Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#131

Post by geocrasher » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 1:15 PM UTC

tomjuggler wrote: post #79

geocrasher wrote: post #13

My typing. In my work I tend to type a lot of the same things over and over again. So I automate that with AutoHotKey. Ctrl+Tab becomes RightAlt. Two words become entire paragraphs. Even simple things like "You're welcome" are just 'ywyw' or 'tyvm' becomes "Thank you very much". I know it sounds silly, but while trying to avoid RSI's, the less typing the better. I also use autohotkey to help me remember to Linux comm…

Are you using wsl because AutoHotkey doesn't work on Linux... Back when I was on Windows I used to have ctrl-c, ctrl-v mapped to F1 and F2 keys (using AHK). Why they don't have dedicated keys I don't know

I'm on Windows 10. When I'm using it in Linux, it's via SSH through Mobaxterm, which is a fantastic and free Windows shell manager.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#132

Post by mxgoddard » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 1:21 PM UTC

Whenever I turn on my work laptop it launches sites and applications I use on a day to day basis, like Jira (for our ticket), Hacker News (daily dose of information), Slack, Outlook etc. Very simple to create with python and just something I wanted to make.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#133

Post by lardissone » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 1:32 PM UTC

mxgoddard wrote: post #132

Whenever I turn on my work laptop it launches sites and applications I use on a day to day basis, like Jira (for our ticket), Hacker News (daily dose of information), Slack, Outlook etc. Very simple to create with python and just something I wanted to make.

I use the same laptop for job and personal work/usage, so I use an app called Workspaces (https://www.apptorium.com/workspaces) that let me setup group of apps/websites/commands that I can launch with a few clicks or using url-schemes.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#134

Post by jsonbourne » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 1:46 PM UTC

Usually, my download folder is quite messy. I wrote a rudimentary script to re-organize a folder using a simple cli. It also has a config that can be updated to account for different file types or categories.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#135

Post by gield » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 1:53 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #110

[Not really automation, but I'm hijacking the opportunity to tell the story.] I'm a terrible morning person and I noticed that I need much longer to get up and dressed and everything than it reasonably should take. On the order of "taking 1 hour to do stuff that can be done in 15 minutes". I seem to have ADHD (disclaimer: not formally diagnosed, just going off of symptom lists and descriptions from other people), and…

I need this in my life. Is the source code public somewhere, or can you make it public?

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#136

Post by lardissone » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 1:54 PM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #44

Lots of home automation fun with Home Assistant ( https://www.home-assistant.io ) * Self-hosted security system that e-mails me when triggered. It arms when everyone disconnects from the wifi and disarms when anyone in the home reconnects to wifi. Totally passive. Also arms at night when the kitchen lights have been out for 5 minutes after a certain time and disarms when motion patterns that can only be someone wakin…

Can you elaborate on the doorbell? Also where do you host your Home Assistant setup?

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#137

Post by DrJones1098 » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #48

rolleiflex wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if it would be possible to build an app that's effectively a self-installed keylogger given access to your entire stream of writing, and after a few days, it starts to recommend candidate strings for automation with Autohotkey.

This was the idea behind the Blackberry Android keyboard. Source: Was there, wrote code for it.

sounds like code that could be useful to this day at least the concepts. That's the downside of closed source. It's gone now.

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#138

Post by nickthemagicman » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 2:03 PM UTC

zakn wrote: post #78

Shopping for groceries. I made a website which lets my wife and I pick recipes and any "one off" items we need for the week. The code figures out which ingredients it should buy (preferring organic / sale items) and then calls the "APIs" of our local grocery store's website to make the purchase. We then just have to pick up the pre-packed groceries on our way home from work. It costs $5 for the packing service, but i…

What grocery store APIs are you using?

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#139

Post by eivarv » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

Human context switching. I'm being cheeky; I mean closing down and bringing up all relevant applications, their state (open windows, tabs, files...) and so on for working on a given task or project.

Sort of like a workspace manager for the OS. Releasing an open beta this winter.

There's a short, low-res demo that kinda illustrates the basic concept on https://cleave.app

Re: Ask HN: What do you automate in your life and work?

#140

Post by girishso » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

kdbg wrote: post #108

This might sound a little-bit stupid, but I automate locking/unlocking internet access on my phone and computer. That is to say, every night my computers and phone will lock me out[0] at a set time. Then in the morning I have to log 30 minutes of exercise (tracked by my heartrate on fitbit) to unlock internet access. I also have certain time-wasting sites like Reddit and Netflix locked out until I complete a sufficie…

Interesting. Might be useful to me as well. What software(s) do you use for this?