[macboy]

I tried looking for this, but couldn't find an answer anywhere.

I have a weird problem where I am right now - bandwidth capping! Im only allowed to download and upload "unlimited" stuff after 11 in the night till 8 in the morning.

What I want to do is do all my (legal) uploading and some downloading at that time. I have everything set on que on iGetter, it just needs to somehow start automatically at 11pm and do its thing, shut itself at 8am the following morning or else i'll have to end paying for the entire night of data transfer.

Is this even possible? I thought Automator or iCal could do this, but they can only LAUNCH apps at a given time, no way of shutting them.

Anyone..?

[Macola]

Not quite the same thing, but you could set the Mac to log out after x minutes of inactivity (presumably after your downloads are done). This is in the Energy Saver prefs.

[macboy]

thanks Macola, thats a good temporary solution till I find a more automated one.

But thanks this will work for now

Anyone else?

[DrBoar]

That is a weak pint in automator, "services" in Win XP works to start and stop stuff like fold@home.

Logging out does not quit the app at all and putting it to sleep will just pause the app not quit it. In your case the app will be inactive and that ought to save the bacon.

In Energy Saver there is a option "schedule" (or something of that kind) there you can set the computer to turn on and of at set times, but that turn of the computer not just the app.

[Tsilou B.]

If you can launch apps at specific times, then you could write an AppleScript with the following line:

tell application "iGetter" to quit

and save that as an application. Then have that application launch at 8 am.
You should check if the AppleScript really works - maybe iGetter displays a dialog and asks if it should really quit or something. In that case, you would need a more advanced AppleScript.

[macboy]

Tried using Applescript with some help from macosxhints.com, just keep getting error dialogs and nothing happens.

DrBoar, Im going to try right now and see if logging out pauses or quits the application. Either way, if it does either one of them, Im set. I Just hope it works.

Was hoping Automater would be ideal for this kind of thing. Never used it, but " Automater" should be the thing to use

[hemant]

You could use the UNIX command "crontab" to schedule applications to run at specific times. You could even schedule a sleep or shutdown after performing your uploading & downloading. The following tutorial is a good starting point:

http://www.adminschoice.com/docs/crontab.htm