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👀My Vegas Adventure | AHK News 2026-07-18

Howdy,

I flew home to Dallas Tuesday but thought I’d share with you the “adventure” I went on last Friday (after the Hero calls).

I met up with Mary Carol (the woman that put together the “AI Event” for Sabrina Ramonov).

We were supposed to meet up for lunch and discuss AI but things didn’t go quite as planned.

She called me from the road to let me know she had a flat.

We agreed I’d meet her at a tire shop instead of the restaurant.

Sadly things took a turn for the worse when it turned out, the tire was not the problem.

her rim was cracked

and they don’t do rim repair.

At this point it was mid-afternoon on Friday and places were “shutting down” for the weekend.

Luckily one place did call her back and said if we can get them the rim they could have it ready by Monday.

I agreed to follow her to the shop and then would give her a ride home.

Luckily we got to the shop early enough so the crew could weld it and she’d be out of there that day❗

She told me I could go but I was worried she might end up stranded so I waited.

While we waited she apologized about taking up my afternoon.

I let her know that it was fine because that is what I do❗

I help people solve their problems

Whether I help them during Hero calls, during Consultations, or just solving random problems.

That is what drives me! What drives you❓

Now on with the show…

Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

Are you a Micro (AI) Manager❓

We had a very interesting discussion during a Hero call regarding how much time you should be spending looking at your code.

Isaias started off going “deep” on the bad approach AI chose but I countered with the “who cares” response. You can be the judge by watching it here.

Stop Micromanaging AI Code 🎯 Let the Model Think | Hero Extract

Asking Gurus

The Hero group is amazing for having live experts to talk to. I liked the idea so much that I created a Claude Skill entitled AskGurus which lets Claude bounce its ideas off other AI models.

I discuss the approach in this extract from the Hero call. I firmly believe being able to get more than one opinion (whether it is AI or human) is the simplest way to get better solutions in life!

The “Guru” Skill That Makes AI Models Compete 🏆 For You | Hero Extract

Building a “mini” editor

Kenneth, a Hero member, liked the idea of our Quick Raw Edit tool but wanted the ability to be more precise in the “cuts”.

After discussing with AI that, in order to edit frame-by-frame we would have to add ffprobe.exe (another 150 meg download) tool, I proposed we let him edit down the 100^th of a second.

He agreed that would be fine so we added it to the tool. I was showing off the changes during a Hero call when we came up with a couple other ideas that I went ahead and implemented

(Letting users cut out the middle instead of rip the selection and adding the Wave form so we can see the audio). Check out the discussion here.

We’re Accidentally Building a Video Editor 🎬 And It’s Getting Out of Hand | Hero Extract

A quick look at Cursor

Ryan Wells is no stranger to the newsletter and our YouTube channel.

I used to use Cursor but I went with Claude code (via VS code) instead of sticking with Cursor.

Ryan and I typically bounce ideas around developing AI tools off each other nearly every day (are you sensing the trend❓) however we rarely “show” each other how we are developing our code.

I asked Ryan to lead us on a mini-session on using Cursor to develop tools.

He blew all of us away and left us wanting more! You can check out the great intro to Cursor in this video.

I’m curious, what AI tools are you using %name% to develop code❓

How to Use Cursor Like a Pro 🚀 Projects, Models & Skills Explained | Hero Extract

Improving People’s Lives: Story #102

While at my father’s house in Las Vegas I installed a smart thermostat for him. He’s still getting used to the idea that he can change the temperature by an app on his phone but I think he’ll get used to it.

What is the last smart device you’ve added to your home❓

📚 What we’re reading

Must have Home Assistant apps I can’t live without
Speed up your internet by removing these devices
Backwards compatibility is holding Windows back

🤖 AI News that you Need to Know

Here are the 6 Claude skills (out of 100) that actually matter
Get a Pebble: External Memory For Your Brain
I asked AI to roleplay as Simon Sinek

⚡️Productivity tips:

Learn how you can make your QR codes smaller

🤣 A spot of Humor:

New Rule: Grad GPT | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

What we 🅰utomated this week with AutoHotkey #136

This week was packed. I gave AI a 10-minute plan before bed and woke up to a fully working concept-search tool it built overnight, one that reads PDFs, Word, Excel, audio, even video and finds things by meaning instead of exact keywords.

I also show off a live call assistant that matches my spoken words to website products in real time, a video progress-bar burner I threw together in 30 minutes, a faster AI icon creator, and a bunch more.

In this week’s video I walk you through all of them and how AI is letting me build complex tools in hours (instead of weeks).

