I’ve written about Stickies before, but Mountain Lion seems to have some new quirks that make the app even more useful. Stickies is part of the operating system and can be found in the Applications Folder.
People who use Stickies tend to use them in one of two ways. They either make a new note for every event, perhaps color coordinating by topics, or they make notes by topic and put everything related to a topic in one note.
I’ve done it both ways and much prefer the second method. At one time I had 18 notes on my desktop which was, frankly, a mess. Now I have 7.
My Personal Stickies Library
You can choose to have your Stickies open all the time, or hide them and open them only when needed. Should you prefer this second option, the fastest way to manage it is to put the Stickies icon on your dock so you can open and close the app with a click.
One of the cool things you can do with Stickies is create your own designer notes. You can set up a standard font, color, and style. Unfortunately there are only six color options for Stickies.
To create your own design start by opening a new note. File > New Note.
Then select a font, and a font color. Font > Show Fonts, Font > Show Colors. Type something on the note so the font and color will be recognized. The information you enter on the top line will always show as a title. I had fun this this. I checked out all those fonts that I never get to use because they are too frivolous or too hard to read and selected one.
Selecting My Fun Font
The next step is to select a color for your designer note. Color. You can change each one easily as you create new ones. Then stretch out the width of your note to the width you want to use and choose Note > Use as Default. From that point on, all the new Stickies you create will conform to those qualifiers.
Stickies already created will not be altered. Once you have created a Stickie it is saved automatically, but do have to move it into place.
Stickies can be made translucent should you wish by selecting Note > Translucent Window.
I use my Stickies all the time. About once a week I get a request from someone who wants to know how to apply for a job with Apple (we have a huge Apple campus here in Austin, TX). All I have to do to help them is click on my Apple Stickie and give them the link for the job postings. That Stickie is also where I keep the 800 number for AppleCare and the registration numbers for my personal products.