AutoHotkey Community

alright...I'm relatively new at this, but I think what I am working on is potentially interesting, and I'm hacking away at it, but I am having trouble putting it all together...

first - just a little background - I own several businesses which I run from my house, and I am also a recording artist - my life is massively full - I plan my life out intricately in the following fashion - I have several different projects I am working on, and also just the daily events for me to do and handle - I plan my time tightly, so that I can extract the most productivity out of the hours I have - with each area of my life, I have planned starting out at some time in the future, and then worked backwards and literally broken up everything into 1 hour segments with daily, weekly, and monthly targets - my problem is this: If I miss even one appointment, there is the chance that I literally won't have any more free minutes in to make it up...and I plan and revise daily, but I want my life setup such that there is a structure that pulls for me to fulfill on my promises - and the recurring problem I have is that I'm working on my computer, and my alarm goes off, and I'm sucked into my project, and I think to myself, "just a few more minutes - i gotta finish this one thing...", etc...and despite my best intentions, I no longer trust myself to respond to my alarms....so with all that, here is what I am working on - and anyone who can do this would be a god to me---

a program that locks my screen at predetermined intervals synced to my calendar with the following parameters ---


1. It needs to be bullet proof - a lot of the time I keep my promises, and a lot of the time i don't...i want no opportunity for me to sneak around this....
2. It needs to be able to be set for an entire day, synced across multiple computers and accounts, with no user interaction required from me other than putting entries in my calendar
3. It needs to include syncing data from google calendar or 30 boxes or remember the milk - some universal online calendar, as I am also away from my computers a lot, and need it to my cell (it doesn't need to lock my cell though-if I am away from my computer, i trust myself not to be sucked into what I am doing - at least not in the same way)- it also needs to be able to read the values from a frequently updated file with alterable parameters....
for example, the following calendar entry: 12:00 call mike, 5,100 would mean something like at noon I have an appointment to call mike, and I get a minute notice, and then my computer screen and keyboard are locked for 100 minutes---
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a couple of other things:
-I don't mind if taskmgr is disabled, but, it probably would be a hinderance if taskkill was disabled permanently as I occasionaly use it to on other processes -- however, I would not want to be able to kill this process
-It would be great if I could also set it to specify what programs are allowed to run during a particular period...for example, when I have scheduled to work on music - only Fl Studio, Cubase, and Notepad would be allowed to run - or when I scheduled to budget, only excel and mysql could run, etc....
-I need some emergency password if I have a unexpected emergency - but something that was difficult enough for me to access as not to be an easy way to cheat the system (I was thinking I would hide the password in the mailbox down the street, so if i really needed it, it would require me and getting up, and walking a 1/4 mile - just enough so I probably wouldn't bother to use it except in emergencies)
- also - i'd like it to be able to sustain a hard shutdown or battery dying on my laptop while still operating in real time - I figure there would have to be someway where the ini was checked and revised on startup -this piece is not as critical though
---i know this probably sounds like I'm crazy - and I probably am..but..the whole context of this is that my word is the only thing that has ever got me anywhere, and I fight to have my word remain sacred - my mind is sneaky and tricky though....anyway....I'm gonna figure this out somehow or another...but anyone who can provide a solution get's to be a hero.

[Title edited. Please write descriptive titles for your topics. ~jaco0646]

You need a secretary.

_________________

true-
-but for now, this

No. you probably don't need a secretary. What you need though, is to take a break. You'll burn through in just a few years with that kind of life!

Anyways, I think that is a HUGE project, not something a few lines in AHK can handle. There are (or at least have been) applications that are designed for those particular features in mind. Google something with kids, restrictions, classroom, or relevant keywords. I remember having a program like that years ago to keep my brothers from using the computer when they had school.

No...I don't need a break...one time they asked Ghandi if he ever took a vacation...he replied, "I am always on vacation"...that's how I feel...I love every minute of it....but in any big game, their need be rules, or else the game stops being a game, and starts being work...

regarding what you said about ahk not being the right thing, you might be right... but I am not convinced...I have already accomplished a lot with ahk and perl and autoit...and the one closed source thing I tried to download to do it for me tried to install a malicious file in my winsock catalogue to spy on my browsing habits....so nuts to that.

Then its all good if you enjoy it Watch yourself though!

Don't get me wrong, I think this is entirely possible to write in AHK, just that it's a huge project and one not the be taken to be completed in a day or so.

Always download programs from reliable sources! No matter if you're downloading the current Windows ServicePack or AutoHotkey, always, always ONLY download from a source you trust. (Win SPs from MS and AHK from AHK website, obviously.)

I still think you'd be better of with a dedicated solution, but if you want to go with AHK, more power to you. In the long run, it's probably a better solution, as you get exactly the software you want, and you'll learn heaps of things doing it. Plus the whole community benefits if you publish your code

I'll help where I can, but that might not be a lot, I'm quite new with AHK myself (though not programming in general)

I appreciate that - at least half of the reason I've focused on ahk is that it teaches me a lot about programming

...also it allows for a very low memory footprint -> I won't even use outlook, because it is so bulky and cumbersome...
i'm weak with vbs and wsh, but i know there is a ton I can do there as well....

....also, I schedule my whole life, not just my work, because it all matters...spending time with my wife is on my schedule in the same way... and if I don't have it all in existence in front of me in a way that will reliably jar my attention, i'm liable to miss something I say is important...
...either way, it's all just a game...we're all worm food sooner or later..

I'm not psychic nor a fortune teller, but I predict you'll have a block of time opening up sometime soon.
Maybe a heart attack, or the birth of your first child ?

You've made 4 posts to AHK, there's still time for you to get out.
Get out while you still can

Is it worth it? Wouldn't it be better to relax now and then?

I can't tell you how much I appreciate everyone's opinion of the way I should plan my life. In addition to being extremely useful, what I really love is how well thought out they are, and how they are each unique and extremely deep in there own way. Thank you so much.

I already have so much to think about with all the wisdom you've given me, I can barely get through this particular project. If there is anyone who has something useful to offer me here regarding the ahk project I am working on, please don't hold back.

Otherwise, thank you so much for your valuable contributions to my life.

Leef_me Wrote:


This is good advice.

Where was this advice when my girlfriend left_me Leef_me?