Below I have created a simple bash script. What it does is, converting all of the finished avi’s to wmv. The conversion is via ffmpeg. The script below is easily modified to suit your needs, such as:
i – Copying the finished torrent to another location.
ii – Doing any conversion to your media.
iii – Send you mail notifying the torrent have finished downloading.
iv – etc, etc.

So, let’s get started.

1. Install transmission-remote
sudo apt-get install transmission-remote

2. Copy the script below, and save as my_script_name.sh , (or whatever name you prefer, but note the .sh extension).
This is among my early attempts of shell script programming, so go easy on me and feel free to give feedbacks.

#!/bin/sh

# The absolute path where your torrents are downloaded
# For example: /tmp/download
BASEDIR=/home/myuser/mytorrentpath
LOGPATH=/home/myuser/mywmv.log

# The absolute path to and including the transmission-remote binary
# For example: /usr/bin/transmission-remote
TRANSREMOTE=/usr/bin/transmission-remote
TRANSOPTS=" 127.0.0.1:my_port_number -n my_username:my_password "

DoConvert ()
{
  _AVINAME=$1
  WMVNAME=${_AVINAME%.*}".wmv"
  if [ ! -f "$WMVNAME" ]; then
    #Do conversion here
    echo "converting $_AVINAME" >> $LOGPATH
    ffmpeg -sameq -i "$_AVINAME" -vcodec wmv2 -acodec wmav2 "$WMVNAME" \
    < /dev/null 2> /dev/null
  fi
}

cd $BASEDIR

echo "Starting at `date`" >> $LOGPATH

# Find the first completed torrent
$TRANSREMOTE $TRANSOPTS -l | grep "100%" | grep "Done  " | cut -b71- | while read LINE
do
  if [ -e "$LINE" ]; then
    if [ -h "$LINE" ]; then
      echo "$LINE is already moved" >> $LOGPATH
    else
      if [ -d "$LINE" ]; then
        cd "${LINE}"
        ls -1f *.avi 2>/dev/null | while read AVINAME
	  do
	    DoConvert "$AVINAME"
	  done
        cd -
      else
	DoConvert "$LINE"
      fi
    fi
  else
    echo "torrent $LINE is removed" >> $LOGPATH
  fi
done

echo "-----------------" >> $LOGPATH

Save the script on any location you prefer.

3. Create a cron job to run the script. Open the entry to crontab:
crontab -e

4. Let say you want to run the script every hour, by the hour, the entry on your cron job should be as below:
0 * * * * sh /home/myuser/my_script_name.sh

You can also test the script you’ve created by executing the command:
sh /home/myuser/my_script_name.sh

Enjoy.

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From Tim Golden’s Python Stuff:

Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is Microsoft’s implementation of Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM), an industry initiative to provide a Common Information Model (CIM) for pretty much any information about a computer system.

Executing remote program using WMI needs the win32 extensions from Mark Hammond. Below are one of the sample code that I’ve used on a 32-bit target machine:

c = wmi.WMI ('my_remote_windows_machine')
process_id, result = c.Win32_Process.Create (CommandLine="Notepad.exe")
    for process in c.Win32_Process (ProcessId=process_id):
        returnvalue = str(process.ProcessId) + " " + str(process.Name)

    if result == 0:
        returnvalue = "Process started successfully: %s" % returnvalue
    else:
        raise RuntimeError, "Problem creating process: %s" % str(result)
    print returnvalue

However, when it comes to 64-bit target machines, I’m getting errors below:

  File "C:\Python26\lib\wmi.py", line 1181, in connect
    return _wmi_namespace (obj, find_classes)
  File "C:\Python26\lib\wmi.py", line 821, in __init__
    self.classes.update (self.subclasses_of ())
  File "C:\Python26\lib\wmi.py", line 843, in subclasses_of
    for c in self._namespace.SubclassesOf (root):
  File "C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\win32com\client\util.py", line 84, in next

    return _get_good_object_(self._iter_.next(), resultCLSID = self.resultCLSID)

The solution:

c = wmi.WMI ('my_remote_windows_machine', find_classes=False)
process_id, result = c.Win32_Process.Create (CommandLine="Notepad.exe")
    for process in c.Win32_Process (ProcessId=process_id):
        returnvalue = str(process.ProcessId) + " " + str(process.Name)

    if result == 0:
        returnvalue = "Process started successfully: %s" % returnvalue
    else:
        raise RuntimeError, "Problem creating process: %s" % str(result)
    print returnvalue

Notice the extra parameter find_classes=False when instantiating the WMI object.
Some of the good examples on WMI in Python:
Tim Golden’s Python Stuff
WMI Cookbook

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Before this my encounter with Python is merely just a few samples, consists of some web forms and web pages, using mod_python configured on Apache running on my headless CentOS box (VM actually). Run a few queries against MySQL using MySQLdb module, returns a few results, display it on the web apps, and that’s it! The experience is limited, but enough to learn it’s syntax and flow.

Now I’m developing actual program in Python at work. (Finally, something to add to my resume ). It’s more of a client-server application, but involves a lot of components and API’s to get around with. I’ve been using win32api’s, win32net, Windows Services, WMI for remote execution, etc, etc. At times I felt my head is going to explode. But, it’s fun! At least I have something to wake up every morning to.

Wiki:

Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes programmer productivity and code readability. Python’s core syntax and semantics are minimalistic, while the standard library is large and comprehensive. Its use of whitespace as block delimiters is unusual among popular programming languages.

Python supports multiple programming paradigms (primarily object oriented, imperative, and functional) and features a fully dynamic type system and automatic memory management, similar to Perl, Ruby, Scheme, and Tcl. Like other dynamic languages, Python is often used as a scripting language.

Useful Links For Python:
Python Tutorials (Lots of tutorial, from beginners to advanced)
code.activestate.com (My favorite. Lots of actual running source codes)
Python 101 Cheat Sheet

IDE of Choice:
Komodo IDE
Komodo Edit (Free)
Aptana Pydev (Free)

Organizations using Python: Yahoo Maps, Yahoo Groups, Google, YouTube

Any experience or opinions on Python? What your IDE of choice? For those who’re interested, expect more post regarding Python soon. Source codes, samples and more.

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