---
title: Shopping with Cooliris
date: "2010-03-12T21:36:32Z"
categories:
  - coding
  - how-i-do-things
wp_id: 2495
---

[![John Lewis jackets scrolling on CoolIris plugin](/blog/assets/johnlewis1.webp "John Lewis jackets scrolling on CoolIris plugin")](/blog/assets/johnlewis1.webp)

[![Zoom-in view of a jacket at John Lewis](/blog/assets/johnlewis2.webp "Zoom-in view of a jacket at John Lewis")](/blog/assets/johnlewis2.webp)

I just put together this [little demo](http://www.s-anand.net/johnlewis) that scrapes [John Lewis](http://www.johnlewis.com/)’ site and creates a [MediaRSS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_RSS) file out of it.

[CoolIris](http://www.cooliris.com/) has got to be the best way to shop. Apart from being really pretty, it’s quite useful when you know what something looks like, but don’t quite know how to search for it. For example, I was trying to look for a headphone-microphone (you know, the ones that connect into an iPhone or a Blackberry). I didn’t have a clue what it’s called. ([TRRS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS_connector), if you’re interested. I found out later.) The only way I could get it was to browse the wall…

[![Amazon search for ear microphones on CoolIris](/blog/assets/amazoncooliris.webp "Amazon search for ear microphones on CoolIris")](/blog/assets/amazoncooliris.webp)

For the curious, here’s the 50-line [source code](http://gist.github.com/330477).