Howdy %Name%,
In celebrating the announcement of Elon Musk & Vivek Ramaswamy heading up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) I’m putting together a plan to try and help government employees be more productive.
Years ago I worked alongside DOD government people at places like CIA, FBI, DIA, etc. My first job working with them was to conduct the “exit study” of why people were leaving one of the agencies.
The exit interview had two parts: a quantitative survey & qualitative in-depth interview. I was the lead analysis on the quantitative survey however I also helped conduct the 1-1 interviews.
Between both the qual & quant I realized
- there are a lot of hard-working people in government
- government employees are often forced to use antiquated software
- employees rarely have personal incentives for “trying hard”
From interviews I’ve seen with Elon & Vivek, I think they’re going to start by removing a lot of the red-tape businesses have to jump through.
As I’ve mentioned many times in this newsletter; one of the best ways to increase your efficiency is to stop doing things that are unnecessary so I’m 100% behind this objective however I do hope they don’t stop there.
I think another great goal would be to educate employees. And I don’t, necessarily, mean on AutoHotkey. Simply teaching people how to use a computer (more than as a word processor) would have a huge affect on productivity.
Our Rise Above PC Incompetence course is a great place to start! We teach many of the basics that will turn an ordinary user into a Power User.
Let’s try and ensure the Department of Government Efficiency is a huge success!
If you know anyone working for the government that you think they’d be interested in improving themselves, please ask them to reach out to me. I’d love to try and help them!
Now on with the show…
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Introducing Windows RunTime: the 20th way to Automate Programs with AutoHotkey
We were trying to setup PushBullet (see Improving Lives story #26 below) and hit a very weird snag. For some reason, on the client’s computer, iPhone and Android phone we couldn’t reach the Pushbullet servers (even though we could reach it many other ways).
My client was very “hot” for this automation so we decided to use UIA to automate PhoneLink directly. While we were successful, we hit a few bumps in the road and I mentioned to Irfan we should wait on further development to bounce ideas off Isaias (our lead developer.)
Boy was that a good idea❗
Isaias mentioned the Windows RunTime library from Lexikos. While we didn’t get deep into it, it sounds incredibly promising! You can check out the discussion in this video. Or join our Hero call this Friday when we’re going to dive deeper into the architecture.
Windows Runtime Our 20th way to Automate programs with AHK
Analyzing the-Automator business with Claude
A friend of mine was asking about which AI tools I use. I mentioned my “go to” is Claude (especially for AHK V2 code). I also mentioned to him, and my mentor that Claude now has “analytics” built into it so I decided to give them a test.
There’s definitely a lot of room for improvement however it definitely has promise. You can watch me analyze some of my growth metrics in this video.
Using Claude’s Analysis package to examine a CSV file
Generating Better Prompts
While I was playing around in Claude I wanted to show, if you’re a paying Claude user, a great way to generate better prompts. In this video I show how Claude can help generate a better prompt for you.
How to Generate Better Prompts in Claude ai
Improving People’s Lives: Story #26
Today I’m setting up PushBullet on a client’s Android phone. For $39.96 you can have API access to automate SMS texts through your phone. This is going to save her employees 1 hour per day (and not to mention make it easier and fun).
Our GUI makes it easy to send a “mail merge” to your clients.
What we’re reading
- Windows might be Holding Your RAM Hostage
- YouTube Premium Raises Global Prices
- 10 Useful Run Commands every user should know
AI / Chat GPT-3 News / Usage
We’re considering creating another group where we solely talk about and work with AI.
If you’re interested in this group, you can add your contact information here and we’ll get in touch with you when we have more details
- Generate AI voices
- Freepik Mystic claims to be the most advanced AI image generator to date
- Moravec’s Paradox
- Google Vids App Lets You Create an Edit Using a Prompt and a Document
- AI-powered tool simplifies SQL queries and data analysis with Chat2DB
⚡️Productivity tips:
You can quickly bring up Task Manager hitting: Control + Shift + Escape (thanks Scott H.)
A spot of Humor
Ron Swanson teaches Why government matters to a 9-year-old
Ron Swanson’s Government Crash Course | Parks and Recreation
What we utomated this week with AutoHotkey #64
Clients were keeping us very busy this week. I did discuss some interesting ideas on new tools in this week’s what we automated with AutoHotkey episode.
What we automated with AutoHotkey Episode #64
Client’s say…
I appreciate all the work you guys are doing for me! I look forward to it and it keeps me excited about my work — otherwise I would likely get bored or burned out or both. — Danny H.
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 339 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to AHK Hero members❗
During this Friday’s call we’re planning to discuss:
- Help AHK Members with their code
- Automating Phone Link with UIA
- Intro to Using Windows RT from Lexikos
- Playing sounds like *32 Question, *48 exclamation, *64 Asterisk
- GUI Edit control: How do you know when a person stopped typing❓
They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and 3 hours a week where we help people with their AHK issues (the Saturday calls are geared towards people new to AutoHotkey.)
️ Quotable quotes
- Automation is inevitable , and the way we embrace it will define our future. Let’s make sure it’s a future we’re proud of — Elon Musk
- PIBCAC Error: Problem is Between Computer and Chair — Rich Del Secco
- S.Y.S.T.E.M. Save Your Self Time Energy & Money
- If there is no wind; row — Virgil
- Automation is inevitable , and the way we embrace it will define our future. Let’s make sure it’s a future we’re proud of — Elon Musk
⏩SHARE WITH A FRIEND⏩
Do you know someone that would benefit from learning useful automation tips like the gems in today’s issue? Especially someone in Government❓
Take a second and forward this newsletter and bask in the glow of their undying gratitude. Was this email forwarded to you?
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Joe, Isaias, Irfan, Rizwan and staff
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P.S. Whether you are for/against Trump, I think we are all against Government waste!
So let’s all put our collective thinking hats on about how we can improve the productivity of government employees!
