Scheduled Tasks

This morning I received an email from ChatGPT (OpenAI) letting me know about a new feature. It's really more of a consolidation of something they've had in testing for a while, but now it has its own dedicated place in the app and browser. It's called Scheduled. I just checked and you have to be in the Plus or Pro tier, the free and Go tiers do not have this, yet, they often roll out new features to the paid tiers first and later offer it to the free and Go tiers.

When you click on it, you'll see something like this on your computer, using a tablet or phone it will look slightly different but work the same.

I know parts of this have been available before because I've actually used them. Back then, though, there wasn't a central place to manage everything. You had to tell ChatGPT what you wanted it to do in a prompt and hope it supported that type of task. Sometimes it worked great, sometimes it would tell me it could do something, then never actually do it, and other times it would simply say it wasn't capable. Looking back, I suspect that was the test bed for what they've officially rolled out today.

When I opened the Scheduled tab on both my browser and phone app, I was greeted with several ready-made options. One that immediately caught my eye was price tracking. It can watch prices at major online retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Sam's Club, Chewy, and others. You simply choose the categories you're interested in, things like groceries, pet supplies, electronics, health products, tools, and more, then decide what qualifies as a deal. You can have it notify you when an item reaches its lowest price in the past 90 days, drops by a certain percentage, or meets other criteria.

Of course, you're not limited to the built-in options. You can create your own scheduled tasks from scratch. You can choose to be notified through the ChatGPT app or by email, depending on what works best for you.

I'm genuinely excited to see how this works in the real world. If it performs the way I think it will, this could turn into a surprisingly capable personal assistant that quietly handles a lot of those repetitive things we all end up checking over and over.

Here are just a few of the things you can use Scheduled for:

• Monitor prices on products you're planning to buy.

• Watch for sales at your favorite stores.

• Get notified when an item reaches its lowest price in the last 90 days.

• Receive daily, weekly, or monthly news summaries on topics you choose.

• Keep an eye on stock prices or cryptocurrency movements.

• Monitor severe weather or forecast changes.

• Track sports scores, standings, or your favorite team's schedule.

• Watch for travel deals on flights or hotels.

• Follow product launches or restocks.

• Receive reminders for birthdays, anniversaries, appointments, or medications.

• Get reminders for recurring chores like changing air filters, watering plants, or taking out the trash.

• Have it check for software updates or security news.

• Monitor job postings that match your interests.

• Watch for grants or funding opportunities for nonprofits.

• Follow legislation or government announcements on topics you care about.

• Check for updates on your favorite TV shows, movies, books, or authors.

• Send yourself a daily motivational quote, Bible verse, or writing prompt.

• Get a morning briefing with the weather, calendar, and important news.

• Receive a weekly summary of anything you're interested in, from AI news to gardening tips.

I have a feeling people are going to come up with uses that nobody at OpenAI even thought of. This feels like one of those features that's easy to overlook at first, but once you start thinking about it, you realize just how many little tasks you can hand off and stop worrying about.

If you want to read more about how I use AI, and why I use AI, click here:

https://www.wretha.com/search/label/AI

All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

ChatGPT AI Use

Something I'm learning about and getting more and more comfortable with is AI. There, I said it, right now you are either leaning in, curious, interested, or you are learning back, shaking your head,  wondering why on earth am I messing around with this. Some of you may have already left, I can't speak to them, but if you are still here,  I hope I can educate and interest you. 

For those who are absolutely anti-AI, remember, not too many generations back, when "modern" conveniences were considered the work of the devil, things that would make life easier, washing machines, dishwashers, automobiles, airplanes... all of these (and many other things) were lumped into the work of the devil, things that would create more idle time (especially for women), we were told "idle hands are the devil's workshop",  while that may have some truth buried in it somewhere, this is just a tool, like any other tool, one that can be used for good or evil. Ignoring it, refusing to use it, pretending it doesn't exist will not make it go away, I for one will use it and will use it in a positive manner. OK, now I'll jump down off of my soap box.

I began playing with AI some 2ish years ago,  I was most interested in graphics,  co-creating graphics,  I would even say art (gasp!). In the early days, creating something accurate was challenging,  I would ask for a cow,  they would end up having more than 4 legs,  asking for something that contained human hands, they might have 6 or more fingers. I also got into AI generated music, that was a real disappointment,  it was a bit fun at first, but it quickly became so frustrating that I only played with it for a month or less. (I have since found a much better music/song AI site, I'll post something about that later)...

