I'm having fun running different bots, but it drains your UpVote Power super fast.

A few weeks ago I deployed the fossbot on heruko. The fossbot is a curation bot. I called mine SteemThatDude and it now just runs once per day. The neat thing about the fossbot curation bot is that you can pretty much customize the whole way the bot works. It was super easy to set up and get going. I'm a complete idiot and was able to learn enough about the fossbot from the github instructions and heroku to launch successfully. The Fossbot is great to replace like steemvoter.com if you want to add your favorite followers to the list and have the fossbot check their posts and upvote.

Credits

It is an excellent curation bot in the way that you can change algorithms of the bot through the dashboard and set up how the bot is to perform. For example should it vote on posts that are 5 min, 10 min, or 20 minutes old? You could also set up blacklist authors so you don't upvote an author you hate. This is a very feature rich curation bot that you have to do a little work for but no one is robbing your Upvote power voting on their own posts and their friends post using your account. Some Tips: I have had to rest the dynos before to make it run. If you have the scheduler setup to run once every 24 hours then you can't manually run the bot if it has already ran. * Follow the guide above and you should be able to install easy enough. It is a java program which I'm a lot more familiar with than ruby so I can easily deploy this at cloud 9 also. I hate digital ocean just had to get that off my chest. If you set up the fossbot be sure you set your limits on min voting power in the config area of the dashboard or you can drop to low. I'll probably leave my main account @binkley using the foss bot to automate my upvotes for friends and then launch the other bots on separate accounts.

How DrPhil Taught Me To Set-Up Drotto Up Vote Bot

I know what you are thinking...."How did watching Dr Phil on tv help me set-up a the Dr Otto Upvote bot by @inertia? " Dr Phil is actually another one of @inertia 's genius coding marvels. For over one week I tried to turn my windows computer into a power house ruby and rails development server platform to no avail. Then I came across some tips about running ruby on rails through a virtual machine which was a disaster for me. Then I read about a beta windows program that took me 2 days to get setup that would allow a windows 10 creators user to run linux using subsystems....Yippie I had conquered the world.

After almost a week of trying to install the correct versions of ruby and rails, and rvm vs rbenv ,and sudo vs non sudo and trying to learn basic coding for bash and ruby and linux I was feeling super old...My hair turned grey literally in one week. I could have given up but there was a challenge set before me that I would overcome. I needed to understand how 8 different coding languages basically functioned in order to install an Up Vote bot. I'm a problem solver and this was just another small problem...I realized that as smart as I thought I was, I am an Idiot. I have much respect for all of the real developers on Steemit! I'm more of a hobbyist and that can be dangerous.

Stumbling across another project by @inertia I decided to try and run it on my windows subsystem linux. My thought was that if I could run another program written by the same person probably in the same version of ruby then my problem with the other program was isolated to it and not my linux subsystem on windows. So I created a new directory, cloned the git and bundled the install then ran Dr Phil on windows on a WSL in unbunto 16.04 bash. I checked my steemd.com@binkley and it was working. I could watch side by side and see the Phil churning out votes and watch my voting percentage plummet once again. I had accomplished what was once thought to be impossible without a virtual machine. I had successfully ran a linux ruby program on a windows machine. Why Would DR OTTO NOT RUN?

How I joined forces with an evil website to try and launch drotto

At first I tried heroku to launch drotto as I had been successful with running the fossbot. But this would require a great deal more knowledge about coding than I currently had. Seeking advice from others I tried digital ocean which I often call the devil. I created an account and paid for the basic service. To find out that the console bash system would not allow for any copying and pasting. Not even control c or control v would work...What kinda of demon possessed website would allow such a thing to exist? Who knows but what I do know is that after wasting a great deal of time manually adding each line of code needed to get all of the necessary files on the server I was tired and decided to look for a better alternative.

Once I found Cloud 9 I knew I was in a developers heaven. It was even better than heroku to me. It was like all of the tools that I knew existed bundled up in one place with a workflow I was familiar with. It was more like building apps or a website than trying to boot a commodore 64 version of rubber band man. I'm ok with a command prompt as long as I have an antique buyers guide sitting next to me.

I created a new workspace and got right to work. I knew I needed ruby. I left the get up out for now as I knew I would call it with bash and put it in it's proper directory nut just under the master. I decided to see if I could lauch dr phil again from an actual server and to no surprise it ran fine and again drained the crap out of my voting power. I tried to launch the Upvote bot Drotto and hit a brick wall again. I changed the config.yml file and had no issues. I started looking for bugs and syntax errors in the files themselves. I checked the logs and sent several sample votes. Even had other people send some test votes to see if the bot would work....Nothing....I was determined to not get discouraged. I can figure this out and then it hit me....

The biggest dumb blonde moment ever in the history of coding dumb blonde moments.

Everything looked good when testing. But the bot would never vote and it would show a debug block to the left....I couldn't figure it out. The environment worked for other similar programs. It had to be something stupid I did so I would start over and even at one point took my windows version and started from scratch all the way through setting up WSL and bash and ruby again. So this time I know that the server is working though...HMMM is there a line of code in the program that will not let the upvote bot upvote unless it is at 100%? Oh my goodness I'm such an idiot....The code has been working fine the whole time I just need to shut down all of the other voting power depleting bots and let my power return to 100%

What Lessons Have I Learned?

• When you don't know something be humble and just ask for help.
• When you think you know something be humble and make sure you do.
• Linux and Ruby programs can run on a windows machine
• Creating programs has to be exhausting
• It is better to just use a linux or a mac if you are a developer not developing windows based things
• Sleep is required to think clearly about the problems and how to overcome them
• Don't neglect your beautiful wife and kids for very long coding can wait. I love you honey! I love you boys!

Thank you to all that helped me get this far in the journey to build an aggregate upvote bot. That is ultimately my end objective. I want a bot that will got to all of the bots and make multiple votes on your behalf with one fee. So I give the bot $10 sbd and a link. The bot goes and casts the votes for me as I do not have time to do so many upvote bots now. Thanks again. I will solve this problem soon!

• You support is appreciated. Thanks for the upvote!