I saw this tip and it gave me the idea to write a script to solve an annoyance I've been having for a while: I work in a mostly Windows workplace and I often get emails with windows oriented paths:

\\servername\volumename\directory\directory

I always thought it would be nice to be able to just click on the link like you can in Windows. Well, this isn't quite that nice, but it's better than having to go through the steps of navigation to the directory.

Here's the AppleScript:

set myClip to the clipboard
set mytext to searchReplace(myClip, "<", "")
set mytext to searchReplace(mytext, ">.", "")
set mytext to searchReplace(mytext, ">", "")
set findIt to "\\"
set replaceIt to "/"
set mylocation to searchReplace(mytext, findIt, replaceIt)
set mylocation to "smb:" & mylocation

tell application "Finder"
	open location mylocation
end tell

on searchReplace(theText, SearchString, ReplaceString)
	set OldDelims to AppleScript's text item delimiters
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to SearchString
	set newText to text items of theText
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ReplaceString
	set newText to newText as text
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to OldDelims
	return newText
end searchReplace

Note: I got the searchReplace handler code from MacCentral

Save this AppleScript as an application, and to use, just copy the Windows path into into the clipboard and launch the script.