The Hidden Karpathy Loop That 10x’d My Output – AHK News 2026-05-21

AutoHotkey Newsletter

Howdy %Name%,

On Sunday I had another call with my AI / strategy buddy Ryan Wells.

He’s creating a very interesting tool that is watching his computer usage. 

This may sound a bit “big brother” to you (and it does to me) however I do know it is very hard to figure out the “performance” of something without tracking it.

For nearly 20 years I was a quantitative stats guy that used data to help businesses make better informed decisions.

Now I’m loving that we’re collecting metrics on ourselves to see how we can improve❗

How about you %Name%❓ 

What is your feedback loop that you use to ensure you’re improving❓

If you don’t have an easy way to track your time, you should check out our Time Tracking tool

Also, if you’re a Claude Code user, make sure you run /Insights.  It’s a game changer!

Do you have a time each week where you evaluate yourself to ensure you’re improving “you“❓

Now on with the show…

Learn how to Master VSCode Make the switch to v2 Intro to AutoHotkey Intermediate AutoHotkey Intermediate ObjectsGUIs are Easy w/AutoHotkey Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

RealizeAHKtimesaving


Easily Magnify your screen

A couple of weeks ago we came up with this really cool Magnifying Glass which let’s you very quickly zoom into a given area of your screen.  You can even adjust either the area being zoomed and the size of the magnification.

Crazy Z-Order issue with AHK GUI

A while back I found a “bug” which I’d never seen before. 

We had a child GUI that, on one computer, showed the child window behind the main GUI but, with the same executable, showed up in front of the main GUIs.

In this video, Irfan explains what we learned.

AutoHotkey GUI Z Order Fix AlwaysOnTop Preferences Window Bug | Hero Extract
AutoHotkey GUI Z Order Fix AlwaysOnTop Preferences Window Bug | Hero Extract


Speaking of Z-order

If you’re new to working with GUIs with AutoHotkey, you might check out this video where I was showing a tool to help capture the Z-order of GUIs.

Developing Z order and Level of Windows
Developing Z order and Level of Windows


My Script isn’t broken, it just looks that way…

Often we might be doing some “work” with AutoHotkey but most people don’t let users know the script is continuing to plug along.  

That’s where our Progress Bar can help easily inform users that the script is actually hard at work!


Improving People’s Lives: Story #97

Monday morning I had an amazing call with Kenneth Aar (an AHK Hero member).

He has his own YouTube channel.  I showed him some of our tools (Like Transcriber and Media Segmenter) but we also had some very interesting discussions that will be a focus of upcoming newsletters.  🙂

BTW, you might enjoy his channel, here’s a brief description of it: 

“Discover the sweet spot where AutoHotkey meets psychology and GTD (Get Things Done) to engineer systems with less friction and more freedom.”


📚 What we’re reading


🤖 AI News that you Need to Know


⚡️Productivity tips:  

Less is more.  

Version One is infinitely better than version None❗


🤣 A spot of Humor:  Jimmy Carr is so funny!

You Dream of Someone This Dumb In The Front Row
You dream of someone this dumb in the front row


Clients say…

THANK YOU, YOU SAVED MY LIFEEEEEEEEEEEEEE — @sillywilly-102


Cartoon superhero mascot in green costume beside the bold text AHK Hero on a yellow background AHK Hero 🦸

Consider joining the 🦸Hero club! Members receive 25% off courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.    Currently we have over 566 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to Hero members❗

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

  • Help Hero Members with their Questions & Code
  • Converting the AutoHotkey MCP to CLI (and why)
  • Buttons in Notifyv2 class 👀
  • Our new DiffViewer for AHK Script Maker (It’s way cooler than I planned❗)
  • Using Try/Catch in your code
  • Live Creating Skills and Testing
  • Continue to Automate creating Downloads on the-Automator

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

  • When a man understands that the aim of life is not material profit, but life itself, ceases to fix his attention exclusively on the external world, — Alexis Carrel
  • Fire fast; Hire slow — Dan Kennedy
  • Do the hard jobs first. Easy jobs will take care of themselves — Dale Carnegie

AHK Newsletter⏩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  Dedicated to Multiplying your Income

Joe, Isaias, Irfan and staff


P.S. We like to think we are “efficient” but the truth is, more often than not, we are incredibly inefficient.  And having “someone else” (whether it is AI or another human) is often the best way to spot places for us to improve. 

How about it %Name%❓  

Do you have the courage to join the hero club and share your workflow❓

 

AHK News 2026-03-26 Why I’m not (currently) worried about AI

AutoHotkey Newsletter

Howdy %Name%,

Here are two graphs that are why I’m not worried about losing business to AI (yet)

I’m proud to say most Hero members fall between the red and yellow squares ❗

AIusage

Here is another interesting graph I researched and created.   Fiverr and UpWork revenue since 2019

FiverUpworkRevenue

I’m sure there are losers as well as winners in that chart but, if you’re embracing AI then I’m willing to bet you’re on the winning side!

