I found a little google script that I adapted to do this automatically.  The script essentially says:

• If an entry on the calendar starts with [ give it a certain colour
• If it starts with # some other colour
• If it starts with ! another colour.

If you want to use it yourself, go to https://script.google.com/, and create a new project.  You should see something like this:

Rename the "Untitled project" to something like "Google Calendar Auto-Color".  Instead of function myFunction() {} we are going to write our own function.  Copy paste the following:

function ColorEvents() {

  var today = new Date();
  var nextweek = new Date();
  nextweek.setDate(nextweek.getDate() + 7);

  var calendars = CalendarApp.getAllOwnedCalendars();

  for (var i=0; i<calendars.length; i++) {
    var calendar = calendars[i];
    var events = calendar.getEvents(today, nextweek);
    for (var j=0; j<events.length; j++) {
      var e = events[j];
      var title = e.getTitle();
      if (title[0] == "[") { // work related
        // other colours: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/calendar/event-color
        e.setColor(CalendarApp.EventColor.PALE_BLUE);
      }
      if (title[0] == "!") { // fitness & health
        e.setColor(CalendarApp.EventColor.YELLOW);
      }
      if (title[0] == '#') { // Family & free time events
        e.setColor(CalendarApp.EventColor.PALE_GREEN);
      }
    }
  }
}

What does it do?

It checks what day is today, and opens your calendars (associated to the google account that has created the script).  It then gets all events between today and next week.  The key section happens in these three lines:

if (title[0] == "[") { // work related
        e.setColor(CalendarApp.EventColor.PALE_BLUE);
      }
if (title[0] == "!") { // fitness & health
        e.setColor(CalendarApp.EventColor.YELLOW);
      }
if (title[0] == '#') { // Family & free time events
        e.setColor(CalendarApp.EventColor.PALE_GREEN);
      }

You can of course, change it. For example, if your calendar item starts with "f:" that may be how you label items for family.  Edit it according to your needs, and check https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/calendar/event-color for your favorite colours.  Then save it.  When ready, go to the left and select "Triggers":

You can, for example, make it run every hour with the following settings:

You are good to go.  Go back to your editor and click "> Run" to see if it worked.  (You may need to approve the script from your google account).  You don't need to hit "Deploy" (that is for running an app for others).

Enjoy!

With a simple webcam or a tablet, it is possible to measure and record the range of motion of your joints.  With this technology, healthcare professionals can assess your joints and track the progress during therapy.

It also becomes possible for patients to self-assess at home, which undoubtedly has advantages in the face of sars-cov-2.  

If you think your organization can benefit from machine learning and video-processing, get in touch.

Step 1: Drag & Drop a weekly menu

Step 2: Enter your credit card details

The app above is spoonacular.com:  Based on the recipes it creates a shopping list.  If Monday needs 2 tomatoes, and Thursday needs 1 tomato, it knows to add 3 tomatoes to your list:

You then add by hand any additions (for example soap) and hit run!

Our robot will read the shopping list and translate items into the brands we like at the supermarket:  So 2 yoghurts turns into 2 tubs x 32oz La yoghurt probiotic.  Next, it will open order.lindos.bm, fill in your details, the shopping list and it's done.

The browser then hands control over to you to double-check and pay.

All in all, my shopping takes 15 minutes.

If you need help automating your business, send us an email.

One option is to set oneself reminders in the calendar each year.  However, if the reminder arrives at the wrong time, we often don't act on it.  Where was the licence number? What's the phone for the insurance? etc.

To automate the process, I created a simple spreadsheet (Google Sheet) that emails me:

Each row will automatically send an email.  But more importantly it is immediately actionable:

I have the link, the phone & the details to renew it straight away.  As the deadline approaches emails highlight the sense of Urgency:

Once done, I only need to change a single cell:  2021 -> 2022 and the notifications will run the following year.

Get in touch if you need help automating your work or your life.

For the developers out there, here is the google script that runs it all:

function email_if_due(sheet_name)
{
  // var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
  var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName(sheet_name); 
  
  var data_range = sheet.getDataRange();
  var last_row = data_range.getLastRow();
  var today= new Date();
  today.setHours(0,0,0,0);
  
  sheet.getRange('B4:B15').clearContent(); // clear column of due emails
  for(var r=4;r<=last_row;r++)
  {
    var start_string = data_range.getCell(r,4).getValue();
    var end_string = data_range.getCell(r,5).getValue();
    // convert date string to date
    var start_date = new Date(start_string).setHours(0,0,0,0)
    var end_date = new Date(end_string).setHours(0,0,0,0)
    
    // get email information from sheet
    var em_address = data_range.getCell(r,3).getValue();
    var em_title = data_range.getCell(r,6).getValue();
    var em_message = data_range.getCell(r,7).getValue();
    
      
    if(today >= start_date && today <= end_date)
    {
     MailApp.sendEmail(em_address, em_title, em_message)
     sheet.getRange(r, 2).setValue("SEND");
    }
  }
}

function sendNotifications(){
email_if_due("Car");
email_if_due("Bike");
}

There were multiple inputs to this project:

• Real estate sales data
• Map & geographic data
• Annual Rental Value data

The data came from different sources (excel sheets, websites, google).  To obtain some of the data, we built an internet robot to open nearly 500 pages online and read the numbers and addresses there.   Once all the data was gathered into a single spreadsheet, graphs and statistics could be compiled automatically.  The initial work allowed the customer to create a quarterly report which can produce itself in 1/2h.

In projects like this one, the biggest challenge is the quality of the input data.  Did someone misspell the Parish? Or add an extra zero to the price? Maybe they put the address in the wrong column?  We automatically catch the most common errors and run sanity checks or flag them for the expert to review.

If you need to increase the quality of your data and save employee time, we can probably help you.

Available were 22 PDFs with exams from the last 10 years.  Each file containing about 25 pages.  So all in all 550 pages.   The job was to break-up those 550 pages into 1,2 or 3 page sub-documents, and save them to one of 20 folders corresponding to their topic.

The automation was not very sophisticated, but effective enough for its purpose & budget (pro-bono!).  The robot would do the following:

• Open the PDF & turn it into just text
• Find where problems start and end
• Split the PDF into 10 to 15 new PDFs (one per problem)
• Check a list of  keywords to give it a score:

for example: If it contains the words "Force", "Acceleration", "accelerates", "distance-time" it probably belongs in Mechanics.

Then store it in the corresponding folder.  For more sophisticated jobs with tens of thousands of documents, a Naive Bayesian Classifier is a more accurate and effective approach.

The original solution to this problem can be found on Github and a more up-to-date version on repl.it.