Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

[Updated] Activewords

As I mentioned the other day, I've been trying out ActiveWords at Bren's suggestion. Well, I've seen enough. I'm now a happily registered owner of ActiveWords PLUS!

In addition to the things I mentioned in my previous post regarding the ease of creating Outlook notes and tasks without having to even run Outlook, one of the things that put me over the top was a suggestion from Buzz Bruggeman, the CEO of ActiveWords.

He noticed I was a MindManager user, so he suggested I set up activation words to start my maps. How cool is that? Now, for example, when I want to go to my top-level Project map in MindManager, I simply hit [Ctrl]+[Space] to get the ActiveWords console to pop up, then I enter "prj" and - shazam - my project map comes up!

This is a great productivity-increasing, time-saving app and it's effectively removing barriers to procrastination for me. As you know, I'm a big fan of that.

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ActiveWords: Another tool that may be a keeper

In my previous post, Bren left a comment touting ActiveWords as a useful tool. I decided to install it an went through the brief tutorial. I've only been using it for about 15 minutes, but I must say it's promising.

It is essentially a macro / shortcut application that sits on top of Windows and watches keystrokes looking for "activation" words. It can act on these words automatically (kind of like the automatic spell check in Word, except that it works in any app - including the HTML entry form I'm using to type this). Pretty slick. You can also force a "confirm" so it doesn't act so much like a poltergeist on you system - the default is the [F8] key, which indicates that you've just typed a trigger word that you want it to respond to.

You can download a bunch of free add-in libraries of commands and shortcuts from the ActiveWords site, and you can add your own.

Why do I like it so far? Here are some commands I set up quickly to check it out:

  • When I type ptb[F8] I launch a browser instance with a shortcut that brings me to my "Post to blog" page on my blog site.
  • When I type task[F8] (one of the shortcuts in the Outlook add-in I downloaded from their site) it creates a new task in Outlook - very handy since that's how I track stuff for GTD.

And I think I'm barely scratching the surface.

I'm going to use ActiveWords for a week or so and make sure I still dig it before registering, but they have a bodacious 60-day trial period if you want to try it yourself. Thanks for the tip, Bren!

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Some of my favorite tools

I've gotten a few questions recently about my "must have" tools for personal productivity, so here are a few (with potentially more to follow, if folks are interested):

Roboform AI - This is an add-in program that securely stores your personal information and fills out web forms, passwords, and other web-centric information for you.

  • It has a toolbar that shows up in IE and Firefox and can track multiple profiles (home, business, etc.) for both address information and payment information. It can even generate random, secure passwords for web sites -- and track them for you. Pretty cool stuff.
  • Note: I resisted using something like this for a really long time, and decided to take the plunge about 6 months ago. Now, I have noticed that it saves me a ton of time.
  • They have a long trial period - worth a try.

Anagram - This one makes it easy to add appointments, contacts, and other stuff into Outlook (it also supports Palm, and Salesforce.com).

  • Pretty simple - highlight the text, hit Ctrl-C twice, and it automagically figures out how to put it into Outlook in the right form. It's pretty smart.
  • A very generous 45-day trial period.
Puretext - This allows you to remove the goofy formatting from stuff that's on your Windows clipboard, and paste it in 'plain old text' into any application.
  • To use: copy just like you always do, but when you paste you hit the <Windows key>+V instead of <Ctrl>+V and it strips out all the special characters. This is a good shortcut to having to go to the edit menu in Windows apps to select "Paste Special..." from the menu.
  • It's free!

Sharpreader - This is an RSS feeed reader / aggregator that I find very easy to use. I have a couple dozen blogs I follow on a regular basis, and use Sharpreader to bring them together. It will grab them automatically and I can then read them off-line (on planes or whatever). It can be scheduled to poll and retrieve my subscribed sittes on a scheduled basis, which I love. I have it running in my Startup group in Windows.

  • It's free!

MindManager - I never used to engage other people to help me solve problems. MindManager helped change that.

  • This is such a great tool for creating mind maps, facilitating brainstorming, and bringing people up to speed very quickly on 'where my head is at' on issues.
  • I've found that using diagrams and maps to discuss issues really makes it easy to keep debates focused on the issue - and it doesn't become personal.
  • Again, a decent trial period. And the sales folks are nice (my sales person was Laryssa, who was great to work with). I ended up buying MindManager X5 Pro.

Just so you know, I have no affiliation with any of these products other than being a happy customer. 

Others might see me write about in the future:

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[Updated] I'm a shuffler...

Update, April 10, 2005 - yet another reason to become a shuffler:

The other day, someone asked me how long the battery lasts on my Shuffle. I had to say, "I don't know." Which is, of course, the best answer I can hope for as a roving gadget freak!

OK, my latest gadget is really cool. I have the 1 Gig version of the iPod Shuffle and I really like it. It's very tiny (fits in a pocket with no trouble), and holds a ton of audiobooks from Audible (I have a Premium subscription, which gets me 2 books a month). You can also use it for music, of course - it works with iTunes, like the other iPods.

What do I like about this? It's very small, for one. I have a "normal" iPod, and I find I sometimes leave it home when my laptop bag gets too heavy.

Also, the battery life is very impressive, and it recharges directly from my USB port - no other cables to carry around.

Finally, it is dirt simple to use. The controls are so easy to learn.

Why don't you give it a try? The price is reasonable - $99 or so for the 512 meg version, and about $150 for the 1 Gig version.

The link above gets you to Amazon - you can also get them at Target, Circuit City, and a number of other places.

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Google puts me in orbit

I see a post tonight on Slacker Manager about a cool use for Google Maps. Well it just so happens that, this afternoon, I was using Google Maps to plot a course to take my family out for dinner at Gino's on Portland's east side (it was quite good, by the way).

While plotting the course, I discovered yet another badass Google feature - they will plot your course on an actual satellite photo, complete with highlighting, etc. I was so impressed I started bringing my kids and their friends upstairs to see it.

Check out this map that shows the course from the Portland International Airport to Powell's City of books, should you choose to visit our fair city and shop at the best bookstore in the world.

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