As some of you might not know, windows' built in application that comes with all of their OS, notepad has a lot of different uses. You can open almost any type of files using Notepad either by just right clicking on the file, going to "open with" and selecting Notepad or by renaming the file to ".txt" and opening it with Notepad.

Notepad is especially useful for programmers who might want to take a look into the contents of a file without purchasing the software that made the file. Case in point, .CTT and CSV files. CTT files are files associated with Windows LIVE messenger. When users back up their contacts list, it is usually exported as a CTT file. If you've been sent a CTT file, you can open it with Notepad without have to open up your Windows Messenger program. You can edit and format it so you can import the contacts list to other programs. The file extension CSV on the other hand can also be opened with Notepad, Excel, Word, or OpenOffice Writer. If you don't have MS Office, you can easily open CSV files with Notepad or you can just download OpenOffice for free though if the CSV file is an unformatted worksheet, OpenOffice automatically uses Writer to Open it and not Calc. I still haven't figured out how to make CALC open CSV files though I guess I'm not trying hard enough.

So next time you're curious about a file and you don't have a way of opening it, just try to use Notepad.