Howdy,

Over the weekend I was using my small backhoe to remove a tree stump.

As you can see below, I ran into a small problem.  LOL

Now, I could have switched to the “labor intensive” approach and grabbed a shovel.

Instead I…

• Texted my professional welder buddy to confirm he could fix it for me.
• Looked online for a “root cutter” attachment for my backhoe

Thankfully both were quick to confirm.

My bucket is off to the welder and I ordered a root ripper that will drastically speed up my tree-stump excavation (and greatly reduce the likelihood that I break my patched bucket)

If I had needed the job done right away, I would have switched to doing it manually⛏️ thankfully I can hold off and “buy time” getting better tools!

Which is exactly what we offer our clients.

We sell time in the sense our tools streamline your process and keep you working smarter, not harder❗

Now on with the show…

I received an email from AHK guru JeesWG regarding how he made this tutorial showing how you can backport AHK v2 functionality to v1 (and how you can create one version of your script).

I created this video helping explain why you would want to do this.

It’s quite interesting and can be very helpful if you have clients that are still running AHK v1.

If you’re weighing whether to convert instead, run your script through our V1 to V2 Difficulty Calculator, and our V1 to V2 Transition course walks you through the whole process.

Backporting AutoHotkey Scripts for v1 and v2 Support

Dirt-Simple Recorder 🎥

OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) is an amazing tool however it has a steep learning curve.

Since I’ve been developing with Rust I’ve been trying to take advantage of its capabilities and speed.

I started working on a tool that lets me display my webcam on my desktop (like a picture in picture) and capture the screen & webcam in one stream.

I’m getting close to releasing it but you can check out a demo of it in this video.

Since that video I added:

• the ability to Pause the recording
• show a border around the desktop I’m capturing (the border is invisible to the recording)

Auto Burn Webcam Into Screen Recordings | Hero Extract

Ripping Audio from a Media File

I’ve been using FFMPEG for a really long time.  We’ve built dozens of tools wrapping it (you can grab our FFmpeg library here) and it is truly a “must have”.   That is until you’re sharing it with clients.  The 219 meg file is a bit daunting (and if you need to peek inside media files ffProbe is another 219 megs).

So I created a couple Rust tools to let me do things like: extract audio from a media file, get the length of a media file, and apply some noise filters.

I discuss our Audio Ripper in this video.

If you’re fighting background hum in your own recordings, this one covers removing it with FFMPEG and AI tools.

Rust Audio Ripper Ditches FFmpeg for Good 🎧 | Hero Extract

Cutting Out the White Noise

Are you ever watching a video and wishing they would “get to the point” or want to remove the “dead space”?   Our ClearCut tool helps shrink down videos.

It is great because you don’t need “fancy” tools like DaVinci Resolve or Descript.   It does use AI for the transcriptions however you only have to pay for what you use… (I compared local vs cloud transcription if you’re curious what that actually costs)

Check it out in this video.

AI Video Tool Cuts 35 Min Clip by 6 Minutes 😲 | Hero Extract

Improving People’s Lives: Story #110

It was time to get my septic pumped again so I called my septic guy and he dropped by a few days later.   He was helping explain that my setup was not optimal and gave me a very reasonable price for improving my system.

I was very grateful and asked him to stop by my office for a few minutes on his way out.

When he came in I showed him several of the Apps I’d built for customers and asked if he thought any could help him.   (He did)

But then he mentioned his website was costing him $2,000 a year.

I was pretty outraged about the price as his site is very basic.  So we quickly made a deal.

I’d host his site for a year for the improvements to my septic system.

I then asked AI to “Copy” his site (which it did wonderfully).

I then got on zoom with Ryan Wells and we discussed how to rebuild it with WordPress.

We decided the best way was let AI look at the old site and suggest themes that would closely represent it.

In about 1 hour I had 99% of his site replicated on my server!

📚 What we’re reading

• I added Wi-Fi to my mailbox, and it’s more useful than you’d think (This is what I bought)
• Send up to 3,000 emails a month for free with Anypost
• How to use Slicers in Excel (and why they’re better than filters)
• Windows felt slow until I realized the problem wasn’t my hardware
• Interesting use of NFC tags

🤖 AI News that you Need to Know

• New Orleans using AI for 911 calls
• Grok 4.6 is really good and7 is coming soon!
• Record your screen and create an AI skill

Claude Code and Codex Got an Upgrade Nobody Announced

⚡️Productivity tips:

Use a transcriber like Handy to let you “talk your idea” out and then give it to AI and ask it to organize it and fill in the holes.

🤣 A spot of Humor:  Very well done!

Georgia Engel’s Hilarious Take on Betty White | The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast

What we 🅰utomated this week with AutoHotkey #144

This week was heavy on Rust.

I recorded the whole thing with a new Rust based OneTake tool, then got into calling AutoHotkey functions from Rust DLLs (no extra EXE needed, it’s all DllCall under the hood), rebuilding Triggers in Rust, and merging my explorer and search tools into one fast copy machine.

I also cover a radiologist client call on automating AI reports, a dark mode magnifier, a DNS benchmark, a duplicate finder, and a file converter.

In this week’s video I walk you through all of it and why the Rust switch made a few of these noticeably faster.

What we Automated this week #144

Clients say…

This is a game changer and we are very Blessed to have Joe and his team working in helping us in utilizing the wonderful opportunities to grow with new technologies available to us.

Again, thank you for all the support you give us. — 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 601 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
• AHK Tools
  • Creating v1 and v2 compatible scripts
  • Borrowing Firefox Cookies
  • PDF to Text
  • Using the AHK DLL (see DLLCalls and Structures)
  • XPLorer (AHKExplorer & XP search)
    • Launching with a path
    • Adding FastCopy
    • Create Virtual drives
    • File Converter
  • Run Windows Apps
  • Remove Bloatware
  • WatchFolders example
  • Mailgun flagging tokens being shared in User Environment
• Rust Tools
  • OneTake – pause recording, highlighting monitor
  • Using the Rust DLL
  • DNS Benchmarker
  • Radiologist ICD-10 Lookup tool
    • Built-in Hotkeys
    • Creating system tray & using System tray Icon (TraySetIcon)
    • Creating Triggers class in Rust
    • SingleInstance Force in Rust
  • FocusGuard (Prevent focus being stolen)
  • Duplicate File Finder
  • Media Deduper

They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and 2 hours a week where we help people with their automation issues

🗣️ 💭 Quotable quotes

• The essentials of happiness are to have something: to do, to love, to hope for, to be needed for — Joe Glines
• Of all resources available to humanity, time alone cannot be multiplied or replenished — Elon Musk
• The more perfect a person is on the outside, the more demons they have on the inside — Sigmund Freud

⏩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 just got my bucket back from my welder.  It’s better than new and is stronger than ever❗

Don’t forget, going to professionals pays for itself in the long run!