Thanks to TinyURL's voluntary-distributed human alert service (you may not be subscribed, but I tell you this thing is great) I was informed the other day that may links in the newsletter where not leading anywhere as the TinyURL server was temporarily down.

Whoooi. "Thank you TinyURL, but when you will your great service be back up again?" I hastily wrote back.

"I am not TinyURL's support service Robin! I am just a fan of yours and wanted you to be aware of this glitch on the TinyURL server."

Superwhooooi, I said to myself. Nobody has ever gone out of her way this much to let me know of a few broken links. I better learn a bit more about this custodian angel.

So I headed off to check out Marjolein blog/site by following a slick Feedburner link she had nicey integrated in her email signature, and boy did I find a little information treasure and a great researcher/explorer behind it!

Marjolein Hoekstra is the soul behind AWesome, a niche blog site dedicated to the ActiveWords universe. ActiveWords is a Windows utility software that allows the easy creation of short, word-based commands that will execute any kind of operation on your computer.

Type Jazz and the rooms fills with music.
Type Work and Outlook, IE and Word open up in your taskbar ready to be used.

Type "bo" and get a bold HTML tag inserted in your dumb Movable Type interface inside Mozilla Firefox.

Get the idea?

Marjolein has chosen, without having any tie or commercial interest in ActiveWords, to create a unique resource online devoted to evangelize, educate and support users of ActiveWords seeking tips, solutions, examples, and ready-made wordbases.

Yes wordbases.



Wordbases are, in ActiveWords own terminology, collections of ready-made ActiveWords on a specific topic or for a specific use.

For example, Marjolein has just recently put together an outstanding Instant Messaging wordbase set which contains one on hand an Acronyms wordbase containing 675 acronyms like AFAIK = As Far As I Know (just type the acronym, hit the space bar and the expanded version of that word is inserted in your instant messenger), and on the other a Trillian wordbase which contains 15 commands to control your "presence" status while in Trillian (but can be visible to users on YM, AOL IM, MSN, etc.). For example type "phone" and your chat pal will receive an instant message "I'm on the phone". At the same time your away status is changed to "On the phone" (if it is supported by the client you are using) or to "Away".

Marjolein thinks that ActiveWords is such a great tool that everyone should own a copy.

Not satisfied with the above, Marjolein has recently started a new even more comprehensive resource dedicated to ActiveWords and its many applications. Check it out: AWResource.

I am not an ActiveWords user (yet), but after having read some of the materials on this site I definitely felt curious to test myself the effectiveness of this much spoken-about technology.

So, while I do, I invite you to the same and to report here or on Marjolein site your own impression and fruitful creations.