It's time to (re)start the Mac information manager series, a project I began a year and a half ago. I now (finally!) have the time to dedicate some time to this. What follows is a brief synopsis of what I've already written about, presented so that it's not necessary to refer back to older posts. I also set the stage for where I intend to go with the series from this point forward.

Here, then, is a recap:

You may be familiar with the archaic acronym PIM (Personal Information Manager). As I said in a previous post, I think this term is hopelessly broad and meaningless. Every program used on a home computer is, in a sense, a personal info manager. For the purpose of these reviews, then, I've decided to ditch PIM. I'm adopting a new acronym I'll call MIP (Making Info Perform). It's a bit cheesy, but I think MIP better captures a certain spirit of the myriad info management solutions out there today: the promise is to not only harness the chaos that is your data, but to feed it back to you with ease, and in ways that foster insight and creativity. That's what I expect out of my info management tools, at any rate.

Such tools are increasingly necessary to manage the flood of text, documents, PDFs, images, bookmarks, emails, multimedia files, snippets, and notes that comprise our digital life. The good news: there are many solid productivity and organization applications for the Mac to help reduce your clutter, most of which offer ample free trial periods. The bad news: they all claim to be the perfect solution for organizing your mess of information. Which app to choose?

That's what I'm trying to answer here by taking a thorough look at a selection of some of the more popular Mac-based info managers. Personally, it's a good time for me to tackle this. While I've used Yojimbo for several years, I'm not sure it's the app I want to stick with. Since Yojimbo recently released version 2 of the app (requiring a $20 upgrade fee), I want to better understand my alternatives before paying out.

If you're familiar with the backstory to this series, you know that I've struggled with identifying which apps to include. Now I've nailed down the list to include EagleFiler, Yojimbo, Together, SOHO Notes, and Circus Ponies Notebook. My selection criteria is based on several factors: personal interest, popularity in the Mac community, and reader feedback from the early days of this series. As I already covered Yojimbo when I began this series, I'm not going to review it again in full. Instead, I'll present a short update to reflect what's new and notable in version 2. I recognize that this is not a complete list, but it's a decent cross-section.

A key challenge I've faced in preparing to review these apps is one of classification. These tools do many different things, but they have common elements. One goal of this project is to find a way to tie them all together in some sort of framework. I think I now have a decent working model. When we last left off (a long time ago), I proposed that information managers for the Mac generally fall in three main categories:

Finders

These applications strive to serve up something better than Apple’s Finder to archive, organize, and search through your important documents. Apps in this category tend to focus on giving you powerful metadata tools to help you find what you need and organize your existing documents/files. Examples are Leap, PathFinder, EagleFiler, Together, DEVONThink.

Creators

These apps focus on providing a better notebook experience. They provide a central repository to create and collect notes, ideas, snippets, multimedia clips, and (to a lesser extent) existing documents. Simple interfaces, quick entry, and rapid search are emphasized. Examples are Yojimbo, Evernote, Notebook, VooDooPad

Visualizers

These applications focus on providing a better creative space in which to help you plan projects, discover relationships, and gain insight into your data. Examples are Curio, Tinderbox, OmniOutliner.

How do we tie these categories together? I originally tried placing the categories on a linear spectrum, but several readers pointed out that a triangle plot would be more apropos. I have to agree (for the backstory on this, read the comments of the Spectrum of PIM post). So here's the triangle, in all its glory:



The idea behind the triangle is that there’s a lot of overlap in function between the various info management tools out there, so this plot is a way to show where an app falls in terms of utility as a file organizer (F=Find), note creator (C=Create), or visualizer (V=Visualize). The corners of the triangle represent 100% Finder (bottom left point), 100% Creator (top point), and 100% Visualizer (bottom right point). The farther you get away from any one of these points, the lower the percentage for a given category.

If you're not familiar with how to read this sort of plot, it's easiest to see how it works by way of example. And since this isn't an exact science, I'll employ a simpler version of the triangle for my reviews. Here's what the triangle plot looks like sans percentage lines for EagleFiler, as an example:



I place EagleFiler at a location that represents about 75% file organizer, 20% notebook, and 5% visualization tool. Make sense?

