Howdy,

To start off: Happy World Productivity day!  Today is the last day of our big sale (which I emailed out on Sunday.)  If you want to purchase a course, at a deep discount, go find that email or reply to me here.

Meanwhile let me tell you what I’ve been up to recently.

Generally speaking, I’m a very optimistic guy.   I’ve found I can do anything when I focus on it.

Most things don’t get to me however, over the past month, I’ve had a bunch of issues come up (mostly financial) that were making me want to curl up in a ball and sleep.

One of things was I tore-up both my tractor bucket and box-blade (for leveling dirt). A new tractor bucket is ~$1,500 and box-blade is $800.

I was hoping I could get them both welded by Darryl, a local guy that has done some welding for me before.

I called him up and asked if he’d be able do the work this week because my back pond wall is eroding -away quickly due to heavy rains and I need to get more dirt in there ASAP.

He said that he thought he could however

after his chemo treatments, he’s often too tired to work

This really hit me in my core.

I was fortunate enough to have gone to college and got “cushy” office jobs making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year working in an AC office and I’m stressed about small financial issues while Darryl, who is ~ 12 years older than me, is fighting cancer , and having to work in the Texas heat welding.

I know I am where I am because I invested in myself by reading, going to college, learning new things, working 80+ hours a week, etc.  Also because I didn’t take lavish vacations, have never owned a “new” car, and have zero debt.  It was always easy for me to get promotions because I learned how to automate the mundane with AutoHotkey.

Sure, I’m out some cash at the moment, but this guy is fighting for his life and taking it in stride.  You might find this hard to believe but

he was apologetic to me that he couldn’t promise to do the work.!

So, by seeing his situation I’ve realized how fortunate I am to have the problems I do.

While I found someone to do my welding, I do plan to send Darryl some cash to help him during his struggle.  I know many of you would do the same in the same situation.  But remember to hug a loved one tonight and be thankful for what you have.  It could always be worse!

Now on with the show…

Easily Graph your Data

Have you ever wanted to show basic graphs in v2 of AutoHotkey?   Now, with our simple Barcharts library, you can easily display bar charts on your data.   What’s really cool is our code does not require any external libraries!

We use Progress Bars and some AHK magic.  Be sure to check it out in this video!

How to create simple Bar Charts in AHKv2

I wanted to keep it simple so you we created the libraries both as Functions and Classes.
If you’re new to Classes, you might consider our Objects / Classes course.
Remember we offer a 30-day 200% money back guarantee so you have nothing to lose!

Finding and Clicking Images

As I’ve mentioned before, we know of 19 ways to automate programs with AutoHotkey.
The one that a lot of people start with (Image search) is typically the last one we go with because it is, by far, the least robust and tends to break/fail.

Having said that, sometimes there is a need to use image search.   We decided to create this video of using FindText v2

How to use easily find and click images with FindText v2

Talking to your PC

Reacently Scott, a hero member, mentioned that Windows 11 has some interesting new Voice features.
It seems Microsoft bought Nuance (which own Dragon naturally speaking) and has decided to provide some of the functionality in Windows 11.

Unfortunately, their interface is horrible   so we’ve created our own (which is still a work-in-progress).

If you’d like to see what we’ve done you can check this video out.  If you’d like to grab a copy of the current version of our tool you can get it here.
As I mentioned, we’re still adding to it /working on it.  We have some great ideas and high-hopes for this!

How to Easily Control your PC with Voice Access

Improving People’s Lives: Story #4

A Hero member, that is also a Radiologist, reached out to me saying he’s upgrading to Windows 11 soon and wanted to know the likelihood of his AHK scripts breaking.

I told him that, most of the time, the version of Windows doesn’t affect our scripts.
He was extremely relived because he was “addicted” to what we’d built for him.   What can we build for you❓

What we’re reading

• How to stop Android Apps from draining your battery
• How to Debloat Windows 11 for Optimal Performance
• Windows 11 24H2 Is Ready, but not for your PC
• How to Stop Copying Data from Paper to Excel

AI / Chat GPT-3 News / Usage

• Zoom CEO Says Users Can Send Their Deepfake Version in Future Meetings
• Anthropic takes a look inside the ‘black box’ of AI models
• Automate PDF Invoices Data Transfer to Google Sheets

⚡️Productivity tips: Refine your workspace

Take some time to make sure your workspace layout is both comfortable and efficient.
It’s amazingly easy to just use what we have and not put thought into being more productive.

A spot of Humor

One of my favorite scenes from movies of all time!   Steve Martin is priceless in this extract from Parenthood.
%Name% are you a roller coaster fan or do you like the merry-go-round?

Parenthood – Grandma’s rollercoaster story

What we utomated this week with AutoHotkey #49

Here’s a recap of what we worked on this week with AutoHotkey.  Remember, we do project work and can save you an amazing amount of time.
I can guarantee our scripts will be robust and efficient as our AutoHotkey Experts are the best in the world(Yes, we’re THAT GOOD❗)

What we automated with AutoHotkey – #49

AHK Hero

Consider joining the AHK Hero club! Members receive 25% off courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.    Currently we have over 273 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to AHK Hero members❗

During this Friday’s call we’re planning to discuss:

• Hero Member Questions and Code Review
• Creating a hotkey to “suspend” any program and changing a program’s “priority”
• Adding basic functions to AutoHotkeyGUIs
• Having hidden icons in scripts- ability to “toggle” their visibility
• Voice Access / Voice Shortcuts

They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and a 3 hours a week where we help people with their AHK issues (the Saturday calls are geared towards people new to AutoHotkey.)

️ Quotable quotes

• Create exceptional Opportunities for Exceptional people — Dan Kennedy
• When experiencing problems with tools, typically you should blame the operator, not the tool — Joe Glines
• The question isn’t who is going to let me it’s who is going to stop me — Ayn Rand
• Focusing is more about saying no to everything than yes to something — Joe Glines

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The-Automator

Joe, Isaias, Irfan, Rizwan and staff

P.S. As I alluded to in the intro, life is short!   Spend your time doing something you love, or with someone you love.  If you don’t have enough time, consider having us automate some of your job!

Double P.S. Today is the last day of our World Productivity sale.  On Sunday I sent a personalized offer with steep discounts!  If you’re interested in Discovering the power of AutoHotkey, you can save a bundle but the sale ends today so find that email and act now!