Fast forward to April of 2024, I started using ChatGPT on the paid tier.  The writer in me squealed like a kid going to Disneyland! No worries, this is 100% me writing this. Sometimes I use AI to help me write, I tend to use AI to assist, to research. In fact I am on the paid tier,  I named it ChattyG.  It works hard for me, I treat it like my personal assistant. I began exploring the custom GPTs, using them then creating my own. A custom GPT is a personalized version of ChatGPT tailored for specific tasks, personalities, or industries. It can have unique instructions, behavior, knowledge, and tools to suit the user's needs, like a chatbot trained for customer service, writing, or teaching. For me, it's something I am using all the time so I don't want to have to explain each and every time I want to do one of these things HOW I want it done, so I created custom GPTs to make it easier and faster, then I shared them on the GPT store for other people to use.

Personalized Video Summarizer & Action Planner

A couple I am particularly fond of is a video summarizer, especially for YouTube , it started out allowing me to directly access the transcript to create the summary,  then YT clamped down and stopped allowing AIs to access the transcript, so ChatGPT can't directly access the transcript, but if you are using a computer (ie not a phone or tablet) you can copy the transcript and paste it into this custom GPT, if you are using a phone or tablet (Android or IOS app), you can use a (free) website that will grab a copy of the YouTube transcript, allowing you to copy it and paste it into the custom GPT. It sounds more complicated than it is, sometime soon I plan on making a tutorial video showing how this works. I made 2 of these custom GPTs, this first link is for one that uses limited bullet points, I have noticed that ChatGPT LOVES bullet points, so this one is designed to output fewer bullet points.

Custom GPT for video summaries w/fewer bullet points

If you like or prefer bullet points, use this custom GPT to create video summaries.

Custom GPT for video summaries

Try them both to see which you prefer, I tend to lean toward the fewer bullet point one, but that's just my preference, which do you like better?

Web Wise Page Brief

My next custom GPT that I created and use a lot is Web Wise Page Brief, this is such a timesaver for me, you copy the URL of a webpage into this, it quickly scans the webpage and delivers clear, ad-free summaries with key takeaways and action items. Just provide a URL, and get a concise breakdown of important insights, instructions, or next steps, perfect for research, news, and guides.

Have you ever clicked on a link to a webpage and found it so packed with ads that you couldn't read the article? I have no problems with a few discretely placed ads on a webpage, after all the author needs to eat too, but when the page is obviously an ad farm, with popups and video ads competing for your attention, it quickly becomes a pain to continue reading, I actually have a pretty hard rule about webpages, if they force more than 1 or 2 popups that I have to close to continue reading the page, I'll often leave that page before I am finished reading it. This custom GPT eliminates that problem, and it saves the information you were looking for in one place for you to refer to later.

((EDITED TO ADD))

I have discovered that many webpages block AI from directly accessing their pages, so the workaround for this is to copy and paste the entire page and ChatGPT can summarize it. It's easier to do on a computer but can be done on a smartphone or tablet. On a computer just put your cursor on any word on the page (that isn't a link), on your keyboard click CTRL A then click CTRL C, those two commands choose all of the text and copies it, then go to the Webwise Page Brief, click on the area where you type and press CTRL V, that pastes the text, now hit enter or click on the action button on the page. If you are using a smartphone or tablet, tap and hold on a word until it is highlighted, choose "Select All", then choose "Copy", then go to the Webwise Page Brief in ChatGPT and paste what you copied.

Sometimes if you just copy the web address to Webwise Page Brief, it tries to give you a summary, but I find it's mostly guessing based on the name of the page, and often it will just give an error message saying it can't directly view the page, so it's best to go ahead and copy & paste the contents of the page so that Webwise can properly and accurately summarize the page.

Webwise Page Brief

Amazon Saved Cart Price Sorter (best to worst)

Track price changes in your Amazon Saved for Later cart. Copy the list of price changes from your Amazon Saved for Later section and paste it here. You'll get two lists: Best Discount First. Cheapest to Most Expensive (organized by price). Easily spot the best deals and maximize savings!

If you have an Amazon account, and you have saved items in your shopping cart, I'm sure you have noticed that when you go to your saved cart, you will get a list of items that have changed prices, usually in 2 categories, items that went up in price and items that went down in price. Of course we are all more interested in the items that went down in price. 