How about you❓   Want to be one of the 3.2 million in that red square🟥❓  

If you’re serious about using AI + AutoHotkey like this, the Hero group is where we actually build this stuff together.

Now on with the show…

Learn how to Master VSCode Make the switch to v2 Intro to AutoHotkey Intermediate AutoHotkey Intermediate ObjectsGUIs are Easy w/AutoHotkey Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

ForAnyone

We finally launched AutomateMyTask  in v2

This is a phenomenal executable for writing Fuzzy matching image search v2 code❗

You can check out the fundamentals in this video or click here to learn more about AutomateMyTask .

I also have this AmT playlist which has very short, to-the-point videos!

🚀 AutoHotkey V2 Tool That Writes Code FOR YOU! (Game Changer)
🚀 AutoHotkey V2 Tool That Writes Code FOR YOU! (Game Changer)

If you’re new to working with Functions check out our Intro to AHK Course


Pros / Cons of various ways to use Claude Code

I’ve been using the Claude Desktop app to work with Claude but then switch to using VS Code.  Surprisingly there were big differences!  And then you have the Chrome Extension not to mention Cowork so I asked Notebook LM to help explain the Pros & Cons of each approach. 

AutomateMyTask  lets you visually capture elements and instantly generate working AutoHotkey v2 code—no guessing, no trial-and-error.

The video turned out great!

🚀 Claude Code: CLI vs VS Code Extension – Which One is right for you❓
🚀 Claude Code: CLI vs VS Code Extension - Which One is right for you❓


How much should you pay for AI

Obviously it is tough for me to say how much you should pay for AI however I can tell you this.  I was being overly stingy❗

In this video I explain how I finally realized that I was being an idiot and switched to the Max $100 a month plan.   My guess is you should upgrade too!

💸 From $20 to $200: My Claude AI Upgrade Journey | AHK Hero Extract
💸 From $20 to $200: My Claude AI Upgrade Journey | AHK Hero Extract


Make sure Goldilocks gets the right AI model

While we’re on the topic of paying for AI, in this video I walked through how you can make it easier to decide which model you should be using (depending on the task you’re asking AI to do for you.)

💸 From $20 to $200: My Claude AI Upgrade Journey | AHK Hero Extract
💸 From $20 to $200: My Claude AI Upgrade Journey | AHK Hero Extract


Improving People’s Lives: Story #88

I spent an hour the other day showing a friend of mine how easy it was to use Claude Code through VS code.   Now he’s leveled up and is creating tools that he never dreamed possible!


📚 What we’re reading


🤖 AI News that you Need to Know


⚡️Productivity tips:  

Use Control+Shift+P to open the “Command Palette in VS Code


🤣 A spot of Humor:

This is, quite possibly, the worst movie ever made❗   Don’t’ say I didn’t warn you❗

After Last Season (2009) 

After Last Season (2009) Movie (2009) Watch whole movie to ender 1k giveway


What we 🅰utomated this week with AutoHotkey #127

In this week’s video I show you a ton of the tools we’ve been building lately

From a headline scoring tool inspired by legendary copywriters, to an icon finder that uses AI embeddings so you can search by concept instead of keywords (search “fly” and it finds airplanes!).

I also walk through some slick UIA Inspector upgrades that auto-generate your automation code and a bunch of other goodies like image converters, notification systems, and FFMPEG updates.

If you’re curious how AI is supercharging what’s possible with AutoHotkey, you’ll want to check this one out.

What we Automated with AutoHotkey #127
What we Automated with AutoHotkey #127


Clients say…

You guys are awesome — Allen Horn


Cartoon superhero mascot in green costume beside the bold text AHK Hero on a yellow background  Hero 🦸

Consider joining the 🦸Hero club! Members receive 25% off courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.    Currently we have over 539 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to AHK Hero members❗

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

  • Help Hero Members with their Questions & Code
  • AHK Script Maker: Check for update, Dash
  • Using Try/Catch in your code
  • AutomateMyTask – released in v2
  • Send/Post Message Syntax writer
  • UIA / Message Syntax writer hybrid
  • Using Peacock with VS Code
  • Setting default values in an ini file

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

  • There are no secrets to success only things you don’t happen to know right now — Joe Glines
  • Learn how to calculate the future cost of your bad decisions — Joe Glines
  • Don’t sacrifice peace of mind for a piece of luxury — James Cleary

AHK Newsletter⏩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  Dedicated to Multiplying your Income

Joe, Isaias, Irfan and staff


P.S. I’ve had an insanely productive week using AI to write tools for us! 

If your struggling with AI then you really should consider joining our Hero club!  I guarantee you’ll level you up every meeting❗