Using Python to automatically boot my computer at a specific time and play a podcast

[Chris Angelico]

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 5:06 AM, C. N. Desrosiers
<cndesrosiers at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm planning to buy a Macbook Air and I want to use it as a sort of alarm.  I'd like to write a program that boots my computer at a specific time, loads iTunes, and starts playing a podcast.  Is this sort of thing possible in Python?


Python *on the system itself* cannot do this. However, if the BIOS
features aren't enough (eg if you want more flexibility), there's one
option to explore. See if your Macbook has Wake-On-LAN support; with
that, you could have a Python script *on a different machine* send a
magic packet that wakes your target. However, this isn't a Python
question, it's a systems administration one. (The very specific
question "How can I trigger wake-on-LAN from a Python program" would
be a Python question (obviously!), but that's only a tiny part of your
problem.)

ChrisA