automation – Page 3 – the-Automator

We use AI to build automation that gives you your time back. 🤖 Tools, training and custom work.
New here❓
Start Here
Discover Our
Courses
Schedule
a meeting
Downloads
Browse by Task
Testimonials
Using AI❓
AI Tools

Posts tagged "automation" (Page 3)

AHK newsletter 2025-03-06: my 5 Bullet points of what I did last week… :)

Howdy %Name%,

I enjoyed federal employees squirm in regards to Elon’s email to them asking for 5 bullet-points as to what they had done in the past week.

It’s basically a “pulse-check” yet people are panicked!

Someone asked me if I was going to ask our employees for a list of 5 things they did. I said it would be more like what 50 things they did! LOL

But I did think it is a fun exercise to get us thinking so I have a challenge for you %name%.

What 5 AHK scripts did you use most last week?

If you’re wondering which ones I used most, you can check out this video.

My 5 AHK scripts I used most last week Thanks Elon!

Now on with the show…

Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

Simple Webcam Reminder

If you’ve ever recorded a video only to watch it later and realize your webcam covered a critical part of the screen, the Webcam Reminder script is for you!

In this video I explain hour our Webcam Reminder saves you from making this critical error!

Simple Webcam Reminder for those that Record their Desktop and share a Webcam

Fun with ️

During this video Isaias and I had a lot of fun showing how you probably have a hotkey that you’re not using.

We also covered other cool ways to double/triple the number of hotkeys you have!

Showing mulitple ways to define hotkeys for an unused key on your Keyboard

Add thes to All of your Scripts (We did!)

Quite a while ago I had mentioned to Isaias that we should add the ability to open a running script’s folder to our scripts.

Sometimes I need to share it, inspect something else, jump to the ini file, etc.

I knew it would be helpful but I didn’t realize just how handy it is! So we went through all of our working scripts and added it to our scripts (as well as link to the video and other info).

In AutoHotkey v2 it is easier than you think! Check it out in this video.

Easily Adding Open Folder and Video link to system Tray Icon in an AHK V2 Script

Claude 3.7 Sonnet is Amazing

Last week I spent a few hours using the new Claude model to create some very complex AutoHotkey V2 scripts. It did a phenomenal job! If you haven’t used it yet, I highly recommend you give it a try!

And, on that note, our updated Claude API class let’s you add a “thinking” parameter to let you tell AI how much “thought” you want it to do. Check it out in this video.

Update to Claude AHK Class: Now has 3.7 Sonnet & “Thinking” parameter

If you’re new to working with classes, check our Functions, Objects & Classes course (and don’t forget we offer a double-your-money back guarantee!)

Pin a script to Windows 11 start menu

Do you miss being able to pin a script to your start menu? Microsoft made it ridiculously difficult (but not impossible) to do. I show you how in this video.

How to Pin a file to Taskbar in Windows 11

Improving People’s Lives: Story #39

One of our client’s was asked to monitor a web-email account and to check it twice a week.

While we could setup Outlook to go pull from it, I asked the person in charge of the account to just setup an “auto-forward” so every-email that comes through, automatically, gets forwarded to my client.

Easy- Peezy!

What we’re reading

What are Virtual Machines and how do they work❓
Ways to Improve Your Cell Signal at home
Miss your Blackberry? Physical Keyboards for Android
Earbuds that can charge your phone?

AI / Chat GPT-3 News / Usage

Amazon reveals Alexa+ with Better Language Processing
Quora’s Poe now lets users create and share custom AI-powered apps
Unstract: AI Document Parser
Open AI launched GPT 4.5 (however it is not cheap !)

⚡️Productivity tips:

Ctrl + Shift + N : Create a new folder in the current directory.

A spot of Humor

Did you hear the joke about the unmade bed❓

Of course not, I haven’t made it yet….

What we utomated this week with AutoHotkey #77

This week we had a lot of scripts we worked on. In this video I walk through 145 AHK scripts we worked on.

What we automated with AutoHotkey #77

A couple weeks ago Connie, an AHK Hero member, had mentioned it would be handy to have all the links to the scripts that were mentioned / shown on-screen during the video. That idea was great but it was going to create a lot of extra work for me.

Yesterday I realized I could create a simple script to monitory the clipboard and “log” all text that had “the-Automator” in it. So I got on Claude and created a little script that did just that! So, in videos description you can find links to the 43 scripts that we have downloads for.