Clients say…

Joe! All I can say is WOW! — Stephanie Holland

AHK Hero 🦸

Consider joining the 🦸Hero club! Members receive 25% off courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc. Currently we have over 578 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to Hero members❗

You can watch 1 hour a day for a year and not repeat content! That’s a lot of Learning!

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

Help Hero Members with their Questions & Code
Using AI to create a Website (Plusses & Minuses)
Hidden Toast messages, License, API keys, etc.
Adding a progress bar to videos
Updates to NoticableText
Updates to tAHKskbar
WordpAHKd
AHK Shutdown Fix❓
Potential New ways to Automate with AHK

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

🗣️ 💭 Quotable quotes

Wealth is the product of man’s capacity to think — Ayn Rand
You can acquire more of anything in life, except time — Simon Sinek
Soon companies will have 2 employees: 1 man 1 dog. The man is there to feed the dog. The dog is there to keep the man from messing with the AutoHotkey script — Joe Glines

⏩SHARE WITH A FRIEND⏩

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the-Automator Dedicated to Multiplying your Income

Joe, Isaias, Irfan and staff

P.S. The intro story is the “short version” of our afternoon. In the end Mary Carol got her car back in working condition and invited me to an online AI meetup which was fun.

I’m beginning to plan an in–person Dallas meetup. If you’d like to attend reply to this email and let me know❗

Why Your QR Codes Are Too Big (And How to Make Them Smaller)

Why Your QR Codes Are Bigger Than They Need To Be (And How To Shrink Them)

I was helping a buddy print some QR codes for an event last week. He had them slapped on little table tents, and half the time my phone just sat there squinting at it like it forgot how to read.

So we dug in. And it turns out the QR code was WAY denser than it needed to be. All those tiny squares packed in tight? Most of them didn’t need to be there.

The fix was almost silly. We changed a few lowercase letters to uppercase, and the code got noticeably simpler.

Have you ever run into a QR code that just refuses to scan? There’s a decent chance it’s doing this exact thing to itself.

Now on with the show. 😃

The thing nobody tells you about QR codes

A QR code doesn’t store your text the same way every time. It picks an encoding mode based on what characters you throw at it. And each mode packs characters at a totally different density.

Here are the three you actually care about:

Numeric (just 0-9): about 3.33 bits per character
Alphanumeric (0-9, UPPERCASE A-Z, space, and a handful of symbols like $ % * + - . / :): about 5.5 bits per character
Byte (anything else, including lowercase letters, most symbols, emojis): 8 bits per character

See the jump? The second you include a single lowercase letter, the QR code shrugs and switches the WHOLE thing to byte mode at 8 bits a pop.

Stick to uppercase and numbers, and it stays in alphanumeric mode at 5.5 bits. That’s roughly 30% less data for the exact same message.

Less data means fewer squares. Fewer squares means a bigger, cleaner, easier-to-scan code at the same print size.

Wait, why such weird numbers?

The cool thing is QR codes cheat a little to save space.

In alphanumeric mode there are 45 possible characters. Instead of storing them one at a time, it grabs two characters and packs them into 11 bits. Two characters, 11 bits, so 5.5 bits each.

Numeric mode cheats even harder: three digits crammed into 10 bits. That’s the 3.33.

You don’t have to do any of this math yourself. The encoder handles it. You just have to NOT sabotage it by tossing in a lowercase a.

The free win for URLs

Here’s where this actually pays off in real life.

Domain names don’t care about case. EXAMPLE.COM and example.com go to the same place. So if you’re encoding a link, you can uppercase the whole thing and the QR code gets simpler for FREE.

So instead of:

example.com/promo

Encode:

EXAMPLE.COM/PROMO

Same destination. Smaller code. Nothing lost.

And if you’re making your own short codes or IDs (invoice numbers, coupon codes, tracking IDs), design them as uppercase and digits from the start. Something like INV-2026-AX9 stays in the efficient lane. ⚡

Practical QR code tips I wish I’d known sooner

Once you fix the encoding thing, here are the other gotchas that bite people:

Keep the payload short. Less text equals a simpler code. Use a short link instead of a giant URL stuffed with tracking junk like ?utm_source=.... All that gunk bloats the code for no real benefit.

Leave the quiet zone alone. That blank margin around the code (about 4 squares wide) is not decoration. It’s how scanners find the edges. Crowding it with text or a border is the number one reason codes fail to scan.

Mind the error correction level. QR codes can survive damage because they store backup data. The levels are L, M, Q, and H (roughly 7% up to 30% recovery). Higher means tougher, but also denser.

For a clean screen or a nice flyer, M is the sweet spot.
Putting your logo in the middle? Use H. That’s literally why you can cover the center and still scan, the backup data fills in the gap.

Dark code, light background. Scanners expect this. Flip it to light-on-dark and a lot of phones just give up.

