Automation is so cool

Off-Topic
#1

This is off-topic, but I thought that some of you might find this interesting.

For the past two months I have been automating the lights in my house with remote control switches. I found a really good remote control for only 15 dollars, the neat thing is the system can work if you have more than one remote control system in your house. So I bought 3 all together and now instead of turning a knob, I just press a button on a small remote control. Automates up to 3 lights in a room. Cool.

I still had a problem with a light in the garage, and I got an idea that I could solve it by buying a motion detector light bulb socket. I researched the sockets and found that some motion detector light bulb sockets only work from the ceiling, not with a table or floor lamp. So I got a motion detector light bulb socket that works with a floor lamp. Now when I have to go into the garage to do something, the light automatically turns on with out me having to turn a hard switch on the floor lamp. Automation is so cool.

It got me thinking how I can automate the programs I can create in real basic/xojo, to make data automatically load/save, ect. Automation is cool. The more steps you can do without having to perform physical actions has real advantage.

the remote control switch I used for the lamps is called bn-link, and the motion control light bulb socket is called eSenlite. Both are on Amazon.

#2

Automation need work done “before”…

I have done a batch image resizer. Nothng fancy.

Then, I created a window that tooks the above source files (names) and create an html file that displays the reszed images in a table, and decode the different fields of the name to populate the table.

The images are magazine covers. The images files names holds:
Magazine name
Main Feature nName
Price
Release Date
Page Number,
Editor Company Name

Plus some rooms for the Toc…

Some month ago, I also created a project that tooks instructions from a text file and create the appropriate Controls on the window / code to deal with SQLite and… I forgot what else was there (I went to hospital for eye surgery, then…).

At last: yes, automation is so cool.

As I used to say “A computer is there to relieve humans of repetitive tasks.”

So, I am for the lights on when I enter in a room and lights off when I go out of that room :wink: