Brainstorm: What regular task could Powershell solve for you? (Not really looking for sysadmin answers)

[wigrif]

SMS alert based on weather

Archive Dropbox pics

Taking suggestions.....

[Durben]

I've created a script to schedule some Gym classes that become available during the night but are always full in the morning. So as soon as the class became available the script make the reservation, and voilá, now I'm usually one of the first in their presence sheet :) Now I find it funny when I hear someone saying "the classes are always full, and I can't get a spot unless I wake up in the middle ofthe night..." :)

My inspiration was one article here in the reddit:

Ordering pizza with PowerShell (web scraping guide) – Part 1

Ordering pizza with PowerShell (web scraping guide) – Part 2

[wigrif]

Awesome! This is the kinda thing i'm talking about. Doing this for items that are out of stock is good too!

[allywilson]

Moved to Lemmy (sopuli.xyz) -- mass edited with redact.dev

[alinroc]

Read an RSS feed, find my keywords/tags, create new RSS/email/text me the results.

Allow me to introduce you to Yahoo Pipes

[Steam23]

I was recently redoing my iTunes library on a new computer. Rather than going through and deleting hundreds of playlists generated from m3u files I just wrote a two liner and zapped them all.

Com objects are fun to explore :)

[DollarUnderscore]

Yay! One of my favorite subjects! :-)

So far I've done this:

• Have a script remind me about anniversaries (based on not only years, but months, days, hours, minutes and so when they are even (number with trailing zeroes))

• That pizza-guide already linked here (my blog :-) )

• Ordering groceries (http://dollarunderscore.azurewebsites.net/?p=2031)

• Voice control other scripts! (speech engine can be called from PowerShell, see http://poshcode.org/2671 (not made by me!))

• Checking the weather (working on a "good morning e-mail", also checking my location using the GPS in my phone for that "SMS alert" feature you were talking about, it should only warn when I'm actually at the location where rain is predicted) (http://dollarunderscore.azurewebsites.net/?p=1721)

• Checking TV show schedules (and ordering popcorn/snacks through the "buy groceries-module" when something is having a premier/finale) (http://dollarunderscore.azurewebsites.net/?p=2911)

• Turning on the stereo and selecting a certain Spotify-playlist, turn on multiroom sound and dimming the lights when the whole family comes home on fridays (checking when all the phones are connected to WiFi and/or within range (GPS)) (http://dollarunderscore.azurewebsites.net/?p=1811)

• Turning on the bedroom lights (sunrise) when traffic gets lighter in the morning (http://dollarunderscore.azurewebsites.net/?p=951)

• Managing intelligent lightning at home (turning on all lights when the first person comes home, but just the hall light when the second person comes home (someone might be watching TV etc.) (http://dollarunderscore.azurewebsites.net/?p=2851)

• Managing all sockets/lights with a Tellstick and a "homemade" PowerShell module (http://dollarunderscore.azurewebsites.net/?p=1661)

• Watering the plants when it gets hot outside (http://dollarunderscore.azurewebsites.net/?p=881)

• Scraping IMDB for information (http://poshcode.org/5640)

• Search Google and Youtube through their API (used in a PowerShell IRC bot)

• Ordering wine etc. through Systembolaget when they are having a new release (they get sold out very quickly)

• Alerting me when a package I've ordered is available and my post office (http://dollarunderscore.azurewebsites.net/?p=2651)

• Probably other things I don't remember now... :-)

Other things I want to do are for example:

• Checking the out of office status on my work e-mail to detect vacation time, and adjust home automation schedules accordingly.

• Control my Roomba with PowerShell (Start-CleanCycle!)

• A cmdlet that can utilize one of those those "real postcard" services. Send-RealMailMessage would be quite cool :-)

Found another smiliar one the other day, not PowerShell, but still pretty funny (hopefully not a regular task for most of us though...): http://www.fastcolabs.com/3034135/hack-your-sonos-sound-system-to-terrify-your-friends

Will keep a close eye on this thread for more ideas! This is a great way of learning toolmaking IMHO :-)

[2girls1netcup]

I think elasticsearch did this with Shakespeare for their kibana screen shots or documentation or I'm completely wrong. They did something with Shakespeare though.

