I find that Macro Express makes creating hot keys simple.
-cranioscopical
I have a license for Macro Express, and used it a bit at work. It seems a good program, but often seemed too heavy-duty, somehow. There's clearly a lot of complexity, which can be intimidating, even if you don't intend to use much of it. Nudone's first post in this thread (the OP was about ATNSOFT) seemed to call for a lighter-weight and perhaps more focussed application. Also, Macro Express is payware - I'm not saying it isn't worth the price, I think it is, but free is a
particularly good price.
For free, there's still Anthony Mathews'
Macro Maker, but I think it can only store its macros in the Registry. Also, the author notes that there's a problem setting system hooks to create macro recordings under Vista, just as there is with HotKeyz, so it looks like Microsoft's security model has well and truly screwed up convenience and productivity.