There are many fish in the sea of notepad applications. From text editors for programmers to the simpler web based notebooks, we have the entire range. The bottom line falls on the fact that your pick would depend on what you want to use it for. To replace Notepad, programmers would go for something like Notepad++. Some of us may go for browser based notes add-ons or go for a portable type.

All of us I guess want something that offers more than the one Windows hands us. Going by its name, you would think that TinyPad is a minnow. Going by “˜notepad-ish’ looks, it’s a pretty one at that. But an application cannot survive on looks alone. It is the features that should make the cut.

If you are thinking just how interesting an application to replace Notepad can be, you could start off by downloading TinyPad. The 1.34MB free download packages some features that are part and parcel for a typical Notepad replacement and some extras which are more for the online lives we lead these days.

Let’s Start With A Simple Note.

As is apparent, TinyPad lets us save an unlimited number of notes in a tabbed way. The tabs can be renamed to better describe them. We can also use the formatting toolbar to “˜beautify’ the way we write our notes. We cannot change the font but we can change the size and the color.

For easier readability and better note-taking, bulleted lists are supported. Also for organization, a time stamp can be added with a single click.

TinyPad has a search feature to find the snippets within long pieces of text. A smooth Highlight feature lets us enter a word and it gets marked out in blue in the active tab.

If note taking has to be a rapid fire activity, then I guess we don’t have time to pause and save the notes we are creating. TinyPad tells us not to bother as it auto-saves every note created.

But what do we do with the several notes we have created already?

We certainly don’t want to make TinyPad a beehive of tabs. The solution is in archiving the notes (Archive the selected pad) we don’t need immediately. That keeps them from our line of sight but they can be easily brought to the fore with a click on View the archive cabinet.

Export all my pads to a folder on the disk ensures that I have a backup in a safer location. But an online solution is what makes TinyPad stand slightly apart from its fellow blood brothers. We can Sync our notes automatically online, and keep them backed up.

TinyPad secures all our notes online with a 256-bits encryption algorithm to keep us safe from sniffers.

TinyPad is integrated with SharedNote. With this online service, we can not only back up all our notes for free but also use it to publish our note to the SharedNote community or share it with someone with a URL.

The published note can be further spread out using the common social networks.

TinyPad further attests to the popularity of Twitter by integrating it within itself. Give it your Twitter account name and it will retrieve your latest Tweets. Using the Twitter toolbar, we can also update our status from within TinyPad. Though without any frills it’s, I guess, only for the guy who always has to keep his eye on the blue birdie.

What’s important for me as a TinyPad user is how hassle free my note taking can be – the shortcuts (see it under Preferences) and the auto-save function. Also I can keep the application out of the way and toggle its visibility using a couple of hot spots on the top-right and top left of the screen. Or just let it auto-start and let it sit in the System Tray.

Notepad software should be light on system resources. In my case it’s consuming around 1MB-1.3MB with 4-5 tabs open.

If you like your software with a bit of look about them, TinyPad also gives us seven themes to play around with. That’s the cool Blue look in the screenshots. Looks can come second when it comes to functionality, especially from notepad software that’s supposed to be there for us within a click’s notice. That’s why the automatic syncing is valuable…even more than sharing.

Let us know your user opinion on TinyPad. Also let us know about your favorite application to replace Notepad.

TinyPad v3.0 works on all Windows operating systems (98/XP/Vista/Win7 32-bits and 64-bits).