Somebody pointed out a useful feature of Windows Notepad: date/time stamp logging. Imagine you want to keep a diary of sorts in a Notepad file, and have a date/time stamp at each “entry”. Normally, you’d open the file, press Ctrl+End to get to the end of the file, enter the date and time manually, and then start typing.
You can get Notepad to do that for you, automatically. Here’s how.
- Open a blank document in Notepad and type “.LOG” (without the quotes).
- Save the file as diary.txt.
- Close Notepad.
- Now start Notepad again and open the file that you just saved.
Notepad adds a blank line at the end of the file, enters the time and date, and positions to the end of the file so that you can start typing your notes. I guess it really is a “notepad” program.
Some people laugh, but I find Notepad to be incredibly useful for writing quick design notes and thoughts. Sure, it’s a primitive tool. But I don’t need anything fancy at that stage. I need something that will open quickly and let me enter text with a minimum of fuss. I’ve not found anything better for that than Notepad.
That behavior is just plain freaky. Useful, sure, but still freaky.
That’s a neat little trick. I actually use notepad quite a bit for “to do” lists and for pasting in info for later reference when I’m researching an article. I like the no frills simplicity of Notepad.
I have used an MS Word “Log” file for going on 2 decades now in all my jobs. It’s just a 4-column table with a simple macro that inserts a row above wherever the cursor is, enters the Date & Time in [mm/dd/yy hh:mm PM] format in the leftmost column, and then tabs into the second column, ready for me to enter Who. Column #3 is for Org (and/or Ph#), and #4 is detail (it’s also widest and has the smallest font size, one of the conveniences of using Word).
The button image I use on the menu bar for the macro is a phone, btw, because I use it predominantly for documenting phone calls (in- or outbound). But I also use it for many FTF conversations, and often random musings. I don’t ever duplicate email traffic since I can find that easily enough, but all “meat space” interactions get anchored this way so I can promptly forget them.
It’s very handy when I have to compile monthly activity reports to accompany contract invoices, and of course for following up on all commitments made to/by me.
I guess this falls somewhere between your Notepad and a contact-management app.