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Daily Mac App: Memo
I've written about quite a few note-taking apps in my pursuit of the best one. Most shy away from the Post-It note paradigm because OS X comes with Stickies, a pretty decent representation of the repositionable note, but Memo takes it head-on. Memo is basically Stickies with iCloud and password support. Create a new little yellow note, write yourself a reminder, text snippet or love-letter to your Mac, and move it to where you need it. Like many other programs, the note sits behind the active window and can be easily resized to accommodate more text. The notes can be password protected by clicking the little padlock icon, which keeps prying eyes out of your business if you're letting someone else use your Mac. You can change the font used, size of text and all the standard paragraph formatting you might expect. Unfortunately you can't change the colour of the note itself -- it's yellow for offline memos, blue for cloud memos and green for private memos, which are secured with a password. The blue "Cloud Memos" sync with iCloud to any Mac or iDevice with your iCloud ID and the free Memo app for the iPhone or iPad. If you're looking for a Stickies replacement for just text, Memo has a couple of advantages that might make it worth looking at. It's free, available in the Mac App Store and has free companion apps for the iPhone and iPad.
Daily Mac App: Quick Note
Lots of people still use notepads to jot down quick reminders, even when they're in front of their Macs. Quick Note is a note taking utility that gives you the simple, quick writing experience of a pad of paper on your desk, but on your Mac. Simplicity and speed are key in this kind of app and thankfully Quick Note delivers. It's super simple. Click the "+" for a new note and type away. It gives you a pleasing yellow lined paper-style note pad, complete with a black leather textured top, that reminds me of some of the A4 "refill" pads I chewed through when I was a kid revising for exams. Type your note and it's saved in the pop-out drawer to the side complete with a search tool for easy access. Simple and efficient. If you want your notes synced to different Macs, currently Quick Note has support for cloud syncing via Diigo.com, but support for Google Docs, Dropbox and some other cloud services are "coming soon" according to the developer. Quick Note is a simple, straightforward note taking utility that can replace that paper pad you still keep next to your Mac for scribbling down notes. If you're not after the complexity of something like Evernote, and alternatives like QuickNotes or OS X's own Stickies are too simple for you, then Quick Note could be the app for you. It's free, but ad-supported -- thankfully you can quickly close the advert so it's not intrusive in its current implementation. Checking it out if you're still looking for that perfect note taking app for your Mac.
Mac 101: Adding screenshots to Stickies
More Mac 101, our series of tips and tricks for novice Mac users. Here's a great tip from Mac OS X Hints about an old, old Mac utility. Stickies has been around since the System 7 days, and it provides a super-simple way to store quick bits of information. Did you know that, with Snow Leopard, you can also use it to store screenshots? Well, you can, and it's simple to do. With a sticky note open, right-click or control-click on the note to bring up the contextual menu. You'll see "Capture Selection from Screen." Select it to bring up the screen capture tool, drag the cursor around the area you want to snap, and you're done! The screenshot will be inserted into that note. This only works with the Stickies app, not the Dashboard widget. We love finding little tips like this, and we hope you find it useful.
Five widgets for Friday
As we've previously pointed out, in many ways, Dashboard Widgets are the precursor to iPhone apps. Need to know when your latest packages will arrive? Yes, there's an app for that. But there's a widget too. Need to figure out how many pesos are in a dollar, or what a Quarter Pounder with Cheese comes out to in the metric system? There's an app, and a widget, for that as well. For this Friday afternoon, here are five useful Widgets to help you make the most of your Mac. And best of all, they're all free.
