john Huck wrote:My quest:
I have an XM/Sirius Internet account and want to record a show that comes on at night when I am asleep.
I can use Task manager to wake my computer and get to the web page that I need and it will also start the program that I use to record (Total Recorder) but what can I use to enter my Login, Password and hit the enter key to start the XM player?
You can't automate the keyboard and mouse that way in Java. What you would likely need to do is study the login form to see what URL it submits to and what information it requires to successfully login, then make a post request to the same url providing the correct information. It very well could be a multi-step process, like post to one URL and get a secret token or cookie, then post to the login url to with your username, password, the secret token and cookie. And it might not be so easy to get that info from pages directly anymore, since there is so much use of javascript and dynamic page content the actual data required by the form could be well hidden.
Anywho, you will have to dig it all out and mimic the login process. Before you do that
you should check the site's terms of service, though, 'cause of they catch you using a bot to login they could boot your account if it isn't allowed.
I have only limited experience with Visual basic and no experience with Java but I understand Java is what I Need to accomplish my task. Can anyone help me with my task in a manner that even a novice can understand?
There is no special reason you need Java for this. If you are more experience in VB, then you might find it better to use VB rather than learning a new language to do this. If you think you will get code you can copy and paste and be up in a day, you are mistaken - it will take you a lot longer than that to learn what you need to do it in Java. On the other hand if you just want to use this as an application to get you started in learning Java, then awesome - having a target to hit is great. I would start here to begin learning the language:
Oracle's Java tutorial then mosey on over to
Apache HttpClient to get a library to help with the HTTP comms.