Shopping Made Easy
I don't like to shop. So when I decided that I needed a bigger desk (and a new coffee table and some PC133 SDRAM - email me if you've got extra), I did what lazy shoppers do - I hit up CraigsList. It turns out that since I live within a half hour of a major metropolitan area, there are literally thousands of people e-begging me to buy their desks! It looked like my troubles were over.
Well, finding just the right desk is hard. I need something with lots of open space beneath for PC towers and whatnot, so desks with drawers are out. I also need lots of desktop area to rest my enormous forearms while I type, so regular puny-human sized desks are out too. It looked as if I would be browsing through the CraigsList listings forever, but when I noticed that you can subscribe to a CraigsList search via RSS feed, my task became a whole lot easier.
I subscribed to the RSS feed, and with RSS Ticker installed, new desks for sale scroll across the bottom of my screen within minutes of being posted. I imagine that this method would work with products other than desks, RAM, and coffee tables, but I can't personally confirm it.
Christopher Finke is a software engineer at Mahalo. He is available for birthday parties and bar mitzvahs. 
July 29th, 2006 at 11:48 am
I gave up looking for the desk of my dreams. I broke down and ordered http://www.dwr.com/productdetail.cfm?id=1483 that
A little more expensive than I would have liked, but it's been great so far. Just a big giant glass table.
July 29th, 2006 at 11:56 am
I'm thinking something in an L-shape for maximum space usage in my (small) office. Probably something like http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/fur/185934972.html but a little longer on each side and either smaller drawer spaces or no drawers at all. Maybe I should be looking for an L-shaped table...
August 19th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
I put together a site that searches the RSS feed for you and emails you only when a match is found. Check out http://craigslist.craig2mail.com/ to try it out.
Craig (no not that Craig)
September 4th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Try CraigSpy - it lets you search multiple keywords (including AND/NOT keyword features,) multiple locations, multiple categories, and it also searches for you while you're away from the computer. I used it to find free and cheap stuff for my bachelor pad--also found a really nice Suzuki TS185 that was in amazing condition for only $50. The program is really fast and does a lot of work for you.
http://www.craig-spy.com is the website :)