Howdy,

During a very fun call with a couple of Hero members I realized, in addition to my previous observations that we like to Get Things Done, we have a few other traits:

• One is that we are “risk takers” and, like me, would rather ask for forgiveness than permission.
• Another commonality is we’re used to others not grasping our ideas. (It’s one of the reasons we have such fun on the Hero calls.  Like minded people not only “get” your idea but will often offer some interesting tweaks to it.
• While we don’t care much about who takes credit for our idea, we are adamant about giving credit to other’s ideas
• We are amazing at “thinking outside the box”. I’ve been a quantitative Stats guy for 30 years but I’m also incredibly creative!

So, if the above sounds like you, you really should consider joining our Hero club.  We have a blast during our calls and always walk away with new ideas.

Now on with the show…

Creating a CLI for Excel

During a Hero call we showed how we created an Excel CLI tool.

Excel itself is not opensource (and the COM object is enormous) so we decided to just have Claude look at our XL function Library because we put the most common things we used Excel for in it.

Then we just asked Claude to use the XL.exe tool from the command line and Whammo❗

Check it out in this video.

AI Turned Our Excel Library Into a CLI 💻 While We Slept | Hero Extract

Getting a Path to Files in Notepad

Connie, a Hero member, asked if we could figure out how to programmatically get the file path from Notepad and then add that approach to Get Active Path. 

While this seemed niche at first, I realized maybe there was a way that would carry over to other Windows Apps so it was worth investigating so…

Challenge Accepted!

We were able to find a way to do it (but it is just bound to the new Windows 11 Notepad

Can You Programmatically Grab File Paths From Notepad? 💻 Let’s Test | Hero Extract

And they said “Breaking up” is hard to do…

I’m sure, like me, you’ve sat through long meetings, seminars, etc. where you sit for hours listening to non-helpful things
for 90% of the time however there are some
interesting “nuggets” that are worth capturing and sharing.

Unfortunately who has the time to dig through the recordings to break them out❓

Well our Media Segmenter makes that task incredibly easy❗

Check it out in this video.

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

Improving People’s Lives: Story #97

I’ve been attending Chamber of Commerce meetings in a nearby town. 

Many people are very interested in AI but are “afraid” to get started.  

Generally I just listen to what they want to use AI for, then point them in the right direction with a few videos that discuss it (or I use NotebookLM to create a custom video for them.)

It’s really great to be able to help people getting started with AI❗

📚 What we’re reading

• Disable these 6 Windows services to fix your sluggish PC
• Powerline adapters solve Ethernet’s biggest problems
• Google Wallet can replace these 5 apps you probably still have
• Your router isn’t just for Wi-Fi

🤖 AI News that you Need to Know

• How to turn Claude into a Project management system
• 5 signs you’re still using ChatGPT like a beginner
• Use the ‘Bee Sting’ ChatGPT prompt to anticipate the unexpected
• AI has changed Completely: Here’s what really matters in 2026

⚡️Productivity tips:   Oldies but Goodies❗

• Ctrl+F – Find
• Ctrl+H – Replace

🤣 A spot of Humor:   

Reacher is pretty awesome.  There are funny parts though…

Reacher’s Most Iconic Funny Moments 🤣 | REACHER

What we 🅰utomated this week with AutoHotkey #133

This past week was a busy one❗

From AI audio cleanup that erased the background noise on an old Dan Kennedy course to a Segmenter that now spits out timelines for DaVinci Resolve.

In this week’s video I walk you through all the tools we built and updated, plus some fun ideas that came out of our HERO calls.

What we Automated with AI and AHK #133

Clients say…

How can I pay more for this? — Kelly Coughlin

AHK Hero 🦸

Consider joining the 🦸Hero club! Members receive 25% off courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.    Currently we have over 569 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
• Updates to Effortless Video Reducer
• Updates to Transcriber
• Inform you if you are Sharing your screen
• Webcam reminder update
• My tAHKskbar lets anyone put your Taskbar on the side
  (Shame on you Microsoft!)
• Parsing the URL to help manipulate web scraping
• My new handoff skill
• Biscuit keep everyday apps more organized
• Use Followup Then to remember to act later
• Live Creating Skills and Testing

Take a look at our Intermediate AHK course to learn more on the above.

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

• The thing about smart people is that they sound crazy to dumb people — Steve Jobs
• Comfort is a sedative; struggle is the cure — Joe Glines
• Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus — Alexander Graham Bell

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the-Automator  Dedicated to Multiplying your Income

Joe, Isaias, Irfan and staff

P.S. If the intro appealed to you I highly recommend you join the Hero club and show up to the calls.  We have so much fun thinking with others that are creative and open-minded. 

The first month is just $1.99.  If you think it is not for you, check out these objections