited reloads from the webpage.
That means that they would prefer that I download all of the extra text and images from them instead of just the data. They don't have any ad content, so I'm really baffled as to why they want the additional load on their servers.
I have looked at a few of the data feeds, but I thought I should ask here in case this is something that is a lost cause, or if there is a definite one that is very good.
I have looked around and a lot of them offer their own software that will grab the data, and then perform some limited range of functions on it.
Then there are options like QuoteTracker that does that, but allows you to select a range of data feeds for it.
Is there anything out there that will let me poll it - a url, or a port on a server - and then it will return data in either ascii or xml, or even a Java serialized object would work - but I would prefer to avoid that.
The reason I ask is twofold:
1) I want to write my own code to analyze it, I don't necessarily like the way other places do it - so a built in tool isn't what I necessarily want
2) I am on a Mac, and all of the tools are geared towards the Windows crowd. There are a few Java things - but not in the way that I want and also Java performance (through a web browser) on the Mac is currently not that great.
I have Windows machines as well, but I prefer my PowerBook.
I can program anything that I need at this point, I just need the data.
I had/have a subscription to www.stockwatch.com and it is okay (server crashes about once a day or at least disappears and gives an error for a few minutes when you hit the site), but they have now told me that if I want to get the data from an interface that isn't their web page, I am then limited to only 150 reloads for the day even though I am allowed unlimited reloads from the webpage.
That means that they would prefer that I download all of the extra text and images from them instead of just the data. They don't have any ad content, so I'm really baffled as to why they want the additional load on their servers.
I have looked at a few of the data feeds, but I thought I should ask here in case this is something that is a lost cause, or if there is a definite one that is very good.
