# Daily reminder emails

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/daily-reminder-emails/74198>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [November 1, 2006, 12:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/daily-reminder-emails/74198 "2006-11-01T12:42:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![andreas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@andreas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/andreas)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 12:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/daily-reminder-emails/74198/1 "2006-11-01T12:42:17Z")

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hi all,

my app needs a daily application running to check the database on some  
changes and sending out some emails to customers.

Is this possible with ruby and/or rails and does anybody know if I need  
a full root server - or can this be done on a shared hosting account?

Thanks for any hint!

Andreas

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**Author:** ![andreas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@andreas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/andreas)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 1:06pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/daily-reminder-emails/74198/2 "2006-11-01T13:06:05Z")

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Andreas S. wrote:

> hi all,
> 
> my app needs a daily application running to check the database on some  
> changes and sending out some emails to customers.

This is certainly possible. We have a cron job that wakes up every day  
at some fixed time and sends out an email to customers who have  
indicated they want our mailing.

ActionMailer is quite nice to work with, although suffers from some  
minor foibles (eg in current versions the path to sendmail is not a  
configurable option).  
ActionMailer can either talk directly to sendmail or it can use smtp to  
send mail.

Fred

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**Author:** ![andreas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@andreas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/andreas)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 1:12pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/daily-reminder-emails/74198/3 "2006-11-01T13:12:21Z")

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Thanks Fred,  
I am new to rails and I never heard something about a cron job. I think  
I need to read about it first. 🙂

any good sources to start on?

Andreas

Frederick C. wrote:

> Andreas S. wrote:
> 
> > hi all,
> > 
> > my app needs a daily application running to check the database on some  
> > changes and sending out some emails to customers.
> 
> This is certainly possible. We have a cron job that wakes up every day  
> at some fixed time and sends out an email to customers who have  
> indicated they want our mailing.
> 
> ActionMailer is quite nice to work with, although suffers from some  
> minor foibles (eg in current versions the path to sendmail is not a  
> configurable option).  
> ActionMailer can either talk directly to sendmail or it can use smtp to  
> send mail.
> 
> Fred

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![andreas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/ee7513/32.png) [@andreas](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/andreas)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2006, 1:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/daily-reminder-emails/74198/4 "2006-11-01T13:21:19Z")

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cron is nothing to do with rails. it’s a unixy thing that allows you to  
schedule the execution of stuff, which can of course include a ruby  
script.  
You could also have a long running rails process which spends most of  
its time sleeping and occasionally wakes up to send an email

Fred