I’ve included Visualizers in this model based on the recognition that is an important sub-category of the genre, but I've decided to limit my reviews to tools that fall more in the finder and creator categories. Still, it's useful to include visualizers for two reasons. First, some of finder/creator focused-apps have functions that fall within the visualization realm. Second, some of the visualizing tools on the market include note-taking and file organizational features. My hope is that the triangle will, at a minimum, provide a handy way to think about any given info management tool (even if that app isn't covered in this particular series, and even if you don't agree with my where I place a particular app). In other words, this framework hopefully accommodates all or most of the apps that fall within the broader 'information manager' category.

OK. That's enough about the triangle.

In closing, I want to reemphasize a few points I previously made to set the stage for the resumption of these reviews: some of these tools focus on organization, some on creating new info, and some focus most on tying together all stuff into some sort of coherent package so we can find our way forward. There aren’t necessarily clear winners that do it all. Our challenge is to pick the right apps to do the job in a way that is natural for us. It may mean using more than one info management tool.

The question, then, is how do these various organizers measure up? I'll be looking at the aforementioned apps with a focus on answering the following questions:

1. Could I figure out how to use the application with minimal fuss (preferably without referring to documentation)?
2. Was I still enthusiastic about using the application after a week of use?
3. How well does the app integrate into the Mac OS?
4. How well could I manage all of my tasks (work, home, play, etc.)
5. How did the program ‘feel?’ How ‘mac-like’ is it?

Now on to the reviews.

snail-mail holiday card on your behalf to a (U.S.-based) recipient of your choice. There are six Gmail-themed cards to choose from.

A kind gesture? A small test of a future Google service? A subtle nudge to get would-be Gmail users online? The Gmail team says it's simply a 'token of appreciation to our most enthusiastic fans.' My guess is that the offer will be up a week or less before they're overwhelmed by requests.

Dropbox to ferry files around using the public folder, don't miss this time-saving Services add-on.

Once installed, right-click on any file on your Mac, select the 'Services' menu, then choose either 'Move' or 'Copy to Dropbox.' That's it. Your file is moved (or copied), and the public link to the file is copied to your clipboard, ready to send.

Many more useful services are available at Mac OSX Automation.

So you decide to buy a copy of Things from Cultured Code. You've read great things about it (no pun intended), and you're ready to graduate from chaotic analog scratchings on a notepad to an elegant digital management process using an award-winning application.

Impatient, you give the instructions a cursory glance, then begin madly entering tasks. A week later, you note that most of the items you dumped in the inbox during the first week are overdue. Your initial enthusiasm wanes. You want to use this app, but old habits die hard. With a tinge of guilt, you keep reverting to writing down your tasks on a notepad.

One day, you decide to give it another go. You paid for this app, after all. Months go by. In time, you learn just enough (largely through trial-and-error) to use Things as a basic task management tool. Habits are formed. You know how to add new task items, create projects, set due dates, and tag your items. But your list is still chaotic. Your tags are haphazard. You start a project, then abandon it. You tend to stick all of your tasks in the inbox and leave them there. While you've made the switch to digital task management, you know that you're not taking advantage of the power under the hood. You know that—if you took the time to really grok this app—you'd be more productive.

Like many of the other Mac apps you've purchased, Things is a tool you want to learn how to use in the way it was intended to be used—but time is at a premium. And, let's be honest, you just aren't going to take the time to read the documentation.

Enter the screencast. For many people, it's hard to really get how to use an app by reading written instructions. It's much easier (and more enjoyable) to watch a video demonstration.

series of high-quality videos that teach you how to deploy your purchase. These videos are available at ScreenCastsOnline, a one-man show run out of the UK offering high-quality video productions that illustrate how to use the Mac OS and a variety of popular Mac software titles.

If you don't want to or can't afford to subscribe to this service, you'll still find excellent free tutorials here. And if you're willing to invest a modest amount of cash to learn how to better use your apps and operating system, now is the time to grab a membership. This month, ScreenCastsOnline is offering a 50 percent discount. At $57 for a six-month membership, this a good deal. You get a lot for your money.

Disclaimer: I don't subscribe to ScreenCastsOnline, and I'm not sponsored by this operation in any way. But I've viewed many SCO videos and have found that they are uniformly outstanding. Take a look at some of the many free screencasts on offer and decide for yourself. I say that if you're going to pay for a Mac application, it's in your interest to learn how to use it well. I think this is one of the best ways to do this.

