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How did we ever get along before PostIts? Those ubiquitous little pieces of yellow (and other colors) paper stuck to documents, books, and computer monitors are everywhere. Someone landing here from another planet might well think they were some sort of religious talisman that we used to stay in the good graces of the Powers that Be.

Unfortunately, little sticky notes don't stick forever. They also aren't too portable, especially when they're glued onto your laptop computer. Maybe there's a way to keep the metaphor in a slightly more durable version.

Stickies is a Windows app that lets you create virtual sticky notes on your computer. Nothing fancy, they don't jump around the screen or feature multimedia content—they just sit there to remind you of the important things you need to do. You can tweak the colors, font, and other appearance-related properties, so they look good on your desktop. You can leave 'em scattered around the desktop, or you can snap them to the side; even hook them together if that's what make sense. You can set them to pop-up at specified times, so you've got a Stickies reminder of what you need to do.

Stickies is a Windows application.

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How much stuff do you have? We're not talking about that pile of books on the floor over there, or the in basket overflowing on top of your filing cabinet—we're talking about all the files on your computer. Hard drives get cheaper every year, and it's a good thing, because we continue to find new ways to fill them up. How about adding more storage space, but doing it for the best price of all: free?

Box.net is one option for electronic storage. You can open a free Lite account and store up to 1GB of data on their system. It's a handy way to help help stretch your resources, but it also gives you the ability to share your files with others. In addition, you can now access those important files from any web browser. Makes it easy to get at your important files even when you're not in the office, or when you're with a client.

The free account allows you to sore up to 1GB of data with a maximum file size of 10MB. Your bandwidth is limited to 10GB per month, but if you need more than that, they're sure to be eager to help you upgrade to their paid Individual or Business accounts.

Box.net Lite is a free online service that should be compatible with most modern web browsers.

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If you've got a website that comprises more than just a couple of pages, you need a sitemap. It used to be in the good old days, a sitemap was just a listing of the pages on your website. Its purpose was to help your visitors to figure out where the information was on the pages of your site.

After a while, it became clear that sitemaps were useful in the world of search engine optimization as well. If you had a sitemap page with links to your most important pages, search engine robots had a easier time reaching all the pages on your site.

The search engines then took this a step further. Now a sitemap can be submitted to the search engines directly, telling them where your pages are, instead of just taking a passive "here's the data, come and get it" approach. Submitting a sitemap file to Google, Yahoo!, and MSN ensures that they will know where your important pages are—or maybe even all of your pages, if you choose to do so.

Simple Map is a tool that lets you build either type of sitemap easily. You can create an HTML sitemap page to post on your site, but you can also create the XML-formatted sitemap file that you can then register with the search engines. You won't have to wonder whether Googlebot has seen all your pages, because you have told them explicitly where everything is.

Simple Map is presented as a Windows application. The source code is available to allow you use it as a PHP tool on your server as well.

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Are you hopelessly addicted to music? Is iTunes set to run whenever you boot up your Windows or Mac machine? You may be a good candidate for Anywhere.FM.

Anywhere.FM is a free service that lets you share your music with…yourself! You can upload your music—as little or as much as you want—and have access to it from anywhere. Don't have an iPod? You can still listen to your tunes while you're away from home or the office.

The Anywhere.FM player is a Flash app that you run in your web browser. You can upload and listen to your own music, or you can listen to others' shared music. Not to worry—these guys are fully licensed by the various performance rights agencies to stream this music, so you don't have to be concerned about racking-up any bad juju from "stealing" content. And if you hear something you like, they're hooked into Amazon, so you can buy the track or album right away for yourself.

Anywhere.FM is a free service, and at least for now, there is no limit to the amount of music you can upload.

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Are you easily bored? Need some excitement in your life? Today's download may not provide all that, but it is interesting nevertheless.

Logon Loader is a little tool that lets you change your XP login screen. Go ahead and pick a specific screen. Or live dangerously and let Logon Loader choose a random screen for you from among your favorites. Either way, you don't have to look at the same old same old. You can even preview your screens before you use them.