WSJ: Tablet confirmed, Apple to reinvent old media
All of their information is centered on the alleged mystery device that will allegedly be announced at a now official event next week. Here are some of the juicier tidbits they passed on from those mysterious people "familiar with" what's happening on Inifinite Loop: Always partial to the education market, one thing this device might be used for is e-textbooks, presumably including the sort of multimedia content that goes beyond the printed page. Textbook publishers aren't the only publishers Apple has been talking to. They're chatting up Conde Nast, Harper Collins, The New York Times, and even CBS, Walt Disney Co, and Electronic Arts (for games). A "Best of TV" service is possible, with a subscription to a set of on demand programs chosen by the consumer. Those same people are also reporting there is a revamp of iTunes coming, which would separate the purchase of iTunes content from the iTunes application. The device will have a 10 or 11 inch screen, a virtual keyboard, and "sharing" is mentioned -- two ideas being thrown around are the ability to leave sticky notes on the device or even have the camera recognize faces of those using it. Price is expected to be around $1000, and they'll be selling it to people who already have iPhones and laptops as well. Of course the piece itself doesn't have a full confirmation from Jobs, so we'll have to wait until next Wednesday for that: Apple's invitation to the media event on January 27th is titled "Come see our latest creation", and is generally considered to be the public debut of a tablet-style device. But when the Wall Street Journal says there's a tablet coming, there's very likely a tablet coming, and if everything they're saying about this device is true (which would make sense -- we've heard most of it before in rumor form), look out world.
First Look: Moments
Have you wanted to remember an event, or just remember a small bit of information for later? On the Mac there's a cool application called Stickies, but there really wasn't a great application for doing this same thing on the iPhone ... until now. [Where's the love for Evernote and the built-in Notes app, Cory? :-) -Ed.]Enter Moments [iTunes link]. This small application is your one stop for remembering small pieces of information or events.Even though this application has a simple agenda and interface, it is executed beautifully. Moments has an interface composed of three gorgeous themes: corkboard, steel, and a fabric print. Sticky notes are aligned in a grid of 2 x 3 across the screen. You can reorder your stickies, and when you run out of room a new screen will be created that is similar to the layout of the iPhone home screen. When you create a new sticky, you are able to create just a note, or a "moment." A moment has a date associated with it, and can be something in the past or future. A note just has a larger text area that will let you add more information. Overall, this application is really nice for remembering things, and looks just as good as built-in iPhone apps. However, there are three things that I would like to see: (1) User selected sticky note colors, (2) A place to add more details about a specific note or email the note, and (3) More themes to choose from. This application is really great the way it is, and is well worth $.99 US in the App Store. You can check Moments out on the App Store, or check out our gallery of pictures.%Gallery-51763%
iPhone stickers to stroke your ego
iPhone users have been called vain, and perhaps that's justified. Not all users, of course, but definitely those who apply text-style stickies to their screens. Stickies with messages like, "You are right. As usual."Actually, we think these are pretty cute. Created by artist Fiona Carswell, I think they'd be a clever gift for the iPhone-addicted teen or technology-fearing curmudgeon. There's no info on whether you can buy them, but perhaps if you ask Fiona very nicely ....Of course, this isn't the oddest iPhone accessory we've found. That honor goes to the Danglet. Because who doesn't want to swing their iPhone above their head on the end of a string?[Via iPhone Savior]
Mac 101: Make your Stickies see-through
A while back we mentioned that by pressing Command + Option + F that you could make your Stickies float above all other windows. Well, it's time to take this a bit farther. By pressing Command + Option + T, you can also put your Stickies into transparent mode, so you can see any windows/information that is below the note.Stickies can be useful for jotting down a quick note, making out a list, or any other daily task that you may find yourself doing -- like checking out TUAW for our great Mac 101 tips and tricks!
Mac 101: Float a Sticky note above all windows
Here is a great tip from creativebits. Stickies and the Mac have gone hand in hand for years. They're a great way to quickly jot down a bit of information, just like their paper counterparts. Ivan explains how to keep a Sticky Note front and center. With your target note selected, simply press Command-Option-F and it will float above all other windows.Stickies have matured over the years, and gained additional functionality like appear translucent and display Quicktime movies. What's your favorite "Sticky Trick?"
Stick 'Em Up: An enhanced replacement for Apple's Stickies
For anyone looking to get just a little bit more out of the Stickies app that Apple includes on every Mac, Stick Em Up by Jim McGowan might just be the app for you. Since he also writes Do It, the powerful todo list manager that we're a fan of, McGowan seems to have an eye for improving other apps and tasks that some of us perform on a daily basis. Basically speaking, Stick Em Up is a replacement for Apple's Stickies that offers one significant enhancement: categories. Notes can be grouped into whatever categories you'd like, which are all navigable by the keyboard and can all be effortlessly displayed and hidden. This allows all sorts of useful workflows to include Stick Em Up instead of having to look to another heftier note storage app like Yojimbo, or keeping multiple apps open just to get through the day. Users can create a category of Web Clippings stickies in which you can toss temporary URLs and images, but then hide that category at the end of the day and save room for all the other sticky notes you need to work with for another task. It's a subtle but liberating feature for a simple tool that offers a surprising amount of flexibility.As with Do It and all his other software, Jim McGowan offers Stick Em Up as donationware from his site.
