Re: Stay-Open Script Apps vs Cron
Re: Stay-Open Script Apps vs Cron
- Subject: Re: Stay-Open Script Apps vs Cron
- From: "S. J. Cunningham" <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 05:50:26 -0400
> On Jun 04, 2014, at 04:11, S. J. Cunningham <email@hidden> wrote:
>> I'm developing a "Dead Man" system to periodically check for inactivity and sound an alarm in the event.
> ______________________________________________________________________
>
> Hey Steve,
>
> What kind of inactivity?
I am the sole caregiver for my wife is totally paralyzed with MS and I am worried that if I became incapacitated she could die of dehydration before someone found us. I am building a system to send out an escalating series of alarms if it hasn't detected me entering her room at least every two hours. I have a Foscam set up at the doorway which sends an email every time it detects motion. The email triggers a script which records the last activity time. A second script "daemon" checks the last activity file every two hours and sounds a local alarm if there has been no activity. If the alarm isn't retired within x minutes, it sends out text messages and emails to a prearranged list of responders.
I would prefer the daemon to run asynchronously, ie two hours from the last activity rather than simply every two hours. I thought I could do this by changing the idle time in an idle handler every time an email arrives but it looks like that is not possible.
>> The Applescript option gives me more flexibility but I am leery of it's reliability. If the app dies, so may the person I am monitoring :(
>
> If I wanted to use AppleScript in a very stable fashion I'd think carefully about using Smile (free for non-commercial use).
From the way you phrased it, I'm not sure if you are recommending it or recommending against it :) I used to have Smile installed but it filled up the log with warnings from the system. I forget the details but it's mere presence triggered the messages and the developer said he had no plans to fix it. In any event I don't recall any functions it had which would increase stability. I used it mostly for it's string matching functions and the standard applescript string functions work fine for this application.
Steve Cunningham
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