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…
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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 100th 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
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Joe, Isaias, Irfan and staff
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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❗
