I joined because you are one my favorite people on this planet. So glad you started this and will step in from time to time to chat 
Love forums!
Hey Brett, my name is Kyle — but I’m on most social-type things as macfixer, which reflected my job back in the early 2000s as a corporate Mac repair person. Today, Macs are like toasters, and I leave that kind of repair crap to the youngin’s.
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My most elaborate automation is a keyboard maestro shortcut that checks Microsoft AutoUpdate, the Mac App Store, CleanMyMac, and Setapp for any software updates and installs them with one keystroke. That one is fun.
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My favorite TextExpander shortcut is a python (formerly an AppleScript) that will write “Good Morning / Afternoon / Evening” depending on what time it is. Why would I need such a thing? Well, the fewer keystrokes I have to type, the better (I taught myself how to type very poorly in Kindergarten and as a result have some fun age-related stuff going on with my hands).
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I play Elder Scrolls Online and Baldur’s Gate 3 in my spare time.
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The weather here in NJ is clear and sunny and we have a frost warning for this evening.
Thanks for starting this up, can’t wait to get to meet y’all.
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Hi I’m Steve.
I’ve been fooling around with computers since high school when I learned programing at this big tech lab in Homdel, NJ. A long time ago. My first Mac was a used 512KE that I last booted up several moths ago.
- What’s your most elaborate automation
Hmmm … We have this machine, you put dirty clothes and some powder in it. Turn a dial and press a button, and forty or so minutes later I have clean clothes! (We have a similar device for dishes!)
And Bunch. I use Bunch a lot. My most used Bunch is my “Morning Bunch” that I trigger via TouchPortal on an old iPad Air that launches a but of apps across ten spaces on four monitors, uses Moom and Stay to position windows, runs simple scripts, turns on lights, speakers, and power to my work laptop via Shortcuts and HomeKit. And wishes me good morning (or afternoon or evening) when it is done.
- What’s your favorite TextExpander snippet?
I just started using Typinator, and don’t really have any favorite snippets yet.
- What do you do in your free time?
Travel (heading to Madagascar next month!). Look through telescopes. Look at birds. Take pictures. I also quite enjoy eating an drinking.
I keep thinking that one day I’ll learn Lua and start playing with Hammerspoon …
- How’s the weather where you live?
Had our first frost this morning. It was sunny and cool all day.
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Great to see you, Erik
Any time I wonder if anyone actually uses my stuff, I get an email from you asking for a feature or a bugfix. You’ve been a bright light on some dimmer days 
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Oh this sounds awesome. I used to have my house wired up in a way that made something like this fun. I let go of a lot of household automation in the interest of keeping peace, but still yearn for the days when I’d have a computer voice read the headlines to me when I closed the door to the bathroom in the morning…
Howdy! Long-time listener, first-time caller here. As a fellow software-obsessed tinkerer with a ton of ideas, Brett has been an inspiration as long as I can remember, so it’s cool to see a forum for like-minded folks. Excited to see where this goes.
Since you asked…
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I’m kind of annoyed with my most elaborate automation at the moment (it’s for a client), but I’ll tell you about my favorite personal automation: to keep my Google voice account active (and avoid their reminder emails), I have a monthly cron job set to hit a url that calls the Twilio api to send my GV number a text that says “$month the 4th be with you”
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Lol my favorite and most-used TE snippet: ‘_shurg’ →
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -
Free time activities vary by mood…OSS projects if I’m not tired of staring at a screen, otherwise it’s organizing and home improvement, photography, rock climbing, art, and music (I just bought a new Jazzmaster so I’m kinda obsessed with all things guitar at the moment)
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The weather here (Oklahoma) is usually not that good, but we’re in the 2-month window where it’s really nice, so I’m not complaining. Perfect porch-sitting weather.
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Still smoking cigars? I’ve followed you for a long time to vicariously smoke cigars through your social media posts. I love a good cigar, but my current life doesn’t lend itself to kicking back and enjoying a smoke.
Ok, “reality” might have been a stretch. “Something interesting and mostly usable” would be what I was actually going for.
I expected a bunch of fill-ins and dropdown selections 
2 months?!? Brag. We’re in our 2 week sweet spot here in MN.
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I have to get me one of these.
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Not to denegrate your automation in any way, but have you tried out MacUpdater? I’ll be doing a giveaway for it in the next few months…
But welcome to the forum! We’ve been social media connections for as long as I can remember, it will be nice to have more in-depth conversations :).
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haha, and I think to myself, can I really send him another edge case like that?
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Any time! I always welcome a challenge from anyone who’s polite about it
Hi everyone, my name is Greg and I like to tinker with tech. Started off as a software developer, and have moved over to managing a team now. As part of my job I try to automate as much of what I do as possible.
Lots of Jira and Confluence automation, but also various scripts and helper utilities.
- Went down a deep Obsidian rabbit hole and love my current config.
- Use espanso for text snippets and expansion
- Have used the Hammerspoon/Karabiner combo to launch apps for years now (pretty sure I read about it on Brett’s site)
- have a stream deck that I have a few different utilities for work, but most of the time forget that it is there
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To everyone saying maybe they should learn some lua and get to know Hammerspoon… you have it backward. Start tinkering with Hammerspoon, and you’ll learn lua just fine!
At least, that’s how I’ve done it. I can’t say I know lua, but I’ve picked up enough to munge some automations, and to modify some that other people wrote. It probably helped that when I got started, I already knew some python, and had forgotten what little php I used to know (and AppleSoft Basic, and Tutor…)
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Haha, nice to catch up here. I’ve slowed way down on the cigars. As I’m getting older it’s likely not a good idea for me. But I’ve smoked some classics.
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Thank you for the followup. Regarding the automation, it’s only automation in the sense that I’ve batched the conversions together through a series of python scripts. It’s the closest example I have to automating. I will check out RetroBatch. Looks interesting. Yes - at the core it’s the Convert command through ImageMagick.
The random quotes are pulled through a python script, added to the clipboard, then pasted by TextExpander. The quotes file is a simple text file with a quote on each line that I add to periodically, the script selects a random row, for example, “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” – Aldous Huxley
Knitting is a great hobby. It helps with mobility, concentration…you name it. Plus the traditions are fascinating.
Have fun!
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