Another solid option is Lynda.com. The reason I don't subscribe to ScreenCastsOnline is that I'm fortunate enough to enjoy unlimited access to Lynda through my employer, so my plate is full. This site offers a huge selection of tutorials, enough to keep me occupied for years. If you are in the business of web development, graphic design, video work, photography, audio production, or Flash development, you'll get a lot out of these tutorials.

Here's the difference between the two: SCO is consumer-focused and Mac-centric. Lynda.com is geared towards corporate users who have employees on a variety of platforms with specialized needs. SCO focuses on Mac-specific OS and app tutorials that meet the needs of most Mac users. Lynda.com focuses on professional development and training for higher-end applications/tools like the Adobe Creative Suite or Final Cut Studio. An advantage of SCO is that you can download tutorials and keep them forever. There's no DRM. With Lynda.com, tutorials are online-only. For personal training on the Mac, SCO is the way to go. For professional training, steer to Lynda (and you may want to consider pitching Lynda to your employer. Compared to on-site training courses, it's dirt cheap).

alternativeto.net and iusethis.com.

AlternativeTo is the newer of the two sites, and I really like the approach they're taking. Pick a product (Mac, Windows, Linux, online) and see a user-generated lists of alternatives to that product. There are 15 alternatives to Photoshop for the Mac, for example. While all the alternatives are not necessarily equals to a given app, it at least provides a wide angle shot of what's available. I use it as an exploratory tool to find out about applications I've never heard of before.

The other site, iusethis, is similar. You can look up an app (Mac, iPhone, Windows) to get an idea of how many people use it, to include viewing random user comments of varying merit. As with AlternativeTo, it's easy to link to related apps to explore other solutions. This site is best for taking a quick snapshot of the relative popularity of a given app, what some people are saying about it, and for exploring the most popular apps (according to the self-selected user base of iusethis) in a given category. It's the site I use to get a ballpark estimation of what users think of a given application.

Here is an example of a confusing, muddled online purchasing experience.

It began well enough. I decided to upgrade to the latest version of VMWare Fusion 3 prior to installing Windows 7 on my Mac. I had heard that VMWare's virtualization offered faster boot times, better integration with the Mac OS, and best-in-class support for the 64-bit version of Windows 7. I started my journey by reading up on the new features on the VMWare site. Then I read about what would be included with my purchase:



I hesitated. Did I really need to pay $20 more? Was this indicating that VMWare intends to release version 4.0 within the next 12 months? Are they saying that, with the basic $40 upgrade fee, I can expect to pay $40 again within a year for version 4? And that paying $20 now will save me $20 down the road? That might be worth it, but I didn't have enough information to make the decision. Who knows? They aren't telling. They just throw it out there that it may be a good idea to 'protect your investment.' Nothing explicit is stated. In the absence of clarity, I decided to go with the simple $40 upgrade. I reasoned that the last point upgrade occurred more than 12 months ago, so I'm probably OK with the basic upgrade. I imagine many a consumer will opt for the 'protect your investment' path. I hope it works out for them. VMWare should more explicitly state what this 'protection' offers. As is, it seems like a cheesy ploy to make some extra cash.

On to the next step. Next, I'm presented with options to 'add functionality' to my selection.



This step in the ordering process is particularly frustrating. It's also devious. For $30 more, I could choose per-incident email support for one incident per year. By clicking on the link for this option, I received an explanatory pop-up message indicating that this would afford me email/phone support from a Technical Support Engineer. I would also get 'documentation, Knowledge Base articles and discussion forums through the VMware web site.'

Do I need this? I don't think so. I had just read on the previous page that my $40 upgrade fee comes with 18 months of free email support. And documentation, forums, and Knowledge Base articles are complimentary for all registered users of VMWare Fusion. So what does this 'added functionality' get you? Nothing that you probably couldn't figure out from the forums. And if you do need to send an email to VMWare to get help, you can do so without spending extra money. They claim target response times within 24 hours for all severity of problems. That's pretty good free support.

I say this step in the ordering process is devious because it's poorly explained, and I think deliberately so. The explanatory pop-up window is vague, and there's no link anywhere to the VMWare Support Options page, where all of this is explained in much greater detail (I tried to get there by choosing a 'Support' link located at the top of the 'Customize Your Order' page, but I was taken to a page entitled 'Buy VMWare Support.' Here, I was presented with yet another offer to purchase per-incident support).

