Product Reviews
Offline Explorer Enterprise
It's pretty easy to describe what Offline Explorer Enterprise (OEE) does:
it connects to a web site and slurps all of the pages from that site to
a local computer, so you can browse it at your leisure without connecting
to the web again. You can specify how many levels deep you'd like to follow
links during the download process, as well as whether to follow links
to other sites. The product is multi-threaded and very fast, and can handle
up to 100 million pages per download session.
The product also includes an OLE automation interface. You can trigger
the download process from an external client, and than manipulate the
files that OEE downloads. For example, you might want to create a list
of the largest pages and send email with that information.
In addition to handling standard HTML, OEE has an understanding of other
formats such as PDF, Flash, XML, and Javascript, and can get links from
these sources to follow. The result is a more complete picture of a site
than you'd get from HTML alone.
So why might you need this? How about creating your own specialized search
engine for web sites you care about? Archiving copies of your own (or
your competitors') websites? Transferring information from an internal
web site to a more secure external site? Or maybe you'd just like the
latest news from CNN, Reuters, and AP waiting for you when you get up
in the morning. OEE can deliver on all of these chores and more.
[This review originally appeared in
About the Author
Mike Gunderloy, MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, is a former MCP columnist and the author of numerous development books.