DMV notifier

If you have to go to the DMV in San Francisco, it can take weeks or even months to find an appointment. But people sometimes cancel those appointments! Those cancelled appointments could be yours, if you'd like to click on the DMV site all day hoping to score one.

Hmm....repetitive clicking...through a static workflow...with a clear goal...seems like a good job for...A BOT????

Yes, a bot. A bot that will never get tired of checking the DMV webpage for you, and letting you know if it finds something within a preset number of days. If you are even slighly comfortable using the command line, this will be that bot for you.

Setup

1. Clone this repo

2. Install local dependencies

   npm install
   

3. Install global dependencies: casper, phantom

   npm install -g phantomjs
   npm install -g casperjs
   

4. Make a Twilio account / messaging service / phone number: https://www.twilio.com/try-twilio

5. Make a config file

   cp config.js.example config.js
   

6. Write your information to the config file

7. You should probably just test the script at this point before getting into the cronjob stuff. Just run dmv.sh SAN_FRANCISCO 14 (or whatever city/days into the future you care about checking) and make sure it all works.

8. Set up a cronjob to run the script

   crontab -e
   

   then add

   */1 * * * * cd PATH/TO/dmv-notifier/ && ./dmv.sh SAN_FRANCISCO 14 >/tmp/stdout.log 2>/tmp/stderr.log
   

   Common pitfall: your cron setup may or may not have PATH set up correctly. If it doesn't, you need to set PATH to include the directory where your casperjs cli is located. You can find this out with which casperjs.

   Also, look up cron rules to find out more about what the first cryptic characters mean. In this case, they mean "do this thing every minute".

   Also, keep in mind that SAN_FRANCISCO is configurable to another CA DMV (just put it in all caps and separate spaces with underscores. LA would be LOS_ANGELES, for example). Also, the number 14 is the number of days in the future that would be acceptable to you.

   A possible bin PATH might be:

   PATH=/usr/local/bin
   

   Another possible bin PATH (the one that works for me, for example):

   PATH=/Users/briangerson/.nvm/versions/node/v4.3.2/bin/:/usr/bin/
   

9. You should be all set. If the bot finds an appt within the timeframe you specified, it'll text you an alert with a link to schedule your appointment.

Thank Yous

This service was heavily inspired by (and built around the foundation of) the GOES notifier built by Oliver Song which can be found at https://github.com/oliversong/goes-notifier. That's a pretty dope service as well. (Apparently it is deprecated, but there are links to working solutions available there).

License

MIT

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.