Last point: the design of this page is such that the 'Add to Cart' button is clear and obvious, but the 'No Thanks - Proceed to Checkout' link is small and unobtrusive. I've seen this sort of thing in many places around the Web, as I'm sure you have. It's a subtlety designed to get people to spend more money, simply because many people aren't paying attention. This sort of thing is not customer friendly. It's customer hostile.

At any rate, I moved on. After I made my purchase, I was directed to a download page. Here, I was presented with yet another confusing choice: do I want to download the full or the light version?



Aha. It turns out the the light version only comes with VMWare tools to support the Windows and Mac OS. The full version includes support for a wide variety of operating systems. Why wasn't this important point mentioned in the first place?

I don't want to sound like an Apple snob here, but I don't have experiences like this when purchasing third-party software for the Mac. When I buy software, I expect high-quality software. And my expectations extend to the online presence of the developer: I expect the design and messages on the developer's Web site to focus on generating a positive customer experience through the entire process (to include purchasing and upgrading). I don't expect what I used to experience all the time when buying software online in my Windows days: vague descriptions, bundled 'complimentary' subscriptions, shifty designs to encourage click-through on money-making bits, and other clever marketing ploys that emphasize making money over concern for the customer.

Message to VMWare: this kind of nonsense does not inspire customer loyalty. I could pack up and move to Parallels. You should really treat me better.

Now that I've got that off my chest, I'm happy to report that the new version of VMWare works quite well. I'm happy with it.

If you do buy VMWare Fusion 3.0, be sure to download the free Take Control of VMWare 3 from TidBits. It's free thanks to sponsorship from VMWare. The Take Control e-books are great, by the way — I've purchased several and find them to be excellent references. They usually cost between $10 to $12 bucks a pop, so this is an exceptional offer.

Philip Glass album, which I learned about via Twitter.

To my surprise, I discovered 140 other free MP3 albums on the site. I had no idea.

I’m a big fan of international/roots music, so I was thrilled to find many free albums in this genre. These are all sampler compilations, so it’s hit and miss—but there are some good songs to be discovered. I’m not too surprised about that—the point of sampler music is to get you to buy albums from the featured label, so it’s in their interest to include a solid cross-sample of their best offerings.

Back in the day (just a few years ago, really), I frequently picked up low-cost or free sampler albums from labels in music stores. These days, I tend to get my music online from two primary sources: iTunes and Mondomix (before Mondomix, I frequented the now-defunct Calabash, which was bought out by Mondomix). I haven’t bought much from Amazon.

Here’s my point: iTunes doesn’t offer much in terms of free ‘sample’ music beyond the ‘Free Single of the Week.’ Calabash used to offer a lot of free singles. Mondomix does not, but they do offer streaming radio mixes and a decent podcast (it’s in French, by the way). There are not many online sources that offer a place to pick up free sample compilations anymore. Amazon, it turns out, has some of the best free offerings I’ve come across. Who knew.

At any rate, here’s what I think are some of the best of the lot from Amazon’s current free ‘International’ collection:

- Pressure Sounds sampler: solid reggae and dub tracks.
- Rotana sampler: great collection of Middle Eastern sounds from a huge label.
- Saavn sampler: Bollywood music…you can’t go wrong with Bollywood tracks.
- Anana sampler: interesting collection of music from Israel.
- Epsa world music sampler: ‘tango & folklore’ from Argentina.
- Putamayo sampler: decent sampler of music from around the globe.
- Turkish hits: nice variety of Turkish artists.

A few other albums of note that I picked up from other collections:

- A surprisingly good, wide-ranging compilation of Baroque music.
- A great collection of old music (and I mean old…Medieval and Renaissance period sounds). If you like this sort of thing, by the way, I highly recommend Anonymous 4.
- An album with five solid blues-folk tracks from influential American artists on the Vanguard label (e.g. Odetta, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot).

Oh, and if you’re a Mojo Nixon fan (I’m not), head to the free album store now. Looks like pretty much all of Mojo’s stuff if currently free.

Whatever you’re into, the Amazon’s free MP3 collection is worth a browse.

Note: In case you’re wondering, this site is not sponsored in any way by Amazon.com. Just thought I’d share what I found there.

