Sticky Windows Applications

By Wayne Maruna

            The story of 3M Brand’s Post-It Notes is well documented.  Spencer Silver, working in the 3M labs on a quest for a stronger glue, instead developed an uncommonly weak glue.  Since this was not a product that had been planned, no one knew what to do with it.  Meanwhile, Art Fry, another 3M scientist, was having trouble preventing his page markers from falling out of his church hymnal while singing in the choir.  Knowing of Silver’s orphaned product, he tried spreading some of the weak adhesive on his markers, and lo and behold he found they indeed did stick to the pages and could be removed without damaging the paper.  A demand arose among other choir members, and the rest, as they say, is history.

            Walk though any office and it won’t take you long to see those little yellow squares of ‘repositional’ paper stuck to a multitude of surfaces, including the edges of computer monitors.  They provide ready reminders of things to do or information to reference.  When the to-do item is done, peel off the note and throw it away (in the recycle bin, of course.)

            If you have a computer with the Windows 7 operating system (most new non-Apple computers are so-equipped), you have an electronic version of these Post-It Notes.  You can access the software in one of two ways.  You can click on the ‘Start’ globe, then click on Programs, then on Accessories, and then on Sticky Notes.  Alternately, you can click on the ‘Start’ globe and type ‘Sticky’ in the Start Search field and press enter.  Either route will take you to the Sticky Notes application.

            A representation of the basic yellow sticky note will appear on your desktop.  Simply type your note and then click outside of it when done.  Grab and hold the ‘sticky’ with your mouse and position it anywhere on the screen.  While you can’t paste to the outer bezel of your monitor like you can with a physical Post-It Note, you can click the Sticky Note icon in the task bar to hide your ‘stickies’ or to get them out of the way.  Click on the Sticky Note icon again and the notes reappear on your screen.  If you shut down your computer and restart it later, your ‘stickies’ are retained from your prior session.

            As Post-It Notes became popular, natural marketing evolution brought about color, size, and shape options.  While you don’t have shape options with the Windows 7 stickies, you do have color options, including the standard yellow, basic white, and four other pastel shades that mimic the most common 3M color choices.  As for size, if you type a long sticky note, the note will automatically resize to a certain point after which it will provide a scroll bar within the note.

If your computer is running Windows Vista, you also have the note feature though it is not as readily apparent.  It is not listed under All Programs.  Instead it is an available ‘Gadget’ which you can include in Vista’s ‘Sidebar’.  Find the Windows Sidebar icon in the Taskbar Notification area (by the clock, usually in the lower right corner), right click the icon, and choose ‘Add Gadgets’.  Click on Notes, and you’ll see an empty note appear in your Sidebar, assuming you have the Sidebar feature enabled.  You can drag the note off the sidebar and place it where you want to, but individual notes stay in a scrollable stack.  With the Windows 7 Sticky Notes, you can drag each note to a different location.

            On my Windows XP machine at home, I’ve been using the Notes feature within Microsoft Outlook, which is part of certain versions of Microsoft Office.  I use it for keeping track of things I need to reference infrequently:  the operating hours of the recycling center on Cherry Point Rd.; the website from which I ordered my HVAC air filters; the stain formula for our mantle; and the part number for the replacement plastic cover for our Corning Ware serving dish in case we ever lay it on a hot burner again.  I use this feature as more of a permanent note file, whereas I think people would use sticky notes more for short-term reminders.

            The virtual Post-It note feature does not come with Windows XP.  3M actually offers a Post-It note digital application for XP.  You can try it for free for a month, or buy it for $20.  Here’s a link; http://www.3m.com/us/office/postit/digital/digital_notes.html. 

Many free alternatives are also available.  One such program is called PNotes and is available for download here:  http://pnotes.sourceforge.net/.  Also check out Hott Notes 4.1 on download.cnet.com.

While the sticky note feature is nice to have, I’d be unlikely to spend $20 or more for it, but I would consider giving a free application a test run.  ‘Sticky notes’ is a nice freebie when it’s built right into an operating system, far less so if you’re talking about a trumpet or a piano.