Edgies: Stickies on the Edge
It seems like I am always looking for an alternative to Stickies. Although I like how simple they are, at the same time they just don't seem to fit that well into my workflow. Today I found a new candidate which looks rather promising: Edgies. Its main feature is, as you can see to the right, the ability stick its notes as little tabs on any edge of your screen. But in addition, if you hover over the tab name the note content will pop up, without a click. As well as text, you can drop pictures or even aliases in notes to make an impromptu launcher. New notes can be created by hovering the cursor at the screen edge, via Applescript, or (my favorite) via OS X Service (e.g. with Quicksilver).Edgies is $9.99 shareware and a demo is available.[Via Apple Downloads]
Chronos replaces StickyBrain with SOHO Notes 5.5
StickyBrain, one of the leading 'digital junk drawer' apps that recently entered a 4.1 beta testing phase, has been officially discontinued by Chronos in favor of SOHO Notes 5.5. Current registered users of StickyBrain 4.0 will receive an upgrade to SOHO Notes for free, while users who own licenses for any previous StickyBrain versions (1.x, 2.x and 3.x) can upgrade to SOHO Notes 5.5 for a mere $25, the price offered in the past for upgrading from StickyBrain 3.x to 4.x.Why is StickyBrain being dissolved in favor of SOHO Notes, you ask? Chronos has published an announcement and FAQ explaining the decision, but here's the short version: SOHO Notes is basically the big brother of StickyBrain; they're almost the same app, derived from the same codebase, except SOHO Notes included three key features that Chronos used to charge extra for: SOHO Notes can synchronize notes between multiple computers using a .Mac account (seamlessly, in the background). SOHO Notes can access multiple note databases simultaneously. SOHO Notes is multi-user capable which means users can share notes with others over a network using the product's client/server technology. Now, with SOHO Notes taking the helm, its price has dropped to $39.99 to keep it more in-line with StickyBrain's previous price, as well as the competition like Yojimbo and DEVONthink. Feature-wise, this new version of SOHO Notes 5.5 offers some powerful new goodies, such as the ability to import and catalog almost any kind of file, send notes to your blog, a DockNote that makes it easy to get info both in and out, audio recording notes, full-screen editing of notes, a Daily Journal/Diary category that can automatically date/time stamp notes and much more.Whether you love your hate StickyBrain SOHO Notes, this should be good news for the 'digital junk drawer' market, as this price drop and the new features should help keep everyone's innovative juices flowing.
iSticky offers notes with reminders, sending via Bonjour, more
Sticky notes are great, but sticky notes that can have reminder alarms, be sent to other Macs via Bonjour, sent over the web and SMS, archived and more - are better. If any of these features have your inner nerd excited, then check out iSticky - a sticky note app on steroids. Also on the feature list are themes, categories, encryption, document linking and more.While we don't think iSticky is Universal yet (at least, the author isn't bragging about it on the site), a demo is available. iSticky also offers a wide range of licenses depending on which features you need and whether you need a family/business pack. Prices run from $16 USD (single license, Bonjour sending but not over the web) up to $90 USD for a 12 license pack with all the toppings. Check it out if Apple's Stickies just aren't cutting it for you anymore.
Export Stickies text via Applescript
As you may know, Apple's Stickies isn't directly scriptable via Applescript (technically, you can send a system event). Still, one enterprising soul has discovered a work around, and posted it to Mac OS X Hints. His script creates a new text file, one for each Sticky. Once you've got your text file, you can do whatever you wish with it.The script's author notes that his script only works on text for the time being; images will not be exported.As reader Eric notes, this script is for the Stickies application, not the Dashboard widget. Ignore the fact that I used an image of the widget for this post (it just looked so nice).