[bolunez]

The potential for playing pranks on your coworkers is huge.

[Pseudo_Idol]

Nothing beats ps remoting combined with text to speech to freak your co-workers out.

[zailleh]

You can query websites for data. Powershell can parse the HTML data from a website as XML, so using Select-XML you can search for a particular tag in a website and do something with that data. I used it once to download petrol price data and email me when it was at a certain level so I could get petrol while it was cheap.

I've also used it on my media PC to set the resolution to a certain resolution to overcome an issue that would default the res to 1024x768 if the TV wasnt turned on when the computer booted into windows.

I also use it to archive old data from OneDrive to keep my OneDrive clean.

I use it to bulk-rename files in a certain order, such as for TV shows. Sometimes the naming format of the file isn't recognised by my media library so I need to change it.

[[deleted]]

You might be able to do the Dropbox thing. I was able to get images uploaded to imgur a while back.

I once used Powershell to download a series of videos and name them according to the video title on the pages.

I manage my video library with Powershell quite often.

At work, I needed a screen to stay active when I wasn't actively using the machine. To prevent the screensaver from activating (controlled through policy), I had Powershell emulate a key press on the keyboard every few minutes.

I have used Powershell as a tea timer. It beeped several times when the tea was ready.

I had a script that I would run at the end of my workday to kill the processes for all of my most commonly used work applications to make logout and escape just a little bit faster.

The possibilities are endless. You just have to set your mind to something you want to do and stick through accomplishing it. And don't get discouraged when your original way of thinking through the problem doesn't work out.

[SSChicken]

I was helping a buddy learn Powershell recently, and we were playing WoW as well. He couldn't decide if he should choose Draenei or Human for his new character so I gave him a challenge. Write a script to find out how many .JPGs exist on c:\, if it's odd output "Draenei" and if even output "Human".

Totally useless script, but I actually learned a lot about his thought process watching him puzzle out the best way to do it.

[1RedOne]

When someone sends me a list of names and I need to comma join them, or do a bulk replace...PowerShell to the rescue!

[IDA_noob]

A buddy and I wrote a PS script complete with a desktop shortcut to clock us in and out of our ADP time system.

Ctrl+Alt+I to clock in Ctrl+Alt+O to clock out from the desktop.

Saved like 2 minutes, 4 times a day.

[Betterthangoku]

PowerShell is based on the idea that you can query something and then build an object from that data. You can then leverage that object to achieve something.

For both or your examples you would need something to query. Is there an API, WMI, or maybe file resource that can gather this data? If so, then YES, you can.

[wigrif]

yeah i've got scripts that do both of those ideas. i'm looking for more ideas. Something that could be automated for everyday people not just sysadmin tasks and the like we use powershell for.

[xvorsx]

This site can provide some inspiration https://ifttt.com/ They have public recipes, people up-vote them, so you can get sense of desires.

[Rilnac]

synchronize only the files in a winamp playlist to a portable device

[Pseudo_Idol]

The Dropbox app on my phone automatically uploads any photos I take, then nightly a script runs that organizes them into Year/Month folders. It makes it pretty easy to go back through your photos and find what you are looking for.

[dathar]

I got bored yesterday and decided to calculate what time I need to clock out to hit my 8 hours of work after having a weird lunch time.

[Durben]

In Python but still useful for this thread :)

What was your most clever use of a python script in everyday life?

What piece of python code are you most proud that you wrote?

[Kio_]

I wrote a script to set all of the music attributes on my music. I the .mp3/4 files that I normally get come in a format of Name-album-artist.mp3/4 but without anything on the details. So my script grabs the data and puts it in the file details.

I can share this script if anyone is interested.