Post-it software takes notes without the sticky stuff
Connecting state and local government leaders
If you find personal information managers too constraining and hunt for telephone numbers written in an assortment of matchbook covers, Post-it Software Notes is for you. Electronic imitations of 3M's little yellow sticky notes have been around for years. Now 3M has jumped into the software business with its own electronic version of the company's ubiquitous Post-it note.
If you find personal information managers too constraining and hunt for telephone
numbers written in an assortment of matchbook covers, Post-it Software Notes is for you.
Electronic imitations of 3M's little yellow sticky notes have been around for years.
Now 3M has jumped into the software business with its own electronic version of the
company's ubiquitous Post-it note.
The program is almost as easy to use as the paper version, and most people will use it
for the same purposes: to jot down bits of information, reminders and lists. Notes can be
embedded in documents produced in Microsoft Windows 95 or NT applications, sent as e-mail
or used as audible alarms.
It took me about a minute to install the package under Win95. The installation routine
created a desktop shortcut and a button in the Taskbar Tray. Both of these objects access
the Post-it Note Pad. Win95 users can set a preference to display the Note Pad only on the
desktop, only in the Taskbar Tray or in both places.
You click or drag from the Note Pad to create a new note, then resize or minimize as
needed. Notes can be dropped onto the Desktop or stored in a Memoboard, which is a custom
folder for storing and organizing notes.
I configured the program to time-stamp my notes automatically, but you can do that
manually if you prefer. Notes collected in Memoboards are viewable in chronological order.
When you drag a note into a document produced with Object Linking and
Embedding-compatible applications, the OLE object becomes part of the document, so the
note can be sent as part of the application file or printed like any other file.
Note that the Windows 3.x version doesn't support OLE.
Post-it Software Notes integrates nicely with compatible e-mail systems. Selecting the
Send Note option displays your e-mail address list.
You can edit the list from the Post-it dialog box, change the subject line or send a
file with the note. The note itself is delivered as a standard e-mail message.
The Send Note option works with Lotus Development Corp. cc:Mail 2.1, Microsoft Mail 3.0
or higher versions of both. It won't work with cc:Mail under Windows NT.
The feature that transforms Post-it Software Notes from a curiosity into a useful
utility is the Memoboard. Make as many of these as you wish to organize notes by subject,
task or any other category. It works like a low-end project manager.
3M, whose lifeblood is office consumables, threw in a fairly silly option: You can
print out software notes on Post-it Notes. What a novel idea. They could sell a million of
them.