Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 722 posts

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#81

Post by strange_quark »

jdlyga wrote: post #63
juancampa wrote: post #59

Expense tracking. My bank sends me one email every time my card is used. - Using the Google Places API I find the related establishment (gives me name, address, phone number, etc) - Using the Gmail API I look for a receipt email (if any) by looking for another email with the same dollar amount and the same date So at any given time I can see all the purchases/payments I've done with rich information about where and e…

What bank do you use that has this feature?

Not OP, but Chase can email and send push notifications for any purchase if you set the threshold to $0.

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#82

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

richardknop wrote: post #26
notfromhere wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thats outsourcing, not automating

Well to me it’s automated as I don’t have to do it manually. I see your point, it’s still done by a human but from my point of view it has been automated.

I feel like you're dehumanizing the people actually doing the work for you.

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#83

Post by maxk42 »

I automated applying for jobs a few years back. I wrote a scraper and a classifier that took a look at each job posting, determined if it required skills for technologies I wasn't familiar with, and if not, and it was also a strong enough candidate for requiring skills I'm strong with, it would send one of several appropriate resumes depending on which sort of job it was.

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#84

Post by schappim »

(This first one made/saved me thousands) I use it both for home and work:

I automated the online creation of late delivery “inquiries” to Australia Post (I.e when an parcel is late or has gone missing).

Australia Post has a service level agreement for prepaid Express Post satchels where if they’re late they will give you a satchel for free (or credit your account).

When I applied this to every order my work shipped for the past year, the script accounted for 90% of the day’s inquiries I got back thousands of dollars.

The script is written in Rubsy and uses Watir.

Another script I wrote automatically pays my waste collection company via fax. They have the ability to email a PDF invoice but not take payments online.

The script takes the PDF, and fills in my credit card details, adds a signature and faxes it to the company.

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#85

Post by spyspy »

malnourish wrote: post #66
romdev wrote: post #27

Automated almost all my bill payments to use my rewards card. I set up alerts on my online banking site so I get texted when each one clears. Saves me a couple hours of grumpy time each month, plus I get a substantial 1% cash back that ends up being about $200/year. Also, you can dispute charges on a credit card if they get it wrong. Can't do that with bill payment service.

I've found that some bills (mostly rent -- I still rent) charge a percent fee for paying with credit cards.

My landlord charges a flat fee for just using their online portal and my checking account. There's another 3% fee for using a card.

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#86

Post by santaclaus »

In college I wrote a script to register for classes. I'd input the potentially-full classes I'd like to register for, and it would just hammer the registration site repeatedly until someone removed themselves from the class at which point I'd be registered. I'm still amazed IT didn't pull the network connection to my dorm room or have any kind of rate limiting.

No 8am sessions for me!

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#87

Post by _tsz4 »

Passive learning. Whenever I come across something cool or interesting, I put it into a chrome extension I made called "Harvest". It sends me email reminders of what I've added on a spaced repetition schedule (1, 7, 17, 35 days into the future) for optimal retention

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/harvest-grow-your-...

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#88

Post by jrs235 »

Larrikin wrote: post #77
jrs235 wrote: post #61

Scraping state lottery website to determine if the daily lottery jackpot amount for a particular game is greater than my threshold to care enough to consider purchasing a single ticket and sending me a text message in the morning if it is.

Would you mind sharing the code?

It's a smorgasborg of code. I think it's running in azure on some web app services with scheduled jobs. I should clean it up a bit first. Also, I don't really want to compete with more people for the higher jackpots. ;)

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#89

Post by wlesieutre »

malnourish wrote: post #66
romdev wrote: post #27

Automated almost all my bill payments to use my rewards card. I set up alerts on my online banking site so I get texted when each one clears. Saves me a couple hours of grumpy time each month, plus I get a substantial 1% cash back that ends up being about $200/year. Also, you can dispute charges on a credit card if they get it wrong. Can't do that with bill payment service.

I've found that some bills (mostly rent -- I still rent) charge a percent fee for paying with credit cards.

My gas company and electric company are subsidiaries of the same company, and they use identical (read: equally terrible) websites with the same payment gateway. One of them lets me use a credit card and the other makes me pay from a bank account. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Ask HN: What non-work task have you automated?

#90

Post by lazerpants »

richardknop wrote: post #23
lazerpants wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the norm in NYC if you have a job and no washing machine. However, our wash and fold did screw up my clothes more often than I find acceptable.

Find a new wash. I also had this issue but then I switched to another one just around the corner and never had issue with them.

I just moved to a place with laundry. I prefer it to sending it out actually, but anything is better than going to the laundromat.
Post reply on HN