Tag: alarm

Silly Name Cute Sticky Notes

Despite the perhaps silly and generic name Cute Sticky Notes is a useful desktop sticky notes freeware. The install process is a bit different and somewhat overkill in that it checks online to verify the md5 hash of its own exe just downloaded and also deletes the setup file after installation is complete, to – as it says – reduce chances of malware.

A default note is launched with the program, new notes can be added by clicking the + on the top right of a note, right clicking on a note or the program’s tray icon. Notes can fold, hide, made transparent and set as reminder or alarm notes by hovering over the top portion of a note. By default notes are ‘pinned’ to the desktop but they can also be pinned to any (program) window.

Clicking anywhere on a note makes it ready to use with a set of formatting options made available, alternatively right click on a note and insert from the clipboard (plain text or not) or add an attachment to a note. It is also possible to drag an image or file to a note. In the case of an image the program prompts and ask if the image is to be an attachment or a background for the note. Cute Sticky Notes also has more than one set of options to change the skin of any individual sticky note and to group the notes into categories.

The program settings (right click tray icon) has options for the default font and configurable hot keys to add new note, hide/show notes and insert text from clipboard. Also via the tray icon there are history and recycle bin windows to use to view, permanently delete or restore notes and an option to back up or restore the notes database. Another feature is the cloud sync. Notes can be uploaded to view and use on other computers and mobile devices, this was not tested but is potentially very useful. Cute Sticky Notes is at version 1.0.0.13 and besides the XP and to 7 version there is also a separate Windows 8 version.

August 21, 2014
A Note: Open Source Sticky Notes

A Note (Version: 4.2.4) is an open source desktop sticky notes program. It is lightweight and a portable version is available via portableapps.com

By default a new sticky note can be created by a single click on the program’s tray icon or by right clicking it. Sticky notes resize automatically when text is added, they can have different background colors, text colors and fonts. By default every note has three buttons. From left to right the first is the slide or dock, this docks note(s) to either the right or left side of the screen. The second is the minimize or maximize button which in A Note’s case is like roll up and roll down. The third is delete. A-Note has a built-in recycle bin with restore so deleted sticky notes can be restored later. Right clicking inside a note one can change the note title – also possible by double clicking inside the title area – and also assign an (audio) alarm to the note.

The program options include the following. Changing the default new note title and default note color. Altering the behaviour when tray icon is single clicked or double clicked. Setting a transparency for notes in normal and minimized states. Setting a hot key to show notes and setting a maximum number for notes held in the program’s recycle bin. Adding strikeout, bold, underline, italic and bullet point to the note toolbar is also possible and finally one can set the language and character set. A Note currently supports 16 languages.

Notes can also be printed or emailed. A Note should run on all Windows versions.

March 9, 2013
Easy Sticky Notes With Simple Sticky Notes

Simple Sticky Notes (Version: 2.0.0.0) is a freeware and lightweight desktop sticky notes program.

Double click its tray icon to create a new note. Double click in a note’s title area to roll it up, resize using its corner and hide it using the x button. The arrow button provides access to notes features such color, opacity, title edit (F2), share (on Facebook, twitter or via email), alarm, print, delete, minimize, and always on top. The Alt+N keys are another way to create new notes and there are several other shortcuts to work with and format text like bold (Ctrl+B), bullet list (Ctrl+Shift+L), double line space (Ctrl+2), Insert date and time (Ctrl+D) and others. Right clicking a highlighted text offers the same formatting options plus a search using google one.

Simple Sticky Notes’ settings include options to show notes on program startup, changing the default new note appearance, configuring hotkeys which include interesting ones such Go to next note (Alt+G) and New note from clipboard (Alt+V), choosing a sound for the alarm, picking from one of 11 languages and importing, restoring, backing up and if required changing the default database location.

Simple Sticky Notes runs on Windows XP and newer, including Windows 8.

February 22, 2013
Calendar Magic: Useful, Fun And Educational Freeware

Calendar Magic is not a new program, it is at version 17.7 now and its history can be traced back to 1995. Its interface is not the most elegant but that doesn’t detract from what it offers.

