Find macro’s useful? I do, but I wish I could use macro’s anywhere, not just in one program. Enter AutoHotkey. This is a free and open source utility that allows you to create macro’s that will run anywhere in Windows.

For example, I’ve got a macro that activates when I type “gc" - that's my shortcut for GMail Compose. I can be editing a document, at a command line, anywhere just about, type that in and it takes out those four characters, and fires up my GMail Compose email windows for me. I find this useful as I'll be working on something and find that I need to ask someone a question or update them on the progress, so rather than change programs or windows, I just type in "gc  " and a new email windows pops straight up, I'm able to type up the email, click send and I'm done, back to the program I was in to start with.

There are plenty of other short cuts you can create for yourself, the AutoHotkey site contains a number of examples.