To help, I created a Ruby script for automatically processing codes. Every day, it reads 10 codes from a text file, then submits them to mycokerewards.com and logs the result. That way, I could just add all my codes to a file and it would take care of the rest.

I’ve provided the script below, as well as instructions for configuring it on a Mac (should be similar on Unix/Linux). If you’re using Windows, you can do the same thing by downloading Ruby and setting up a scheduled task. This isn’t the most user-friendly process, so a little development and/or command line experience would be helpful, but if you don’t have that you should be able to work it out by stepping through the instructions. Good luck and happy redeeming!

Here’s the code

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require 'xmlrpc/client'
require 'logger'
 
class McrSender 
  @@SERVICE_URL = "https://secure.mycokerewards.com/xmlrpc"
 
  def initialize(codeFile, logFile, readCount, username, password)
    @codeFile = codeFile
	@logFile = logFile
    @readCount = readCount
    @username = username
    @password = password
    @logger = Logger.new(@logFile)
  end
 
  def send_codes
    i = 1
    # read file into an array
    lines = File.readlines(@codeFile)
    lineCount = lines.length
 
    if(lineCount > 0 and lines[0].strip.length > 0)
      # login
      if(login == true)
        @logger.info "Successfully logged in."
 
        puts lineCount
 
        # process items and remove them from the array
        i = 0
        while (i < @readCount && i < lineCount)
          code = lines[0].chomp
          send_code(code)
          lines.delete_at(0)
          i += 1
        end
 
        # write array back to file
        File.open(@codeFile, "w") do |file|
          file.puts(lines.join())
        end
      else
        @logger.error "Could not login with username '#{@username}' and password '#{@password}'."
      end
    else
      @logger.info "No codes found in code file (or the first line is empty). Exiting."
    end
  end
 
  private
    def send_code(code)
      args = {'emailAddress' => @username, 'password' => @password, 'screenName' => ' ', 'capCode' => code, 'VERSION' => '3.0'}
      service = XMLRPC::Client.new2(@@SERVICE_URL)
      result = service.call('points.enterCode', args)
      if(result[0]['ENTER_CODE_RESULT'] == "true")
        earned = result[0]['POINTS_EARNED']
        @logger.info "Successfully entered code '#{code}' Points earned '#{earned}'. "
      else
        message = result[0]['MESSAGES']
        @logger.error "Error entering code '#{code}'. Error message: '#{message}'."
      end
    end
 
    def login
      args = {'emailAddress' => @username, 'password' => @password, 'screenName' => ' ', 'VERSION' => '3.0'}
      service = XMLRPC::Client.new2(@@SERVICE_URL)
      result = service.call('points.pointsBalance', args)
      result[0]['LOGIN_RESULT'] == "true"
    end
end
 
sender = McrSender.new("codes.txt", "log.txt", 10, "YOUR_EMAIL", "YOUR_PASSWORD")
sender.send_codes

How to install

1. Make sure Ruby is installed on your Mac. (It is by default in Leopard). You can open terminal and type the following to check. It will return the Ruby version if it’s installed.

   ruby -v
   

2. Download the zip file containing the script, code file and log file.
3. Extract the archive, the move the McrSender folder to the desired location. I’ll use /Users/doug for the remaining instructions. Replace /Users/doug with your own path.
4. In the bottom two lines of McrSender.rb, change “codes.txt” to the full path to your codes.txt file, “log.txt” to the full path to your log.txt file, “YOUR_EMAIL” to the email address you use for My Coke Rewards, and “YOUR_PASSWORD” to the password you use for My Coke Rewards. (NOTE: All of these values should be surrounded in double quotes)
5. Add your My Coke Rewards Codes to the codes.txt file. There should be one code per line.
6. Open terminal then type the following commands to change permissions on the Ruby script to make it executable and on the codes.txt and log.txt files to make them readable and writable.

   cd /Users/doug
   chmod 755 McrSender.rb
   chmod 666 codes.txt
   chmod 666 log.txt
   

7. Create a cron job to run the script every day. Again, in Terminal type:

   EDITOR=nano
   crontab -e
   

   Your cron file will open up in the nano command line text editor. Add the following line to run the script at 6:00 am every morning:

   0 6 * * * ruby /Users/dwburns/scripts/McrSender/McrSender.rb
   

   (Again, change the path to your own path).

You can test it the first time by running (something like) the following in Terminal:

/Users/doug/McrSender/McrSender.rb

A few interesting quotes:

All the convenience methods and syntactical sugar that makes Rails such a pleasure for coders ends up being absolutely punishing, performance-wise.

It’s also worth mentioning that there shouldn’t be doubt in anybody’s mind at this point that Ruby itself is slow.

All of us working on Twitter are big Ruby fans, but I think it’s worth being frank that this isn’t one of those relativistic language issues. Ruby is slow.

Ruby is a great language, but this is just further proof that you need to take a close look at your requirements up front, then pick the best (not necessarily the coolest) tool for the job at hand.