Stickies has to be one of my most-used applications over the last year or so. I have it installed at work and my wife and I have it at home too. Essentially it works like an electronic post-it note pad. You can click on the systray icon and pop a blank “note” window on your screen. At this stage you can enter any text you like – hyperlinks are automatically recognised and the note also supports rich text and even working “checkboxes” so you can make a mini to-do list (I suggested this feature :). The underlying functionality is fantastic, too. It is network-aware, to the extent that I can write a note at work and then send it to pop up on the screen of my PC at home. The wife and I use it to “chat” with each other, usually to send links or “dinner’s ready” alerts, as her PC is downstairs and mine is upstairs. Stickies is visually customizable too – the colour of notes can be changed and you can also use “skins” – many skins are available from the author’s website.
Other features include a “manage stickies” mode – you can see all the stickies you’ve closed, search for text in a sticky, and store stickies permanently in one or more categories; you can “attach” a sticky to a window on your screen so that whenever that window opens the sticky will open as well (I have this at work so that whenever I open my electronic timecard a sticky containing a list of the timecard categories appears so I can remember which category to use for any given project); you can set an alarm on a sticky and then send it to sleep, so that when the time/date rolls round the sticky will appear and then madly jiggle about on the screen to attract your attention (I use this a LOT) and even more features that I haven’t even used yet.
Summing up, this is an absolutely indispensable tool that nobody should be without. Very small system resource footprint. Best of all, it’s completely free.
Honourable mention: TurboNote – another great utility in the same vein, but slightly more bloated and not free.