Simple to-do software wanted

January 5, 2004 3:39 PM

I'm looking for a very simple to-do list that will sit on my desktop. I've searched Google, but a lot of the results that come up are integrated with calendars and other functions I don't have use for. The ones I did download seem suspicious and attempt to contact their home networks; I don't want anybody spying on me. Does anyone use something like this, where I can simply type a linear list of things I have to get done, and have it floating on my dekstop?
posted by tomorama to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

Stickies? I use them. They're like post-its for your desktop. Very few features, very easy to use. If you stick them in the startup folder [or Mac equivalent] they're there when you boot up and you can even have them just ee little bars and double-click to expand them to see the full list if you feel like it. PC or Mac [it comes with OSX I believe].
posted by jessamyn at 3:51 PM on January 5, 2004

Response by poster: That program is fantastic. Thank you.
posted by tomorama at 4:02 PM on January 5, 2004

Personally, I prefer this version of stickies. It looks more professional, I think.
posted by gd779 at 4:25 PM on January 5, 2004

I use Notebook.
posted by gleuschk at 5:18 PM on January 5, 2004

You say nothing about the OS you're using, but there is a ton of stuff on SourceForge for various platforms.
posted by majick at 5:27 PM on January 5, 2004

It's not commonly known but you can set an html page as your desktop. So just make your list in Notepad, add center tags etc, save it as an html file, and make it your background.

Spyware? What spyware?
posted by y6y6y6 at 6:30 PM on January 5, 2004

Response by poster: I'm using Windows XP pro.

Spyware - I downloaded some to-do list program that I found on Google and when I installed it, it said that while it sat on my desktop, I needed to be connected to the internet so it could send information back to its home network.
posted by tomorama at 7:51 PM on January 5, 2004

I'll go you one better than that, y6.

Let's say you use Moveable Type (as I do) as a CMS/blogging tool (you could equally use blogger and blogspot or whatever). You could create a mostly-unstyled new blog that consists of to-do items (and make it as fancy and complicated as you want, use categories, make an rss feed, whatever). You could have multiple ones, if you want.

Then all you need to do is add it (and as many others as you like) as active desktop items, using the URL to your new blog as the source for the web item, and resize it appropriately. Et voila, you have a remotely accessible to-do list, that you can add to or edit from anywhere, and can have it on your home and work desktops or whereever (mobile devices?). Possibilities, as they say, are limitless.

This is off the top of my head. I'm sure there are even neater things you can do.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:52 PM on January 5, 2004

Okay... so I just installed Stickies 4.5b (jessamyn's link) and Norton reports that it "is attempting to listen for connections from other computers." WHY? Why would this kind of program need to do that? Arrrrrgh...
posted by pmurray63 at 8:00 PM on January 5, 2004

To answer my own question: apparently you can send and receive stickies to/from other people. Not sure why this is better than some instant messaging software, but whatever.
posted by pmurray63 at 8:33 PM on January 5, 2004

Oh, I should mention QwikiWiki. It's a little Perl-based wiki, takes up almost no memory. Set it as your homepage and you're good to go. Wonderful think, Wikis.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:56 PM on January 5, 2004

I use text files and pico (text editor). Each filename is descriptive of the contents ("food", "boat", "woodworking", etc.) and can contain endless amounts of notes, links, etc.. some of the text files are ongoing for over a decade and contain a wealth of material, some are for short term research projects.. but it's all there easy to search on and do whatever in text format, and it never gets thrown out like post-its.
posted by stbalbach at 10:50 PM on January 5, 2004

I use tsDesk. It is elite.

If you doubt its leetness, here's a screenshot of my desktop.
posted by Jairus at 3:59 AM on January 6, 2004

I have a Word doc tucked into my taskbar. I use it to type up blog entries (safer that way, learned the hard way) but I don't see why it couldn't be used as a to-do list. Notepad or Wordpad could be substituted.

And it has the added benefit of no spyware.

[paranoia]
Unless Uncle Bill is peeking in...
[/paranoia]
posted by deborah at 11:30 PM on January 7, 2004