How can I set up a program or module or something on a web server that will "wake up" at certain times and perform a task? I have an account with a web hosting company and feel like I've been learning enough PHP to do what I want through forms, but what if I want to have the server send me an email at a certain time? (For example, to send an email to my phone to remind me of an appointment.)
Really appreciate your help!
Cron jobs ('man crontab') are a good way to have something happen on a regular basis. I would suggest reading up on those whether that's really what you need or not.
As far as scheduling irregular tasks, there's no direct way to do that directly with cron, at least not that I know of. But you can probably write a simple app using the database backend and scripting language of your choice to manage a task/event list fairly quickly. Then just have cron run a script periodically (say every X minutes), that queries the database and performs any events scheduled for the next X minute timeblock.
Jacob Fugal
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