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NotePad 2000 by TAU Software (Version 0.2!) |
A souped up version of Windows "NotePad" combined with a organizing system allowing the user to keep multiple notes on file complete with subnotes. Lots of features too! |
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700k HERE! |
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NotePad 2000 by TAU Software (written by Andrew Tiunov) During the course of working on a computer, there are some users who eventually find that they need to organize bits of information in an informal manor, just to keep them available. Lists for groceries, downloads, reviews :), pictures, ideas and more. Notepad 2000 PE has many features which allow users to do all this and more. Here's a small list to get you started: 1/ configureable font styles, attributes and colors! 2/ window listing of docs and subdocs 3/ insertion of pictures and clipart (.bmp and .wmf) 4/ insertion of date and time 5/ Phonebook with dialer and Reminder Plus, there's lots of little things to use as you go. Downloading........ I found the connection fast for downloading on a 56k modem. The size of the archive (700k) arrives on your computer in no time. It's a self-install .exe file. Installation.......... There's not much to do here. Just download the file to your normal download directory, find it, click on it, follow the prompts and within a blink of a cat's eye, it's in. As usual, I shut down all programs when installing and I reboot the system just in case right afterwards. It doesn't hurt and may help!! Help Files.......... Well, unfortunately the help files are next to non-existent! They consist of a question mark in the menu which opens up to a window giving you a choice between English and Russian (I think!). After clicking on English, you get a few comments and highlights about the program, that's it. I will be contacting the author to let him know that not only are complete help files necessary, but good help files are a bonus to a good program, which I believe this is. Though I can't read Russian, I believe that the help files in this language are much more in depth for the program than the English. Hopefully, this will be remedied soon. Interface........... Notepad 2000 is a great looking program consisting of different tool bars allowing the user to access most of the programs features. The top bar has the standard Icons for cut, copy, paste, as well as icons to allow access to the date/time input, calculator, dialer, options etc. The next tool bar allows the choice of font type, font size, find, plus indexing when the toolbar is in "advanced" mode plus attributes (Watch this!! The icons stay in Russian font even with an English install. I actually like the look but if you've not used a word processing program before, this could be confusing!). To the right on my screen is the color palette and on the left is the listing of the different docs and sub docs contained in the program. As you might be able to tell from the pic, I used this program to write my review as I was trying it out. Worked great too!! :) Here's a pic:
Features........... Right here there are a few nice features that might be hard to find in other notepad programs. Remembering that this is not a full fledged word processing program and just an extended notepad, it's nice to see configurable fonts along with color! The addition of the insertion of the time/date and, if you chose, a solid line across the text page to segregate the texts is rather unique. A couple of other nice features are the phone directory and dialer, as well as the reminder addon. Now I didn't take the time to give these a try yet however, I can see by just looking at them that I'm going to probably need full help files to allow me to figure out exactly how to use these to nice little programs. They really look like they could come in handy! Here's a pic of the phone dialer:
And here's a pic of the reminder:
Other nice additions to NotePad 2000 are the ability to use OLE and inserting objects, password protect docs, dial or execute a program at a specific time, keyboard shortcuts plus more. This program will be getting quite a bit of use from me as I like using software like this to do my reviews as I can add sub folders to the main parts of the review for the different categories. One other thing that I did like about Notepad 2000 was that each item in the menu has it's own little icon. I just kinda liked that, that's all!! :) Another nice feature is the "go back" and "go forward" icons where each one basically takes you back and forth to the last place saved. In other words, if you save your doc and type a couple of more paragraphs, then hit the back button, it will go back to the last saved position. If you hit the forward button after going back, it will take you to where you stopped typing! Pretty neat as I've never noticed this feature on other "notepad" software before. Here's one more pic showing the interface again along with a subnote that I made to test the program while doing the review. It also shows the line insert as well as the date/time insert:
Problems........... Yes, there are a couple. First is the lack of proper help files (in English) of which I have already discussed. Second is need to click on a document title three times to change it's name. At least, that's what I've figured out (totally by accident too!). I can't find a "Save As" and this is the only way I've found to give a document a name. In Closing........... Since I'm not too picky a person when it comes to free, I can honestly say I like this program even with some of the downsides. Hopefully, the author will read my e-mail and have a complete English version of the help files soon. If that happens, I'll be posting them here in the review or putting a flash on the NEWS section of the main page. Any way you look at it, if you need a nice, neat program to keep track of your lists and docs, I really suggest you download this little program and give it a spin. You just might like it! Enjoy Buzzy J |
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