Prices are always fluctuating on Amazon, so it's nice to see this list, but I've noticed that the list isn't in any kind of order, at least not one I can decipher. So I want to see the best discounts and the best prices, so I created this custom GPT to create order from chaos in this list. Just copy the list and paste it into this custom GPT and wait a few seconds to get 2 lists, one list will show the greatest to least discounts and the other list shows the cheapest price to the most expensive price. This is really helpful when you have LOTS of saved items and it gives you a huge list of price changes.

This particular GPT is somewhat restricted on ChatGPT, only because I have used the name "Amazon", it says I can't put this in their custom GPT store as public, but it appears that I can share this custom GPT, so let me know if this works for you. I might be able to tweak it so that ChatGPT doesn't have an issue with it later on, but for now I'm leaving it as is. Let me know if you are able to access this or not.

I created a new custom GPT for this, removing the name "Amazon" from the title and and using "A*mazon" in the description, that seemed to satisfy ChatGPT's rules, I didn't get a warning when I published it, so here is the new link, it should work without any problems.

Amazon Saved Cart Price Sorter (best to worst)

I have created quite a few other custom GPTs in ChatGPT, most are for my own personal use, or they aren't up to (my) standard for public consumption. Anyone with a ChatGPT account, even the free levels should be able to use any of these custom GPTs in their own account. Just click on the link(s), be sure you are signed into your ChatGPT account and use the custom GPT, once you use it, it should stay listed in your account for use unless you choose to remove or hide it.

Let me know what you think about ChatGPT and AI in general, are you a user? If so, what do you do with it? If not, why not? And let me know if any of these custom GPTs are useful to you. 

All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

AI - Love It Or Hate It

I know people who are fearful about AI, and understandably so, it seemingly came in like a big wave, I say seemingly because it wasn't unexpected if you were paying attention, it's been here for a while, but it's now part of nearly everything we see, especially online and on our computers, tablets and smart phones.

I made the decision that I can't stop AI by ignoring it, fearing it, or not using it. It is a tool, and like most tools, it's quite neutral, neither good or bad, it's all in the hands and minds that use it that it works for good or evil. For me, I'm going to use it, I'm using it to co-create, to write, to make graphics, to answer questions that I would have gone to Google to ask. I played around with a few different AI sites, right now my two favorites are 

https://playgroundai.com/

and

https://chatgpt.com/

The first one above I use for creating graphics and images, the link takes you to my profile where you can see the images I co-created.

The second link, is the infamous ChatGPT, I began playing around with that a few months ago, the free level is good for writing, I decided to try out their paid tier, that one does even better with writing and it also lets you work with graphics. Using Playground I got pretty good with prompts to make graphics, so I took what I knew and brought that to ChatGPT. Sometimes I come out with something I'm happy with, sometimes not so much. 

Typically I start out with a description of what I am looking for, I try to be as descriptive as possible, then from there you can tweak the prompts to get closer and closer to what you are looking for. 

Here is an example of something I played with earlier tonight, I slightly changed and added to each iteration:

Me: A photograph of an old man walking in the rain making eye contact with the viewer in a mid-shot view.

ChatGPT: A photograph of an old man walking in the rain, captured in a mid-shot view. He is making direct eye contact with the viewer, creating a sense of connection. The rain softly blurs the background, highlighting the man. He wears a weathered hat and a long coat, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face. The expression on his face is thoughtful and slightly melancholic, and his eyes convey a sense of wisdom and experience. The muted colors and soft lighting add to the emotional depth of the scene.

For some reason it decided to rewrite my prompt instead of giving me a picture, so I copied that prompt and asked again.

Me: A photograph of an old man walking in the rain, captured in a mid-shot view. He is making direct eye contact with the viewer, creating a sense of connection. The rain softly blurs the background, highlighting the man. He wears a weathered hat and a long coat, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face. The expression on his face is thoughtful and slightly melancholic, and his eyes convey a sense of wisdom and experience. The muted colors and soft lighting add to the emotional depth of the scene.

ChatGPT: Here is the photograph of the old man walking in the rain, making eye contact with the viewer. The scene captures the thoughtful and melancholic expression, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face, adding to the emotional depth.

