NoteBook

What: Outlining and idea organizing software

By: Circus Ponies Software

Cost: $49.95; $29.95 academic license

Download: www.circusponies.com

NoteBook lets you create tabbed digital notebooks to organize thoughts and information and to manage simple projects. With a friendly interface resembling a spiral-bound paper notebook, NoteBook lets you categorize contents with keywords and separate sections with tabs. You can also add files, voice annotations, video clips, or images, or clip information from any Mac OS X application via a Services menu.

To use NoteBook as a project manager, you can assign action-item status to entries by adding check boxes, due dates, and priorities. The software automatically creates several indices for each notebook, including ones for text, Internet addresses, to-do items, and due dates.

Notebooks can be exported to HTML text, RTF, RTFD, and OPML formats if you want to share them with someone who doesn't have the NoteBook software.

The figure shows a sample page from a cookbook created in NoteBook.

Why I like it: NoteBook makes it easy and fun to organize information and create projects. It's a great product.