I have been using Paparazzi! to do this but the shortcoming is that I could not take screenshots of Web applications where I had to log-in. With Screengrab, I now have tool to take screenshots inside these password-protected Web applications.

Thanks Roger (456 Berea Street)

Disclaimer — I do not use or endorse these software programs. I am only sharing this as what I have found.

Nvu - This is an open source WYSIWYG editor that is available for Windows or Mac. I had downloaded this program earlier this year. It did not work for me because it did not have some functionality that I was used to in Dreamweaver. I wanted to be able to define the location of my local files to edit and then put on the server. It appeared to me that you could not do this function. It may have been added since I tried it or I just did not figure it out. The editor functions did look good. I probably would have played with it more but I found some inexpensive software that I really like — Coda and TextMate.

GIMP - This is an open source software that would be a substitute for Photoshop. I have never used it because I have Photoshop but a friend of mine really liked it and he is not a designer.

Inkscape — An open source vector graphics program that claims capabilities similar to Illustrator. I have never used this program or know of anyone who has. I found it through doing a search for Open Source software for Web design on a site called Open CD.

You Send it - You can send up to 1GB files through this website. You upload it to their server and they send an email to your receipt with a link to download it from their server. You do not have to sign up. All you do is type in your email, your recepient and upload the file you want to send them.

Tinyurl — Ever have long urls that you want to send to people so they can get a resource? Go to Tinyurl. Type in (or paste) the long url into their form box and they generate a shorter url that you can use in your email. Here is an example from one of my sites, GodSquad.com. This link: http://www.godsquad.com/squadroom/evangelism/cojourners/cards1.pdf becomes this link: http://tinyurl.com/blpt5

I downloaded a trial version and after using it once, decided to buy it. What I really like about it is that you can take a screenshot of a website and scroll down to capture the entire length of the page, which you cannot do by just doing a print screen in Windows. Also, it is smart enough that you can just capture a certain element on your screen. This cuts down on the process of having to go into my graphic editing program to cut down images to just what I want.

You can also apply effects like torn edge with SnagIt. For $40, it is a nice little program.

I have been reading a book called Taking Back Your Life, Using Outlook to Get Organized and Stay Organized. One of the concepts in the book is that you minimize your collecting points for information. This is what motivated me to try Attensa.

Here is my review:

Attensa worked much like SharpReader in that it created folders in Outlook based on the categories you want to sort your feeds into. You can keep things like you do in SharpReader and delete the posts that you are not interested in. You can choose three different way to have the posts displayed: plain text, default view which describes itself as faster and richer and then source web page contents (which they say is the slowest) which looks like the website. I have been using the Default view and the one quirk I have found in it is that it displayed apostrophes as boxes. Attensa has tag functions but I have not yet played with that. You can forward the articles through Outlook to others and you can post to your blog with the Attensa utility bar in Outlook but I have not yet tried that either.

In comparison to other readers, I have not used the RSS reader in Firefox and I did a little with Bloglines. I had also been playing with Google’s reader but was not real keen on it because I could not get rid of posts that I was not interested in. Attensa has provided me a pretty good solution as I am trying to integrate things from the Taking Back Your Life book.