---

Me: A photograph of an old man walking in the rain, captured in a mid-shot view. He is making direct eye contact with the viewer, he has fierce piercing blue eyes, creating a sense of connection. He has the slightest upturn of a smile. The rain softly blurs the background, highlighting the man. He wears a weathered hat and a long coat, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face. The expression on his face is thoughtful and slightly melancholic, and his eyes convey a sense of wisdom and experience. The muted colors and soft lighting add to the emotional depth of the scene.

ChatGPT: Here is the photograph of the old man walking in the rain, making eye contact with the viewer. The scene captures the thoughtful and melancholic expression, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face, adding to the emotional depth.

---

Me: A photograph of an old man walking in the rain, captured in a mid-shot view. He is walking away and looking back over his shoulder at the camera, head slightly tilted down to allow the rain drops to fall from the front of the brim of his hat, one eyebrow is slightly raised. He is making direct eye contact with the viewer, he has fierce piercing blue eyes, creating a sense of connection. He has the slightest upturn of a smile. The rain softly blurs the background, highlighting the man. He wears a weathered hat and a long coat, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face. The expression on his face is thoughtful and slightly melancholic, and his eyes convey a sense of wisdom and experience. The muted colors and soft lighting add to the emotional depth of the scene.

ChatGPT: Here is the photograph of the old man walking in the rain, looking back over his shoulder and making direct eye contact with the viewer. The scene captures his fierce piercing blue eyes and a slight upturn of a smile, with a thoughtful and slightly melancholic expression. The rain softly blurs the background, highlighting the emotional depth of the moment.

---

Me: A photograph of an old man walking in the rain, captured in a mid-shot view. He is walking away and looking back over his shoulder at the camera, head slightly tilted down to allow the rain drops to fall from the front of the brim of his hat, one eyebrow is slightly raised. He is making direct eye contact with the viewer, he has fierce piercing blue eyes, creating a sense of connection. He has the slightest upturn of a smile. The rain softly blurs the background, highlighting the man. He wears a weathered hat and a long coat, with raindrops visible on his clothes and face. The expression on his face is thoughtful and slightly melancholic, and his eyes convey a sense of wisdom and experience. The muted colors and soft lighting add to the emotional depth of the scene.

ChatGPT: Here is the photograph of the old man walking in the rain, looking back over his shoulder with his head slightly tilted down, allowing raindrops to fall from the front of his hat's brim. One eyebrow is slightly raised, and he makes direct eye contact with fierce piercing blue eyes, creating a sense of connection. The slight upturn of his smile, thoughtful and slightly melancholic expression, and the rain-blurred background add to the emotional depth of the scene.

---

Which picture do you like best? I slightly changed or added to each iteration, the last one I left the prompt the same to see what it would do differently, sometimes if you don't like what it did, you can request a new picture using the same prompt.

I could have gone on but I was happy enough with the final image. Of course, so far I have never had any AI come up with exactly what I pictured in my head, and no matter how many times I tweak the descriptive words, it just can't read my mind or see what I see, I do like that it rewords what I wrote to clarify what it thinks I want, often adding in details I didn't. Sometimes that works out well, other times not so much. I have also discovered that often if you keep trying to tweak something like this, especially if you have it pretty close, it will reach a point where it seems to grow tired of the game and the images will become worse instead of better. Some of the time, the images are spot on, and other times I wonder if the AI is having a bad day LOL.

At any rate, I am having fun with this for now. I am not afraid of it removing the creativity of the human touch in writing or art, honestly for me it's pretty easy to spot the AI generated things, I've been using it long enough to become familiar with the look and feel of its output. 

There are always those who believe that technology is inherently evil, I'm just old enough to remember my grandparent's generation being told that washing machines and the such are the Devil's tools, or at the very least it would allow women to have more time on their hands therefore the phrase "Idleness is the Devil's workshop..." was born, it was thought that computers and the internet would usher in evil, and it's true, it certainly has, in the hands of those who wish to use it for evil. It was once thought that going faster than a horse could run could cause internal injuries, referring to the automobile, and it was said that man would never fly, well both of those things were not true. 

I look at some technology with a suspicious side-eye. Again, it's less about the actual tech and more about the hands that wield it, their intent, what they do with it, or in other cases where they bury the tech because it would dig into the profits of the tech that is in use now. 

Love it or hate it, fear it or embrace it, AI is here to stay, I am using this tool, for my enjoyment, my education, to help with work and other things. 

What say you?

All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!