Word Count Website

I do a ton of writing, and some of the articles I write require a certain amount of words in the content. I love the Wordpress software for this– it has an automatic word count feature. I think this Wordpress added this feature in this year, because people used to have to use a plugin for it. It is one of my favorite features for Wordpress.

But for my Blogger blogs, I’m out cold. No word count feature there. I used to just copy & paste my articles into a special Notepad program, or sometimes Microsoft Word. But whenever I adjusted the text in those programs and re-pasted the article into my Blogger publishing window, the text would have all these line breaks and etc. Grr. It was extremely laborious to have to backspace white lines, fix all the text, etc.

I’m taking the long way around, just to tell you about a cool (and FREE) little online tool that will count your words. It’s easy and very fast, so I use it all the time, all day long. It’s the Cut & Paste Word Count tool. I love it! The only thing negative I can think of is that the author inserted instructional text in the box already, and you have to get rid of it in order to copy & paste your own content. It’s a tiny, but extra step that I’d like to see disappear.

Anyway, the site is good, it’s free, and it’s very convenient.

A Cool Site For Us Forgetful Folks

I found a really neat website called ReSnooze. It looks pretty neat for those of us who are, um, forgetful, sometimes. I have a big problem with forgetting things. And NO it’s not OLD AGE! I have so much stuff crammed in my little ol’ head that it sometimes goes irretrievably spilling out! lol. My kids love to send me IMs, and they sometimes send them with important news, like “remember to schedule that orthodontic appointment!!!” or “You need to buy a playstation 3 game for cousin’s birthday!” Well, needless to say, I rarely remember these IM messages. “EMAIL ME, kids!” I say. They’re getting pretty good at it.

I do sometimes email myself with important messages. But the problem is that the email is usually sent right away, and is received into my Inbox, where I sometimes, uh, FORGET that it’s there. So I find ReSnooze appealing.

It’s a free little online application. You enter in your email address, your message, and how often you want to be reminded. ReSnooze’s policy says they don’t share your email address with anyone. And it looks like the program is free to use (although I think there is a paid version coming up). There’s an informative viral video about ReSnooze:

It’s another very convenient way to get reminders. Check it out if you are inclined.

Sticky Note Software Programs

If you are like me, you forget EVERYTHING unless it is written down. But my desk is literally littered with notes, papers, scribblings, and a mass of sticky notes. Wow, to think I used to be organized! And now, I do everything from my laptop. But I can’t go sticking sticky notes to my laptop screen. Whoever invented the “virtual” sticky note for computers is a genius, I tell you! I use mine all the time. Here are some neato (and free) sticky note computer programs. They all have varying degrees of features (like changing colors or not, choosing fonts or not, etc). Here’s a list of some of the most popular and functional sticky note programs.

Post-It Software Notes This software was made by the company that makes the real Post-It sticky notes. It’s cute and looks and works a lot like a “real” sticky.

Sticky Notes 2.1.3 Nice and simple. One of the top-rated at C|Net. It’s free!

Free Sticky Notes 2.0 Not extremely pretty, but it works. It’s a no-frills program and uses little of your computer’s resources.

Sticky Notes 2 Another no-frills package, but it works out of your system tray so it’s convenient.

Sticky Notes Free 4 This is pretty and you can make certain notes with higher priority than others (so the most important ones will always be on top). But the limit is 10 notes at a time on your desktop.

NoteZilla OK, this is not free (it’s 30!) but it’s the best sticky note program out there. So if you are looking for the premeir sticky note, check it out. It’s a verrry nice program.

So there you have it. Never forget your appointment or forget to buy fence installation parts! I know I won’t again.

The Essential PIM for Management

I’d downloaded Essential PIM years ago, but never really used it. It was a bigger program than what I needed at the time. That was then, this is now. Back then, I did very little organizing on the computer– I didn’t even sign on every day! Today, my laptop has become my most favored accessory. And I just can’t carry and keep track of all the differrent notebooks, sticky-notes, and other pieces of paper. So I downloaded Essential PIM again, and WOW I love it! C|Net offers the download and information here.