Don’t blow up a tiny image. Generate it at the final size, or use a vector (SVG) so it stays crisp. A blurry, upscaled QR code is a sad QR code.

Use a redirect link if the destination might ever change. Point the QR code at a short URL YOU control, then point that short URL wherever you want. Static codes bake the destination in forever. Wrong link on 5,000 printed flyers is an expensive lesson. Don’t ask me how I know. 😅

Test it for real. Different phones, iPhone and Android, in real lighting, at the actual size you’re printing. Thirty seconds of testing beats a reprint every single time.

Tell people why to scan. A naked QR code gets ignored. “Scan for the menu” or “Scan for 20% off” gets scanned. Give folks a reason.

One quick heads-up on safety

QR codes hide where they’re sending you, which makes them a favorite trick for scammers (people call it “quishing” now).

Don’t get me wrong, QR codes are great. But when you publish one, show the real web address right next to it so people can trust where they’re headed. And be a little careful scanning random codes on parking meters and flyers yourself.

The takeaway

QR codes feel like magic, but they’re really just following a few simple rules. Learn the rules and you can make them smaller, cleaner, and far more reliable, with almost no extra effort.

Uppercase plus numbers equals alphanumeric mode equals less data equals a code that actually scans on the first try.

It’s a tiny tweak. But tiny tweaks that save time and prevent headaches? That’s pretty much my whole thing. 🤖

How about you? Next time you make a QR code, try uppercasing the link and see how much simpler it gets. Then go scan it from across the room just to feel good about yourself.

P.S. This is the fun part about automation and tech in general. The little details you almost never think about are usually the ones quietly costing you time. Poke at them. Test stuff. You’ll be surprised how often a 10 second change saves you a 10 minute problem.

Amazing AI Lunch with Sabrina Ramonov | Nws 2026-06-11

Howdy,

On my flight to my father’s place in Las Vegas I was checking my email and happened to read one from Sabrina Ramonov. She mentioned, on Jun 7^th, she was having a meet-up with people in the Las Vegas area and gave an invitation to people to attend.

Of course I took her up on it (as did 22 others).

We had a wonderful lunch discussing how we use AI and bouncing ideas off each other.

As usual I highly encouraged people to get an AI buddy.

Someone that is at their general skill level. That they can learn and grow with and bounce ideas off of.

I can’t tell you how much I’ve improved my ideas by talking with someone else.

It’s one of the things we do all the time in the Hero Group.

I also enjoy talking to them about how we do things differently than most AI people. Letting AI do the thinking, but AutoHotkey do the work. With the average price of tokens going up, it’s a very smart thing to do❗

Join the hero club and see what you’re missing out on❗ It’s only $1.99 for the first month. You get access to 3 hours of meeting time each week (that you can choose to attend).

Besides 25% off our Courses, Scripts, and Consultations.

Now on with the show…

Speaking of Meetings…

Do you have hour-long+ meetings that you want to share but feel guilty about forcing someone that only needs to see a few minutes of it?

Our Segmenter tool is a great way to break up Video and Audio files. Take a look at this video to see how easy it is to use.

🎯 The AI Trick That Turns 2-Hour Meetings Into 13 Digestible Clips | Hero Extract

Easily running scripts Without installing AutoHotkey

A few weeks back I released this video explaining how, if your IT blocks you installing AutoHotkey, you might be able to get it via the Windows store. (and if you can’t do it from the store, you might go to the URL here and be able to install).

Fun ideas and workarounds | Hero Extract

But for those of you that could not install but can get AutoHotkey.exe to your computer, you can still associate the .ahk files to the extension. I spell it out in this page.

Is this Double / Triple Charging❓

During a Hero call we were discussing how we will often have multiple instances of Claude solving our problems. Every few minutes we’ll switch between them to answer questions, create a restore point, nudge it along, etc.

This is all straightforward when we’re working for one client but, when we’re working for multiple clients, how do we bill❓ We discussed this overall issue in this call.

Can we legitimately double bill clients for our time when using AI❓

Improving People’s Lives: Story #101

During Sabrina’s lunch I asked a question to the people seated around me:
“Is there anything you haven’t been able to get AI to do❓”

Anthony, the gentleman sitting across from me, replied with a pretty tough goal.

He was trying to use AI to generate a video of a drone flying through a model of his design (He’s an architect). He had some success but the perspective would often change unexpectedly.

I mentioned a few things (which he had tried already) and then I agreed, that is tough❗

Then, about 15 minutes later, I mentioned an idea to him that he hadn’t tried (apparently my subconscious was working on it.)

I haven’t heard back if the other approach worked, but the main point is that by talking to others (and letting your subconscious noodle on it) often you can get new perspectives.