Some of its features follow but there is more and playing with the program indeed reveals lots more.

Quick Notes for holding text. 15 numbered sheets are available which can be renamed to more descriptive titles.

Reminders. Three types are available, one which defines a repeatable day and month alarm. A second that lets the user pick things like every first Sunday of the month and lastly a third type to set alarms for day(s) of the month.

A reaction timer and stop watch (See Time menu)

A ‘This is your life’ feature (see Dates menu) which provides a lot information about any birth date.

Gregorian and 30 other calendars from the likes of Persian Astronomical to Baha’i and more. These can be viewed in ‘dual’ or ‘comparison’ mode to compare days with the Gregorian. Additionally a date conversion tool to show what any date would be in other calenders. Also a ‘number of days between’ calculator.

A list of holidays or ‘observed’ days for many countries.

Several ‘Planning Calendars’ that lay out dates in a way useful to bankers, teachers and others.

Solar and lunar phase and eclipse data for any year up to the year 3000. Sunrise, sunset, moonrise and moonset for many locations.

World clock to show up to 12 world times together. Many more current local times including distance calculations.

A rather comprehensive unit converter. Many calculators (scientific, fraction, statistic, Body Mass Index, Ovulation and others) in the Utilities menu.

Discovering Calendar Magic’s features is a fun exercise. Virtually every screen can be printed and Calendar Magic should run on all Windows versions going back to Windows 95.

January 3, 2011
Freeware UK’s Kalender Helps You Stay Organized

UK’s Kalender is a no frills program that is a calendar, to do list and event reminder in one. It presents a list view for to do items independent of events that can be entered into the calendar which itself is available in week, fortnight, month and year views.

UK’s Kalender minimizes into the system tray to always be available for reminders and their associated popups. These alarms also have a snooze function. Events can have templates – complete with icon and color choices – and categories associated with them and UK’s Kalender supports recurring and multiday events. Tool tips, when hovering over events, show the complete event information.

Double clicking inside any day or in the to do list triggers the window to enter the details of an event and choose its looks, start date, end date, alarm settings and for the to do list also its priority setting. Both the to do list and calendar events also support attachments which will be opened or executed with the event and therefore turn UK’s Kalender into an automatic task scheduler.

UK’s Kalender has a useful search and filter function to pin down specific events, it can do text back ups and export to a comma separated value (*.CSV) file or an HTML file. It supports holiday information via additional downloads. It runs on Windows 98SE up to Windows 7.

November 22, 2010
Simple Calendar With Desktop Calendar

Desktop Calendar is described as

Organize your life! Never forget a birthday or anniversary ever again!

Desktop Calendar is a relatively simple and potentially useful almost 2.5MB download that overlays a calendar on any desktop. It can be thought of a semi-dynamic calendar, that is the calendar is certainly not a static image but on the other hand the reminders are restricted to annual events in the freeware version of the program. Having said that setting one time reminders is of course possible, just leave the ‘Every Year’ checkbox unchecked when adding it. The said reminders are set by right clicking on a date and choosing Edit, then filling the text area presented.

The program has more settings to control its looks than anything else. Background color of calendars is configurable as are today and other days’ text colors. The format of the month and time shown is configurable as well. The placement and size of the calendar can also be changed as can the style of the notification when hovering over a day (that contains an event). The author has also provided wallpaper packs to be used in conjunction with Desktop Calendar. Using the Wallpaper tab of the settings one can check to choose and enable the packs and choose a small or full screen preview, using the slider for the former and the preview button for the latter. Strangely there is no clear way to stop the full screen preview as it cycles through each month’s wallpaper, however the preview happens in the ‘background’ (pun intended) and doesn’t disrupt other tasks.

Desktop Calendar is one not so new tool for enhancing the desktop. It does have one very useful added capability, it is possible export (and import) data and settings to either a .dat, .txt, or .csv format. It runs on Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP and NT. Many screenshots are available on the author’s site.

June 16, 2009