eh, yea.. I think I can easily communicate with a url and obtain the same streaming quotes anyway.. I basically need to know the same technique as that 'autoposter' program that I talked about in another thread.. I'll check it out, and see what I can do. Thanks.

whoa.. Do your clients generally think the software helps them a lot? What exactly do most of your clients use it for? jw

Our clients are major investment banks using the data to power the terminals used by their traders, the websites showing their clients data, etc. etc.

For them the cost is peanuts (and it's a fraction of what our major competitor charge for similar services, IF those competitors have the data (some of it is unique to us)).
A single trader could make more money in a day for them than the entire cost of the data for a year.

So we don't deal (directly at least) with the smalltime investor working on his bedroom PC. We deal with the BIG traders like JP Morgan, banks like HSBC, guys like that (not necessarilly them, but you get the idea).
If a company trades for billions a day (with revenue in tens of millions a day) a few thousand a month for a data license isn't going to bother them.

Hmm.. Well, I don't want to use 'dummy' information as the entire purpose of this program is to provide me with a day trading tool.

I have found another way to obtain quote data besides the java applet.. All you have to do is type in the symbol on their website, and they display information about the stock using javascript (I think). I haven't tested if these are accurate quotes, but I will tomorrow.

So, any1 have advice regarding this.. ?

you can try sending and receiving http requests and parsing the results.
It's possible, but messy.

Or try to contract them to provide you with the data through some other means (like SOAP).

Okay, the quotes online via their website are also streaming so I don't actually need to communicate with an applet..

Yea, I've tried contacting them by e-mail, but to no reply

The applet first attempts a socket connection, but an http connection is the secondary option..

I've tried using URLConnection, but the stream reader cannot input the data I'm looking for because 1, it uses javascript or somethn to cmmunicate with the server.. and 2, I cannot manage to log into my account using secure http..

Jwenting, does your software get information from the same server? Or can your customers choose which brokerage firm to go through, and your company is able to retrieve information dynamically, from anyone? Basically, just wondering the best way to retrieve my data.. I'm a bit confused as to how these web pages function.. I know some html, but I don't know much about scripts within the html.. When I view the source of the page, it looks like it executes javascript or somethn..

the site if almost certainly using Ajax to send XML data over http and get XML back.
Run the browser through some sort of package sniffer to get the request and response structure and you may be able to have your own software send and receive the same thing (but were I the guy programming that site I'd defend against such things, using stuff like encryption, sessions, etc. etc.).

Oh, sorry.. I accidentally posted before I finished.. had to edit.

If you are using Firefox (which of course you SHOULD be!! ), you might find this add-on useful in picking through how a site is doing things:
Web Developer : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60

It adds a toolbar that lets you inspect all kinds of things going on in a page.

Thanks much Ezzaral for that plugin

Excuse me if this post appears idiotic and/or noobish (As I'm sure it will)

Okay, first of all.. What packet sniffer would you recommend I use?

Does the attached link have any useful information at all?

I think I found the page that opens up specific data regarding each symbol:
https://trading.scottrade.com/quotes...spx?symbol=HDY

.. and a few other interesting links:
https://trading.scottrade.com/home/D...R=ASC&LastCOL=
javascript:__doPostBack('WatchLists1$watchGrid$_ctl1$_ctl1','')

This doesn't really mean much to me, as I have only basic knowledge of html, and only know of the java programming language. However, these appear to be important links to the server..

Since you have an address that accepts the symbol as a request parameter, it should be trivial to scrape the quote from the HTML response. Take a look at this article I ran across in a quick search for "stock quote web service". The article is using C# but given the similarity to Java you shouldn't have any trouble with it:
http://dotnetjunkies.com/Article/A3E...C92A523E9.dcik