You can add any kind of file and save it into your Dropbox folder.  So say, Bill add a series of Word documents in his Dropbox folder and then shares that folder with me, I can then pull the documents out and edit them, view them and even add them back to the Dropbox to send back to him.  It is hard for me to hold back my urge to describe the service as some sort of odd time space worm hole – but to me, that might be the best way to describe it.

If you sign up for the free version of Dropbox, you get 2GB of disk space to save and send your stuff.  While that might not make it the perfect backup option – it does come in handy with collaborating on files with others. Check out Dropbox and let me know if you have found any other handy uses for it.

Once you load up the website, you are provided with two buttons and a lot of white space.  Just click anywhere on the webpage and start writing.  When you are done, you can either save your thoughts to the pen.io website or save it as a .pdf file.

Go give it a shot at pen.io/zen/ and let me know if you like this very simple way to jot your thoughts down.

The oddly named advanced audio player for Windows, Foobar2000 has a low memory footprint and gets the job done.  Some of the features include:

• Supported audio formats: MP3, MP4, AAC, CD Audio, WMA, Vorbis, FLAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, Musepack, Speex, AU, SND… and more with additional components.
• Gapless playback.
• Full unicode support.
• Easily customizable user interface layout.
• Advanced tagging capabilities.
• Support for ripping Audio CDs as well as transcoding all supported audio formats using the Converter component.
• Full ReplayGain support.
• Customizable keyboard shortcuts.
• Open component architecture allowing third-party developers to extend functionality of the player.

The audio player interface can be customized to suit your needs.  This is a feature I really liked.  I just wanted an interface that would show me the standard controls and a playlist.  Kind of like the old Winamp player used to years ago.  I just dragged in the album I wanted to listen to, and I was done.  Foobar2000 keeps it simple, and I like that.

You can download it for yourself to see if you like it from foobar2000.org.

Still mining away my free time in Minecraft here.  If you haven’t checked it out, you really do not know what you are missing.  The game is really addictive and be warned, will suck up all the free time you have.  To feed my Minecraft need while I can’t play, I thought I would find another wallpaper to keep me entertained.  The Minecraft Creeper Wallpaper by Rob-Fox at Deviant Art does just that.  The creeper is there to remind me to get back to work – or he might just blow a chunk out of my desk and myself.

Looking for a distraction free way to celebrate the holidays on your desktop?  Check out this awesome and simple Christmas tree wallpaper I found over at Simple Desktops.  I really hate having too much clutter on desktop while I work, so this wallpaper is perfect for me – how about you?

If green isn’t your thing – then how about a few snowflakes?

You can pick up the Christmas Tree or Snowflake wallpaper from Simple Desktops.  It is a really fantastic wallpaper resource to check out if you are looking for really simple wallpaper designs.

I am a junky when it comes to notes.  I love taking notes, I love having notes, and really notes are how I am able to get as much as I do done on a day to day basis.  With that said, I thought I would give Notes on Top a shot.  This freeware program for Windows gives you a simple way to create a checklist and always keep it on top of your other windows.

This application is a smart and easy to use notes program. With it by your side, you always have access to your notes, while you are working away at your desk PC.  The notes can also be divided into several user-defined categories too.  So, if you have a hard time keeping track of what you need to do or have done before, this lightweight program would be your perfect companion. 

There are no bells, no whistles – just a simple program that does its job and does it well.  The requirements are pretty simple to give Notes on Top a shot.  You just need to make sure you have Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 and the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 or higher installed.

 Download Notes on Top and let me know what you think.

I do enjoy a nice simplistic desktop wallpaper.  Those with tons of things going on, or words across can be fun, but sometimes you want a clean interface to work from.  The simply named Old Wood wallpaper I found via Deviant Art is a good example of how you can still be stylish, but keep it simple too.

I have project folders, pictures for future blog posts and more dumped across my desktop every single day.  While I work to keep it as clean as I can, while I work – it can get rather messy.  That is one reason I really enjoy using a plainer wallpaper.  It gives me some sense of simplistic balance.

You can pick up the Old Wood wallpaper from Deviant Art’s website.  Thanks also to DEVi8design, the designer of this great wallpaper, for keeping my desktop decorated with a simple, black, wooden background.

Over the past week or so, I have been playing Castle Crashers a lot on my PlayStation 3.  Since I love the art style so much in the game, I thought it would be only fitting to find some excellent Castle Crashers wallpaper for my PC.

That is where our inspiration for the above wallpaper suggestion comes from.  This fantastic work by Discmage via Deviant Art is well worth downloading for any Castle Crasher fans out there.

Maybe the wallpaper can keep me entertained at least – till I get to play again!

I have found some more great classic video game wallpaper I am sure you will all get a kick out of.  Frogger 3D takes the traditional look and feel of the classic Frogger arcade classic and tilts it up a little ‘bit.

By doing so, we are given a new 3D aspect of the world we have never seen before.  This fantastic wallpaper by Justin Buonvino can be found at, admired and downloaded from DeviantArt.

I have tried all the alternatives when it comes to simple text editors and Notepad replacements on Windows.  For some reason though, I keep coming back to NoteTab as my simple text editor of choice.  It does everything I need it to do, and makes it simple to hide the features I don’t really need.

So how exactly do I use it?  Well, during the day – I often like to write myself notes or reminders of things I need to do or have done.  Keeping NoteTab open in the bottom left corner of my screen to do that across multiple NoteTab tabs is just  a really handy functionality.  Also, when I do most of my copy writing work, I like to keep it as basic as I can.  Give me NoteTab and the simple spellchecker and I am good to go.

Some of the other features included are:

• Tabs: Handles many documents at once through a lean tabbed interface.
• Performance: Fast document handling and text processing, feature rich, bloat free, and reliable.
• Portable: Runs off USB drives and does not require installation with a Setup program.
• Versatile: Appeals to a broad range of users – casual note takers, journalists, authors, webmasters, and programmers.
• Accessible: Offers comprehensive Accessibility Mode for sight-impaired users and people with other disabilities.
• International: Supports UTF-8 and Unicode files, as well as ANSI documents based on non-Western character sets.
• Businesses: Fully supports multi-user and networked environments. Works from Windows limited user accounts.
• Power-Search: Allows multi-line search-and-replace across open documents, or search any file on disk.

Now, there is a free version of the program you can use – but some of the functionality is cut out of the program.  Rather than going all the way up to NoteTab Pro, I would suggest trying NoteTab Std first.  It is only $20 – and after using it for five or more years I can tell you it is $20 well spent.

To download the free version or check out the premium version features, you can head over to notetab.com.