Logon Loader is a Windows application. You need to be running at least Windows XP to use it.

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File renaming is not that big a deal. From the command prompt, it's just a simple command you type. In Windows Explorer, you just highlight the filename and change it. What could be easier.

Now let's crank it up a bit. How about renaming a bunch of files at once? Adding a serial number to each filename? Now it's not looking so easy any more. In fact, it's starting to get maybe a little bit scary when you stop and thing about it.

WildRename is a tool that makes it easier to rename files, especially when there are bunches of them involved. Change names to all UPPER CASE, lower case, or even Mixed Case. Add or remove characters from filenames, Use regular expressions to find and change only the files you're looking for. You can even add numbers to your files: 001, 002, etc.

WildRename is a Windows application.

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Networks are complicated beasts. You're probably working on files and documents that are scattered across several different hosts. If you're on a Mac, then you're may be working in a mixed environment as well. You spend a fair amount of time mounting remote volumes: AFP, SMB, FTP, and others. It's not a huge deal, but it might be nice to open these automatically, especially if you're going to mount them every time you boot up.

AutomountMaker is a tool that lets you easily log in to those remote volumes. As a time saver, configure it to mount remote volumes when you clock on them. Or to really save time and hassle by connecting to them automatically when you log in.

AutomountMaker is a Mac application. It's a Universal Binary, so you need to be running at least OS X 10.3.9 or better; with 10.4 you'll have access to the latest and greatest iteration.

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It's not at all unusual in today's global workplace for you to be working closely with people you'll never see face-to-face. Project groups may include members from Europe, Asia, North America, and beyond. Collaboration tools are a must if you plan to get anything done working in this global workplace.

Some collaboration software allows for multiple users to edit documents, letting everybody get their input into the new project schedule or marketing plan. There's another way to collaborate that may be even more powerful: application sharing.

Gogrok is a tool that lets you not only work on the same document simultaneously, but literally to run the same programs at the same time. Choose whether you want to share a particular application on your machine, or you can share your whole desktop, literally opening your system up to your collaborators. As the Application Owner, you get to call the shots regarding who can run applications on your system ("Editors") or merely watch them—looking over your shoulder ("Viewers"). The possibilities are endless, from true hands-on training on new apps, to complete cooperation with your group.

Gogrok is a Windows application. It requires XP or later.

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Peepel is an online office suite that allows you to work on your own stuff, or to collaborate with others. Like any good productivity suite, it includes a word processor app and a spreadsheet tool. You can use templates to build a resume or business letter, or you can create documents from scratch. It's also got a mini web browser, and allows you to share files with others. Upload files from your desktop to your Peepel account and you can work with them online.

All of your Peepel windows open within a single web browser window, and you can drag them around, resize them, and even save your workspace layout so that you can save your setup from session to session.

Along with your regular editing, you can share your documents with others, so that you can both edit them and get all your input in there. The contact manager application lets you control who has access to your files.

Peepel is a free online service. It should be compatible with most modern web browsers.

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One of the handy things about Windows—and most other GUI-based systems—is that you can double-click on a data file and the operating system will open that file with the default application that is associated with it. Double-click a Word DOC, and you'll get Microsoft Word started, with your DOC file sitting there open to edit. That works with other file types and applications as well. That's okay, as long as the default associations are ones that make sense to you.

So, what is the appropriate association for an HTML file? It depends on whether you usually view web pages, or edit them. If you like to look at them, you would want to get your default Web browser when you clicked on a file like this; if you like to edit them, you'd rather get a text editor instead.

Types is a nice little tool that lets you easily change file associations. Along with deciding which app should start up when you double-click on a file, you can also fine-tune the icon you want to use for a type of file, tweak the context (right-click) menus, and other properties as well.

Types is a Windows application. It runs under XP and Vista, and also requires version 2.0 of the .NET Framework.

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