Client’s say…

Holy shit❗ This is amazing — Dr. Kamran J.

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 381 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to AHK Hero members❗

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

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

Help AHK Hero Members with their Questions & Code
FileCreateShortcut & Run commands both require Absolute path
Modularizing your Code: Tips & Tricks
Breaking out of Loops without exiting the script
Using Shellhooks verse creating a child window or Popup
How to prevent cached responses when doing HttpRequest?
Not creating multiple copies of code but ensuring the right version is used

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

The thing most people like least is a mirror — Dan Kennedy
Systems let the Ordinary to do the Extraordinary — Joe Glines
Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me — Carol Burnett
If you want better results, forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead — James Cleary

⏩SHARE WITH A FRIEND⏩

Do you know someone that would benefit from learning useful automation tips like the gems in today’s issue? Take a second and forward this newsletter and bask in the glow of their undying gratitude. Was this email forwarded to you?

Sign up for this Newsletter here. We never share your email with anyone. Ever!

The-Automator

Joe, Isaias, Irfan, Rizwan and staff

P.S. DOGE is getting amazing things done by mostly “cutting” programs. That is one of my favorite ways to be more efficient (focusing on less) but they are also working on updating archaic systems.

If you have older Windows-based software, AutoHotkey is an amazing at connecting and automating it. We know of 20 ways to automate programs with AutoHotkey!

Why not take a look at my calendar and book a call where we can see just how easy it will be?

2025-02-27 Einstein was no Einstein

Howdy %Name%,

Did you that Einstein was a “late talker” starting at around 4-5 years old? He was also very un-organized and his teachers didn’t think him “exceptional”.

I think a lot of people give up on things merely because they started on a topic that was “beyond their grasp”.

Or they watch other people solve complex problems but fail to realize the person solving it has been working in their field for YEARS.

It’s one of the reasons I hate the use of affirmative action in colleges.

It often puts people amongst peers that had better resources & education for 15 years and now they are expected to be able to handle the same workload.

It’s the main reason why so many end-up dropping out / not getting their degree.

It’s why we customize our answers during the AHK hero calls to the person’s knowledge level .

Its also why we reserve Saturday’s hero calls for “entry level” questions. People need to feel comfortable asking their questions amongst other people that are working at the same level.

Imagine if you came to us never having worked in AutoHotkey and purchased our Functions, Objects and Classes course. You’d hate both it and AutoHotkey!

But if you started off with our Intro to AutoHotkey course, you would have loved both AutoHotkey andour course! (Thankfully both come with a 200% money-back guarantee so, in reality, there is no risk.)

But next time you witness someone solve something beyond your grasp ask yourself

“Does that person have knowledge I don’t?”

And, if you want to be able to keep-up with them; go out and get that knowledge !

Now on with the show…

Does Microsoft have Saboteurs?

The more I changes I see in Windows, the more I think there is someone at Microsoft has employees that are purposefully sabotaging them!

For instance, why would someone create the Do not Disturb capability but then make it so difficult to turn in on/off?

That’s why we created Toggle Do Not Disturb. This makes it super-easy to enable/disable Do not Disturb as you can see in this video.

How to easily Toggle Do Not Disturb in Windows 11

If you like that tool you might also enjoy our Toggle Bluetooth which was started by Connie, an AHK Hero member and completed during an AHK Hero call.

Improving People’s Lives: Story #38

Anthropic just released Claude 3.7 which allows for adjusting the amount of “reasoning” via the API.

Danny, one of our Radiologist, relies heavily on Claude so we updated our Claude API Class to use the new model (and the new “thinking” parameter.)

This will let Danny decide just how much thought he want’s AI to give a topic!

You can check out the new property in this video.

Update to Claude AHK Class: Now has 3.7 Sonnett & “Thinking” parameter

My Good Morning Alexa Routine

I mainly about Desktop Automation however I do a lot of other types of Automation as well like Marketing Automation, Statistical work (Here’s one of my other YouTube channels on SPSS Macros) and Home Automation.

For instance I have Amazon Echos in every room and have been using them for ~13 years.

In this video I show my “Good morning” routine. Routines are great way to combine a bunch of actions together.

Home Automation with Alexa My Good Morning Routine