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Questions tagged [automation]

Making a process run completely or in part without the need of any user input once the process is started.

Automation is usually applied when a large number of similar tasks have to be executed in a row.

Examples of automation are:

  • The processing and validation of user input through a set of rules.
  • Automatically running system diagnostics every X time.
  • Looking up information about songs and labelling the MP3 file accordingly.

Common utilities used for automation include:

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Automatically answer 'Yes' when using apt-get install

Is there a way to make apt-get install automatically choose "yes" upon the Do you want to continue [y/N]? confirmation dialog?
mistiry
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8 answers

How to monitor a folder and trigger a command-line action when a file is created or edited?

I need to set up some sort of a script on my Vista machine, so that whenever a file is added to a particular folder, it automatically triggers a background process that operates on the file. (The background process is just a command-line utility…
bigmattyh
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Open registry directly to a given key?

I need to open a registry key such as the following in regedit. HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Foo\Bar Is there a tool which will navigate to the key for me, without my having to navigate the folders myself one by one?
lance
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4 answers

How do I enable Automatic Logon in Windows 7 when I'm on a domain?

When Windows 7 is joined to a domain the option to automatically login is no longer available in the advanced User Management console. Since I am running a small home domain because of SharePoint and TFS, how would I go about enabling this…
BinaryMisfit
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7 answers

How to Print to Save as PDF from a command line with Chrome or Chromium

Can I print to destination "Save as PDF" from a command line with Chrome or Chromium? I'd like to be able to automatically convert html files to PDF with Chrome's built-in functionality.
ipavlic
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5 answers

How to automate regular Google Takeout backups to cloud storage

I would like to create regular Google Takeout backups (let's say every 3 months) and store them encrypted in some other cloud storage like DropBox or S3. It does not have to be a cloud-to-cloud solution, though preferred. It does not have to be 100%…
Michał Šrajer
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44
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9 answers

Automatically login and lock

I want to configure Windows 7 to login automatically after the computer is switched on. That's not because I'm lazy and don't like typing passwords. That's because I want programs that are configured to run on startup run automatically. But I don't…
utapyngo
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Sending simulated keystrokes in Bash

I've recently been trying to write a script that can be used to automate my c++ program in bash. If you know AutoIt, I can simply show you an example of what I am trying to do: send("1{enter}") or send("!a") OK For those who do not speak…
Ishan
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5 answers

Automate GUI tasks?

I have a Windows application which is deadware, and it lacks the option of exporting data into a file. The only way to extract data is to copy each line into the clipboard, and paste it in an editor. As a work-around, I'm thinking of recording the…
OverTheRainbow
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8 answers

Is it possible to restart a computer in response to an email notification?

I'm looking for a way to reboot machines after getting an email notification. The setup I want to use this on is a render farm. We have 5 boxes with 8 Nvidia GTX 980Ti in them. They're running Windows 10 Professional 64-bit. The issue we are having…
Ryan
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How do I automatically convert academic papers (PDF) for reading on a Kindle?

I got a Kindle for Christmas and I'd like to read some academic papers on it. Almost all of those papers are in either PostScript or the PDF format and made for A4-sized paper. See the example here. Sending the PDFs to my @kindle.com address (with…
hannson
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Is it possible to autocrop black borders of a video with ffmpeg?

I think it has a "blackness" video filter, which can determine if a picture sequence is black. Maybe it also has a filter to determine crop values automatically to remove black borders form edges of a video. Or maybe it is possible somehow to write…
Konstantin
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25
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Windows 10 keeps randomly adding keyboard layouts

I have this issue where windows randomly adds keyboard layouts for me. This is beyond annoyance and I'm starting to feel suicidal. (Okay maybe it's not that bad but it's still pretty annoying.) I want to have two keyboards: ENG (United States) CS…
Plectro
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24
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5 answers

Grep tool for XML

I am looking for a good tool to perform grep-like operations on XML - for example, extract certain attributes only. Grep itself can't handle it - any DFA-equivalent tool can handle only non recursive matches, and mine may be recursive. I have tried…
Adam Matan
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5 answers

Save attachments from many emails at once in Outlook?

Someone sent me 200 emails overnight, with one file attachment apiece. sigh I'm expecting another 200 each night for the next three nights (the emails come from a server, so asking them to batch them isn't possible). The file attachments have unique…
richardtallent
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