The other day Gizmodo’s Joanna Stern (lately of LAPTOP – we miss her!) apprised us of this very sad segment of ABC’s Shark Tank wherein contestant Mary Ellen Simonsen tried to interest the panel in a plastic sticky note holder that attaches to the side of a laptop screen or monitor. Though sticky note wrangling can be a hassle, the proposed holder doesn’t really look like it would help too much. And, as Joanna pointed out, anyone with a Mac or Vista machine already has sticky note software. If you’re not satisfied with those (the one included with Vista and Windows 7 isn’t very good), Post-It has electronic sticky note software. Maybe the problem here isn’t that Mary Ellen doesn’t know about these programs but just doesn’t like them. Finding good sticky notes for the screen isn’t easy, especially when you have specific needs and desires. Hyper-organized people won’t settle for just any notes, and unorganized people need software that’s easy to learn and implement, or else it’ll just be one more thing cluttering up the hard drive. Two I’ve used (based on suggestions from friends) are Stickies and StickyPad, though I use StickyPad more often and like it best. Being able to keep the notes on top of all other windows and make them semi-transparent so they don’t totally block things is important. It keeps my reminders in my face but out of my way. What sticky note software do you use? And has it completely replaced paper Post-Its? Or does your workspace still look like the screenshot above?