National Novel Writing Month kicks off for its tenth year. Entrants (you could be one of them!) commit to completing a 50,000-word novel in one month, completing the effort by midnight on Nov. 30. The rules are simple: start your oeuvre from scratch, meet the the minimum novel length, and submit your entry at the end of the month. That's about all there is to it.

What a great idea. The writing window for the event is ludicrously short by design. Rest assured that your novel will probably suck, and take solace in the fact that most other entries will equally suck. Who cares? And that's the point: it's OK. Just write. A deadline imposed by an outside force may help you to finally start that great work of fiction lurking in the shadows of your mind. Focus on quantity, worry about the quality later. Starting the writing process is often the hardest part, and this yearly event is a clever, fun way to get you started.

So, if you're up to the challenge, why not try out a couple of writing-focused Mac tools? Here's a couple of good deals tied to the event:

Scrivener. Download the trial version of this excellent writing tool for a special extended period that runs through Dec. 7 (longer than the usual 30-day trial period). Use Scrivener to research, organize, and write your breakthrough novel. If you reach your 50,000-word NaNoWriMo goal, you can buy Scrivener for 50 percent off the regular price ($40). If you don't make your goal, but still want to buy Scrivener, take advantage of a 20 percent discount by entering the discount code 'NANOWRIMO' in the coupon text field in their online store. Good deal. I've used Scrivener since July 2007, and I'm quite fond of it. It's a great creative writing tool, and adapts well to a variety of research and writing tasks.

Storyist. Here's another novel-focused app that aims to serve your research, word processing, and storyboarding needs. If you want to buy a copy to help you through NaNoWriMo, you can get 25 percent off the purchase price of the boxed ($79) or download ($59) version of the app by entering the coupon code 'NANOWRIMO' in the coupon text field in their online store. If you want to try out Storyist for the duration of NaNoWriMo before you buy, send Storyist a message to get a trial copy that'll keep working through the first week in December. If you decide to join the NaNoWriMo challenge and can make it to San Francisco for the kickoff event, you can get a free copy of the app. Lastly, Storyist is giving away two Kindles with $50 gift cards for those who raise the most money for the event — similar to a walk-a-thon, you can line up sponsors for your NaNoWriMo effort via Giftool.com if you're so inclined. Proceeds go to creative writing programs around the world.

Last week, we discovered that my wife had not updated her Google Maps home location on her iPod Touch since our move to Maryland last year. As far as the little device was concerned, we still lived in Ewa Beach, Hawaii. We found this out because we had to travel to a Costco in Virginia from our home and needed directions. We usually use my iPhone to dial in a driving route, but on this occasion my wife fired up her Touch. The directions we received gave us a good laugh, and I thought I'd share a couple of screen shots. Someone at Google has a sense of humor.

SpaceTime3D. I was intrigued, and E-mailed the developer to ask if a Mac version was on the way.

Well, a browser version of SpaceTime3D is now in public Beta. It works on any platform and in any modern browser (with Flash plug-in installed). The browser version of SpaceTime3D is not as feature-rich as the stand-alone Windows desktop application, but it offers the main feature: visual 3D representation of search results. I tested out SpaceTime3D using FireFox 3.

My take? It has potential. While it's not going to supplant Google search, I view it as more of a complement to traditional text-based searching. Unlike text-based search results, SpaceTime gives you results and full-page previews at the same time, so you don't have to toggle back and forth between pages and search results. This can be time-saving in some instances. However, it would be nice to be able to toggle back and forth between visual and text views of search results on the fly. I say that because I don't feel like I get the same at-a-glance feedback that I do with a text search page. I don't get a good sense of where I am or how well my search term returned what I was seeking. Perhaps it's just a matter of getting used to a new way of searching.

There are some nice touches in the SpaceTime3D Beta. For instance, the search field presents 'autosuggestions' of words or phrases as you type. And you can switch between search engines while retaining your search term so you don't have to type it in again. It also looks great. For a Mac user, the eye candy of the 3D presentation of Web pages will not be too surprising (we're accustomed to reflective-surface eye candy). Windows users may be more impressed. The glaring exception to the nice presentation are the Google Ads, which are distracting and not well integrated. They look like an afterthought.

