Ask HN: What tasks do you automate? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What tasks do you automate?

#341

Post by AlphaWeaver » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 2:11 PM UTC

ComputerGuru wrote: post #252

patrickdavey wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious as to how you did the "Phone alerts on specific emails". I'm currently setting my raspberry pi up as a motion detector (we were burgled 2 weeks ago)... and while I can do the motion & send out the email, I really want my phone to go nuts when it gets the alert email (mostly I have notifications turned off). Any hints appreciated! I'm also experimenting with Telegram, which I think will also solve my issue…

Twillio and Amazon (SNS, I think) are dirt cheap and easy to use (at that non-scale).

Seconded. Whenever I need an extremely visible notification, I have Twilio literally give me a phone call.

Re: Ask HN: What tasks do you automate?

#342

Post by asimpson » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 3:20 PM UTC

I love scraping websites, it's a stupid hobby at times, but I dig it (https://github.com/asimpson/nodejs-web-scraper-cookbook).

A couple successful scraper projects: 1. I automated buying an iPhone 6 when it came out at the time with a scraper + Twilio for SMS notifications. 2. I setup a scraper to alert me when certain blue-ray titles were available to reserve at the library. 3. I found a site that posted full NBA replays the day after a game. I set up a scraper to on their RSS feed for a couple teams and uploaded the videos to S3.

I've also automated notifications for when my sump pump gets flipped off. My sump pump is connected to a ground fault outlet which can rarely get flipped. I plugged in a spare raspberry pi to the same outlet and have my synology ping the IP periodically. If the synology can't find the pi it sends me a sms via twilio.

Re: Ask HN: What tasks do you automate?

#343

Post by wordpressdev » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 5:22 PM UTC

neya wrote: post #210

I had tons of startup ideas that I'd always wanted to give it a try. After a point, it became frustrating to test them out one by one, either by writing custom applications in Rails or use Wordpress. But, both costed me a significant amount of time. For example, I had this idea for a travel startup for a very, very long time and I decided to build it on Wordpress. The monetization model was selling some E-Commerce it…

Incredible. This is something I was looking / planning for a long time now. I have a bunch of ideas (couple of spiral notebooks full of 'em) which need set up and execution but due to my consulting practice, I haven't initiated anything as yet.

If you ever write a blog post on the process / checklist of "automating your startup", do share it here.

Re: Ask HN: What tasks do you automate?

#344

Post by dmak » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 1:12 AM UTC

kensoh wrote: post #90

dmak wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading into this, and this seems pretty dense. Any suggestions for beginners who are Software Engineers but need more explanation in this domain?

The trading domain knowledge can be found from various online resources. I used to make a 200+ slide powerpoint on the technical analysis aspect of trading but it is probably irrelevant now as markets had changed much since the introduction of algorithmic and high-frequency trading. I was writing that script for Amibroker platform ( https://www.amibroker.com ) but I believe the market leader is probably something lik…

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: What tasks do you automate?

#345

Post by dmak » Sun, Jul 23, 2017, 1:12 AM UTC

SirLJ wrote: post #186

dmak wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading into this, and this seems pretty dense. Any suggestions for beginners who are Software Engineers but need more explanation in this domain?

You can check my older posts for books I have recommended to get you started

Thanks

Re: Ask HN: What tasks do you automate?

#346

Post by fabianrios » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 10:15 AM UTC

my mac book pro is in german and the keyboard at the office when I plug it to the dock is in English so I created a script to detect when the mac is dis/connected to the dock and switch the language settings, small but proud of it.

Re: Ask HN: What tasks do you automate?

#347

Post by csabapalfi » Mon, Jul 24, 2017, 11:05 AM UTC

BillGuard stopped in the UK and we don't have Mint.com so I decided to write my own personal finance tracker. It's not scalable as I only have scrapers for the banks I use but it was pretty simple to get to a basic setup.

Re: Ask HN: What tasks do you automate?

#348

Post by leksak » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 7:54 PM UTC

anotherevan wrote: post #322

leksak wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes please share!

leksak: It is now available at https://github.com/evmcl/movieschedule

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: What tasks do you automate?

#349

Post by egypturnash » Sat, Jul 29, 2017, 6:21 AM UTC

Lordarminius wrote: post #275

egypturnash wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If doing that stuff over about 4 or 5 years or so makes me a programmer, then I'm also a carpenter, because I've put together a few pieces of furniture over the same span.

You're a programmer and carpenter. It doesn't have to be either/or. I must say your coding achievements are impressive (great utility). Any other skills you haven't mentioned yet? :)

Well mostly I draw comics. In Adobe Illustrator. I spent four and a half years drawing a story about a robot lady dragged outside of reality by her ex-boyfriend: http://egypt.urnash.com/rita

There's other art stuff lurking around my site, too: http://egypt.urnash.com