Posties

You can’t rely on your brain to remember all passwords, and accounts you use, let alone events, or research notes. Similar to a tool introduced back in Windows 7, Posties allows you to keep desktop notes to quickly write down details of interest so you don’t forget them easily.

One of the application’s main advantages is that you don’t have to go through a setup process to make it work. It can easily be stored on a USB flash drive, allowing you to take notes with you, edit, and review on other computers as well. However, you need to make sure that the target PC is fitted with Java Runtime Environment for proper functionality.

Right from the start, the application goes to the tray area, and you might end up with multiple active instances if you don’t check after the first run. There’s no tooltip to let you know it’s there, and interacting with the corresponding icon creates a new note on your desktop, which you can’t miss.

Notes appear in a small, resizable box, with most of the space serving as your canvas. These can be moved around the desktop so you always have important ones in plain sight. Sadly, they always remain on top of every other window, and there’s no option to toggle this.

You’re free to create more notes, but be sure to just close, and not delete them when you want to minimize to tray. Unfortunately, this needs to be done for items one by one, because there’s no option to minimize all of them at once.

Customization leaves a lot more to be desired. Color can’t be changed for neither text, nor a note background, which would have made identification a lot easier. What you can do in this regard is provide a custom name, with the default configuration applying a timestamp.

Bottom line is that pen and paper methods of taking notes aren’t obsolete, but have rather migrated in the modern world in the form of applications like Posties. Since customization is almost nonexistent, nor any options to export notes, it’s a straightforward way of storing notes, letting you focus on more important tasks.