While there are many features that would make SpaceTime3D more useful as a powerful search tool, I'm not going to go into that in any detail. And that's because it's not really a powerful search tool. If I'm in serious search mode, I'll use Google. But what if I'm in casual-browse mode? I think that's where SpaceTime3D has most to offer, and there's a lot of room within this space. I found that it was quite enjoyable to browse through images with this tool, for instance. And I could imagine it might be a fun way to navigate through social media sites. For example, it would be a nice way to browse through Flickr photos tagged with a given search term. Or to surf random sites within a topic or set of topics via StumbleUpon. It would be interesting to see tighter integration in this realm. The main point here is that I see SpaceTime3D as a tool for discovery, not for focused searching.

Here are the main shortcomings. First, it can be pokey. I find that it's fairly responsive on my broadband connection and Intel iMac, but I often have to wait a bit for all the image previews to load. That's not unexpected and it's not meant as a criticism. It's an observation that some people may be disappointed by the speed relative to the nearly-instantaneous search results that we've come to enjoy from Google. Second, the search results you get are screenshots of Web pages, not the pages. This means you can't click on a link on a page in the 3D browsing environment. You can only click on the image of the page, which then opens up that page in a new window. Third, there is no easy way to refine a search without starting all over again.

Still, I see SpaceTime3D as an interesting foray into the world of 3D visualization on the desktop and in the browser, something that will likely become commonplace within a few years. I'll be interested to see how the tool develops over time. I've sent in some ideas to the developer about adding more filtering options to refine search results, and I've found them to be very responsive and open to ideas. And, I should add, they have a lot ideas in the queue to make this a better tool. Give it a try and see what you think.

MacHeist 3 is here.

There's a lot of controversy about the pros and cons (for developers of Mac software) about steeply discounted bundles of Mac applications, and MacHeist is at the core of it. The controversy revolves around what these kind of steeply-discounted bundles portend for third-party Mac developers. Will it ruin their ability to make a decent profit? Will it kill or maim third party development? Well, it's the third year of the MacHeist bundle, and I say the developers know well what they're getting in to. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

What we, users of Mac apps, need to know is that bundles are great deals, and MacHeist is hard to pass up. This year, I initially thought I'd pass on MacHeist, but I ended up purchasing it...even though I had no interest in many of the apps. Why? Because I could re-gift the ones I didn't want to my friends, and the few I did want justified the relatively small price. The price, by the way, is $39 for over $600 of apps, and if all applications are 'unlocked' (meaning they sell enough bundles) three more apps will be included to raise the total value to $950. Twenty-five percent of each bundle purchase goes to charity, which is an added incentive and a nice touch.

I decided to buy this bundle for Wiretap Studio so I could try this out as a replacement for my much-appreciated, but aging license of Audio Hijack Pro. What appeals to me about Wiretap is a much more simple interface and what looks to be a better (again, simpler) way to hijack audio. I also decided to spring for the bundle to get a Kinemac license. It looks like a promising app to create nice 3D animations, and at a retail price of $300, it's software that I wouldn't otherwise try.

Finally, I'm interested in Espresso 1.0 from MacRabbit, creator of my much-loved CSSEdit. I use TextMate, but I have to say...there haven't been many updates over the past few years. Espresso, on the other hand, seems poised to mature rapidly. Most people say it's a Panic Coda competitor, which I don't use. I do, however, use Panic's Transmit. If Espresso competently handles the chores that I rely on with TextMate and Transmit, then I'm all for it. I'm counting on the eventual unlocking of this app, I should add. It's the last app in the bundle, and I'm not clear what it'll take get unlocked. Still, every bundle I've purchased in the past has reached sale levels that permit unlocking of all apps, so I'm somewhat confident MacHeist will reach that goal. If not, I'm still content. It's still a good deal.

P.S. After I bought the bundle, I was pleasantly surprised by two apps. I like the included game 'World of Goo.' It's a lot fun and has great style. And I'm pleased with LittleSnapper, a screen capture utility from the makers of RapidWeaver, a great web development tool. As a user of SnapNDrag and Skitch for capturing and manipulating screenshots, I thought I wouldn't get much from LittleSnapper. But I like it. I like the library management, the clean and professional look of added text and other accoutrements (including callouts) that I can easily add to screenshots, and the ability to blur parts of my screenshots. It's still early in my testing phase, but this appears to be a promising tool that might just displace SnapNDrag and Skitch.