This Day in History
Requires a RapidAPI key for the Numbers API endpoint hosted at numbersapi.p.rapidapi.com.
Windows Daily Briefing
Start My Day
Start My Day is a configurable PowerShell briefing that brings the current date, a historical event, quote, local weather, news headlines, sports schedules, lottery results, market data, and cryptocurrency prices into one console window.
Briefing Sections
What Start My Day displays
Day & DateCurrent weekday, month, day, and year from the PC clock.
This Day in HistoryA historical event for today's month/day from Numbers API through RapidAPI.
Quote of the DayA daily quotation and author from They Said So.
WeatherLocation-based National Weather Service forecast information.
NewsThe first 10 titles from the Google News U.S. RSS feed.
SportsNBA, NFL, NCAA football, NHL, and MLB games scheduled for the current date.
LottoLatest Mega Millions and Powerball numbers plus the returned next-jackpot values.
StocksMajor market indexes plus gold and crude-oil market quotes.
CryptoCurrent USD prices for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin.
Setup Required
API keys and sports timezone
The included script intentionally contains placeholder values such as REPLACE WITH RAPIDAPI KEY, REPLACE WITH API KEY, and REPLACE WITH TIMEZONE. Those sections will not work correctly until the placeholders are replaced with valid account credentials/settings.
Quote of the Day
Requires an API key for They Said So and sends it through the X-TheySaidSo-Api-Secret request header.
Sports
Requires RapidAPI access for API-Basketball, API-American-Football, API-Hockey, and API-Baseball, plus a configured API timezone.
Lotto and Stocks
Mega Millions, Powerball, and Yahoo Finance data in the current script also require RapidAPI keys.
The ZIP includes Sports Time Zones.txt, which contains the timezone strings expected by the sports APIs. For example, the list includes values such as
America&2FNew_York and America&2FDetroit.
Weather
IP-based location and National Weather Service forecast
Weather does not require a user-supplied API key in the current script. It performs several requests to estimate the user's location and obtain a forecast.
api.ipify.orgis queried for the current public IP address.- The public IP is sent to
ip-api.comto obtain approximate latitude, longitude, city, and country information. - Those coordinates are sent to the National Weather Service
api.weather.gov/pointsendpoint. - The forecast URL returned by NWS is requested.
- The console displays periods named Today, This Afternoon, and Tonight when those periods are present.
The current location request to
ip-api.com uses an HTTP URL rather than HTTPS. Also, IP-based location is approximate and may identify an ISP/network location rather than the computer's exact physical location.
News
Top 10 Google News headlines
Start My Day downloads the U.S. English Google News RSS feed at news.google.com, parses it as XML, and writes the first 10 item titles to the console. The current code does not open the stories or save them to disk.
Sports
Today's game schedule
Basketball
Queries API-Basketball and displays NBA games, including results whose league name is NBA or NBA In-Season Tournament.
Football
One API-American-Football request is used for both NFL and NCAA game filtering.
Hockey
Queries API-Hockey and displays games whose league name is NHL.
Baseball
Queries API-Baseball and displays games whose league name is MLB.
Game times are parsed from the API's
HH:mm value and displayed as four-digit 24-hour times such as 1930.
Lotto
Mega Millions and Powerball
Two RapidAPI endpoints are queried for the latest drawing data. The script writes each returned number set together with the endpoint's next-jackpot value.
Markets
Stocks, indexes, commodities, and crypto
Yahoo Finance market quotes
The RapidAPI Yahoo Finance request asks for ^DJI, ^IXIC, ^SPX, GC=F, and CL=F, representing major U.S. indexes plus gold and crude-oil futures.
Market fields
For each returned quote, the script formats symbol, name, market price, daily low, daily high, and percentage change into a PowerShell table.
CryptoCompare
Crypto prices are fetched directly from CryptoCompare's public price endpoint without a user-supplied key in the current script.
Default cryptocurrencies
The included function lists Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Dogecoin (DOGE) in USD. The Read Me notes that this list can be customized.
External Services
Network services contacted by the script
Depending on which sections are correctly configured and reached during a run, the current script contains requests to the following services:
- RapidAPI-hosted Numbers API
- They Said So Quote of the Day API
- api.ipify.org
- ip-api.com
- api.weather.gov
- Google News RSS
- RapidAPI API-Basketball
- RapidAPI API-American-Football
- RapidAPI API-Hockey
- RapidAPI API-Baseball
- RapidAPI Mega Millions
- RapidAPI Powerball
- RapidAPI Yahoo Finance
- CryptoCompare
How To Run
Launching Start My Day
- Download and extract Start My Day.zip.
- Open Start My Day.ps1 in a text editor.
- Follow the included Read Me to obtain the API subscriptions/keys you want to use.
- Replace the corresponding placeholder API-key values in the script.
- Choose the required sports timezone from Sports Time Zones.txt and replace the timezone placeholder.
- Save the edited PowerShell script.
- Run Run Me.bat.
- The launcher starts PowerShell with -ExecutionPolicy Bypass and requests administrator elevation through UAC.
- The console is maximized and the configured daily information is requested and displayed in sequence.
- Press Enter at the final prompt to exit.
The included Read Me notes that Windows 11 may display a “Windows protected your PC” SmartScreen message because the script was downloaded. Review the files before choosing “More info” and “Run anyway.”
Transparency
What the script does not do
No local report file
The current script writes the briefing to the PowerShell console. It does not create a daily HTML, text, CSV, or database report.
No persistent installation
The script does not create a service, scheduled task, startup entry, or background process.
No Windows configuration changes
Other than changing the appearance/state of its own console window, the current PowerShell script is focused on requesting and displaying information rather than changing Windows settings.
API credentials stay in the script file
The current design expects keys to be typed directly into the PowerShell source. Anyone who can read that edited file can potentially read those API keys.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Does Start My Day work immediately after download?
Only partially. Date, weather, news, and crypto do not require the user-supplied keys described in the Read Me, but history, quote, sports, lotto, and stock sections require setup in the current script.
Does it require an internet connection?
Yes. Nearly every section except the local date depends on an online API or feed.
How does it determine my weather location?
It gets the public IP from ipify, looks up approximate coordinates through ip-api.com, then sends those coordinates to the National Weather Service.
What sports are included?
NBA basketball, NFL football, NCAA football, NHL hockey, and MLB baseball.
Can I customize the market or crypto list?
Yes. The Read Me explicitly notes that the Stocks and Crypto sections can be adjusted, though doing so requires editing the PowerShell code.
Does it save my daily briefing?
No. The current version displays the information in the console only.