At first glance, it seems complicated. There are a lot of various views, and choices. It seemed overwhelming to me. But after I deleted the “sample” entries, it looked better.

This is basically a scheduling calendar, appointment notebook, to do list, contact/address book, and quick notebook, all rolled into one.

It’s FREE (my favorite price!), so there’s nothing to lose. I think whoever built this did a great job putting it together. It also saves your data automatically and will minimize to the system tray in case you need to access it quickly. I’m pretty floored by the program. It’s been working great for me. So I recommend it.

Extract Images from Microsoft Word

Before I had image-editing software, and before I knew what I was doing, I used to paste all my images in Microsoft Word. But after saving it, I had NO IDEA how to get the image onto, say, a web page. My image had been essentially locked by Word.

I came across a helpful blog post explaining how to extract images from Word.

Just open up the Word document, then go to file> save as option and save the document as a web page. This will create a new document with the images in a separate folder with the same name. Go into the folder and you will get 2 version of the image, one is in .jpg and the other is in .png.

The .jpg will be the smaller size and the .png will be the original size. If you like to use the original image since it is much larger to view but wanted in different format, just open up your image viewer and save the image in the format that you prefer.

I haven’t tried this yet, but I will. It looks like it would work perfectly. It’s a handy tip!

Sunbird Calendar Program

It was Shakespeare who said, “Know thyself.” I have come to realize that I am a calendar freak. A freak, I tell you. I have tried dozens of them and still cannot find my true love. I have even tried those “free to try” calendars with the intent to BUY them if I liked them enough. I just haven’t found the *perfect* calendar. In my dreams, the perfect calendar starts up when my computer starts up. It warns me with a gentle little beep and a window to remind me of my appointments that day. It has wallpaper capabilities– it can incorporate itself as my interactive desktop wallpaper. I can enter information or remove information. I can see all that information on my desktop. And the calendar boxes for each day are large– enough for me to type in the meticulous information that I like to have on hand, on my desktop. It’s also a calendar with customizable colors and sizes. It’s not too complicated.

Haven’t found it yet. The closest I’ve found is Tinnes Desktop Calendar. I love that in every way except that the calendar boxes are too small. I need more room to enter my appointments and information in.

I tried Sunbird. It is actually the best of all the calendars that aren’t what I am looking for, lol. Sunbird is clean, simple, and very configurable. However, the main downfall is that it doesn’t start up with the computer and doesn’t have an interactive interface on my desktop. Big downers. But still, I do like this calendar of all non-desktop calendars I ever seen. Maybe you’d like it, too.

Notepad Pro+

I’ve been using Notepad Pro+ for a few weeks now. I have been hesitant to give it my thumbs up here, because I was unsure about the program, whether it would self-destruct after a day like some other open source Notepad replacements do. But I think I really, really like Notepad Pro+! It’s a free download here.

Notepad Pro+ is far superior to that boring old Windows notepad. Notepad Pro+ has the typical word wrap and font style options, but it also has a tabbed interface! It also has a word count! And it counts “lines” for html coding! I think I love it!

If you are dissatisfied with Windows Notepad, and are looking for something better but not too overblown or buggy, maybe you want to check out Notepad Pro+. It’s working well for me. It gets 5 stars from Cnet, too.

Online Scanning Service

Here’s an amazing thing: document scanning services! Sourcecorp, a New England company, provides a unique service with their document managing service, called ImageSilo. It’s a service geared toward making all the paperwork for businesses a little easier. Documents are scanned at the company, and uploaded to their “web based document repository” (conveniently named the “Image Silo”). It’s much like outsourcing your paperwork, except that this is an American company.

The documents are heavily encrypted, and the company promises 99.9% uptime so the data is always available. There’s a 30-day free trial. If you are a business owner looking for a way to consolidate paperwork and increase productivity, you might want to check into this. Online storage is available, too.

I’ve noticed that more document-type programs are going online. Spreadsheets, Word documents, and the like are becoming more popular as more applications go online. And everyone has heard of data backups. I don’t think downloaded programs will ever go away, but many computer-cluttering programs are going online.

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