Eric Mack On-Line

Inspired by Jason's recent post on High tech productivity, here's my long-overdue summary of a product that I began working with about a year ago...

In short, ActiveWords will allow you to develop a list of shortcuts that you can call up using a simple keystroke (CTRL+SpaceBar). No menus to navigate, just type in a word and go. These shortcuts can launch applications, open web sites, retrieve information, replace text in a document, or fill out forms - you get the idea.

No time to think about creating a list of shortcuts? ActiveWords will do that for you, too. I let ActiveWords watch what I'm doing and then propose shortcuts. It's a little irritating at first, but in a short period of time, I have developed a list of keywords that I like.

To tell the truth, I installed the product a year ago, allowed Buzz Bruggeman, ActiveWords evangelist, to show me how it worked, and then got distracted with client projects, writing, speaking engagements, etc. Big mistake. I could have saved a lot of time had I been using ActiveWords to help me navigate Windows.

I recently switched laptops and ActiveWords was one of the first applications to get loaded onto the new ThinkPad. It has made a huge difference for me in launching programs and performing routine tasks. (For those of you, who use a TabletPC, there is an InkPad version of AW coming.)

I'm particularly excited about the scripting capabilities of this product. With it, I hope to be able to write scripts (in my spare time, of course) to automate many of the repetitive tasks that I need to do in Lotus Notes and other key productivity tools that I use.

I plan to recommend this tool as a standard part of my eProductivity consulting toolkit.

You can download a free trial at the ActiveWords web site.

Eric