March 22, 2010, 7:47 AM — by Rick Broida, PC World - Say hello to my little friend. AutoHotkey is a small utility that can accomplish big things. It's one of the best ways I know to make your PC work exactly the way you want it to.
[ Must-have keyboard shortcut apps for Windows ]
Specifically, AutoHotkey (AHK for short) is a macro recorder, meaning it stores a sequence of keyboard, mouse, and/or joystick (remember those?) commands and then lets you play them back.
That may not sound like a big deal, but trust me, it's incredibly handy. For example, a simple AHK script can remap any key on your keyboard. Want to, say, turn your Caps Lock key into a Mute button? It's a 60-second job. Same goes for using the Insert key for something that's actually useful.
That's just a taste of what AHK can do. Your assignment for today is simply to download and install the 2MB utility (it's free). Then meet me back here tomorrow, and the rest of this week, for some killer AHK solutions.
