the Automators' Podcast: Recent Episodes
Joe Glines & Jackie Sztuk
We all have more work to get done in less time. These podcasts we discuss various ways to use Robotics Process Automation / Desktop Automation to automate our work / lives.Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines have been hosting webinars for years. Now we're bringing the Automation discussion to pocasts! Listen and learn powerful ways to use RPA to automate the mundane!
If you're wanting to get people to use your sccript (or heaven forbid BUY it) you need to havea lot more work to do than just have a better version of something else!
In this episode of the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss what you have to do to get people to switch to your tool
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In this episode of the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss if optimizing of your code is warranted
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In today's episode of the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss the Unique selling proposition of AutoHotkey. Why should someone use AutoHotkey over any other language? What make's AHK special?
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In this episode Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss the best ways to get consulting jobs with AutoHotkey. Learning how to be a guru on a specific topic is a great way to get jobs. Perhaps Excel, API calls, WordPress, etc. All of these, and much more, are a great starting place!
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I wish all projects were "easy". Get the goals, write the code. done! Sadly, that's rarley the case. Understanding your clients needs and desires is critical in being able to deliver on what they want.
Today Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss how the needs change depending on when you work for a group rather than an indiividual.
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How much care do you give to trying to protect your code? Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss some of the steps you might take protecting your IP (Intellectual Property) in today's podcast
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In today's podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss what you should automate and what you should do yourself. Computers are amazing at some things however humans are better at others. We discuss which you should use for various tasks...
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Today we discuss 10 tips for Web Scraping. Web Scraping can be a tedious process because every website is built differently, with different tools. Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss 10 lessons-learned from having webscraped hundreds of sites and 10s of thousands of pages!
The DOM (Document Object Model) is, by far, the best thing you can spend your time on. Learn it and Web scraping is much, much easier!
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Ever think-through the (often conflicting) goals of Owners of an Entrepreneur company, the Programmers/Developers doing the work and the Clients wanting the software?
Often these three roles are combined, for instance, When I decide to create a script for my company I represent all three roles. However when I pay someone to create a tool for me it gets more complicated. When a client reaches out to me and I have an employee develop the script it is even more complicated.
In today's the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines talk through the different goals and how to keep them aligned.
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Ever need to hire a contractor but are worried they're a bit "sketchy"? In today's the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss 7 times you should probably "bail" and pass on the contractor.
Trust your gut above all else! Don't make a rash decision and hire someone you'll regret later!
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Do you use program as a career? In today's podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss 10 steps you should take to make sure you build a strong consulting business.
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In today's issue of the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss 9 times you should tell the clients NO!
Often we get ourselves into situations that we want to kick ourselves for agreeing to work in. Here we highlight 9 warning signs to look out for.
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In today's podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss 7 tips you should follow when learning a new programming language.
Please let us know if we left any out!
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In today's episode of the-Automators' Podcast, Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss things to consider when you're deciding how to price your script / program.
Go here to get the document mentioned at the end of the podcast,
1)What are competitor’s prices?
2)How much value are you delivering?
a.Are you saving the users time, money, errors, etc.
b.What will your prospects have to do without it?
c.How much $ / disposable income does your prospect have?
3)Does your target market already spend money on the topic?
4)What will your tax responsibility be?
5)How much upkeep is it?
6)Can you bundle it with other things to make the value higher?
7)What are the expectations of fixing bugs?
8)Do you offer a refund / warranty?
9)Do you have costs (fixed, per sale, one-time verse ongoing)
10)How do you identify your target market?
11)How easy is it to reach your customers?
12)How knowledgeable is your prospect? How much training will they need?
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In today's the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss how to best "sell" / convince others that they should be using AutoHotkey / have a need for automation.
Check out more scripts at: http://the-Automator.com
Or join our AutoHotkey community on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AHK.Automation
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Today's AutoHotkey podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss a question from Panagiotis Milas out of Greece. He was wanting to use AutoHotkey to automate connecting/interacting with a Live stream. Jackie and I discuss the pros/cons of various approaches
You can check out his channel here: https://www.youtube.com/c/PanagiotisMilas He has some powerful messages about animals (mostly dogs) and saving them. Most of his videos are in Greek but this one is subtitled in English: https://youtu.be/8FI_RsH_iNo It's worth checking out!
Check out scripts at: http://the-Automator.com
Or join our AutoHotkey community on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AHK.Automation
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In this episode Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss how you can perform a Time Study to help track / measure the amount of time you save with your automation.
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In today's the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss how some people may perceive using AutoHotkey as "cheating" at work.
Listen and and let us know what you think. Do you have peers / teammates that are jealous? I sure did!
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In today's the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss how adding additional features to your scripts/programs is a balancing act. When you add more features you will, inevitably, annoy some of your user-base. (Not to mention confuse people)
Be careful when you're adding new options to your tools!
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In today's the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss some questions you should answer before automating a process. Understanding the ramifications of these questions will greatly affect the script you create!
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In today's the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss some questions you should answer before automating a process
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Who will be running the script?
- Will a GUI help? (Especially if others are to run it)
- How many computers will it run on?
a. will the files be in the same location?
b. do the computers have the same OS?
c. Does each user have admin rights? - Write "high-level" pseudo code of what will have to be done at each step
- Determine where decisions need to be made. Do you need user input / users to make decisions
- Break each task down into small chunks / parts
- Write pseudo code of each micro step
- Consider breaking up your automation into pieces that can be done now (for quick win) and added to over time
- Review entire process- if happy
a. Consider other similar scripts you can borrow from
b. How will you be automating each program? (COM, ACC, Controls, Send/PostMessage, API, Image Search / Keystrokes / mouse clicks)
c. Decide on a level of accuracy / errors you’re willing to accept - Are you using the best source? Can you get the data from somewhere better?
- Search the forum / Stack overflow / Reddit / YouTube / the-Automator for examples
- Ask friends if can't find examples (and it's complex)
- Start writing actual code
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In today's episode of the-Automators' Podcast, Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss how AutoHotkey might be better thought of as "Personalized Software" since it allows you to customize your software in many ways.
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AutoHotkey has never gotten the respect it deserves.
Part of the reason for this is it's name "AutoHotkey" is someone limiting... Also the lack of strictness prevents "programmers" from really loving it.
Today Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss if it makes sense for V2 to take on a whole new name & website
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In today's the-Automators' Podcast, Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss the outrageous prices RPA companies are charging for Robotics Process Automation.
RPA is an exciting area! There are some amazing tools out there however, sadly, these tools often come with amazing prices!
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In today's the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss two approaches on waiting for a window to exist. We then discuss each approach and if the resources used in either one are significantly different from each other (or if they matter)
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In today's the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss the pros and cons of Key loggers. Are they ethical? How can they be used w/o violating people's privacy? Should businesses use them? Should there be a 3rd-party that has access?
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In this episode of the-Automators' Podcast Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss Voice commands in our everyday lives. Voice commands are really gaining traction as to their uses. How can we use them in our everyday lives?
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In today's episode of the-Automators' Podcast, Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss what a Memory scan is and why people would want to do a memory scan.
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In today's episode of the-Automators' Podcast, Jackie Sztuk and Joe Glines discuss how computers and humans are (surprisingly) similar in how they work!
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