Mac: Screen-grabbing tool Skitch has been updated with several new features, including a timed screenshot (a feature that was removed with the last update), custom styles and more sharing features. The timed screen snap gives you a five-second countdown before the area is captured. You can use the shortcut CTRL + CMD + Shift + 5 to trigger this very useful feature.

Windows: Windows 7 shipped with a much-needed snipping tool for taking partial screenshots, but it's not exactly loaded with features. Snipping Tool++ adds a few handy features that connect your screenshots to the cloud.

Surprisingly, there aren't a huge number of screenshot tools for Linux. Luckily, they don't need to be, because the feature-rich Shutter is about as awesome a program as you can ask for.

Windows has about a billion screen capture tools (give or take), but we dig PicPick's huge list of options, built-in photo editor, ability to upload photos to FTP and its $0 price tag.

Mac OS X already offers a means of capturing screenshots with a few keyboard shortcuts, but if you want to do a little more you have to grab a third-party tool. Of the many available, Skitch is our favourite for its many annotation tools and instant-sharing options.

Skitch, the popular screenshotting tool for Mac, has a very cool webpage feature that might not be evident just by using it. I know I've been using Skitch for nearly four years and never discovered that you can easily drag a URL from your browser onto Skitch and have it take a screenshot of the entire web page.

There are a couple of reasons you might want to take a screenshot (a.k.a., screen capture or screen grab) of your desktop or an application window. One of the most common is to send the image to tech support to show a problem you're experiencing. Whatever your motive, here's how to take a screenshot on both Windows and Mac.

Windows: Taking a single screenshot is easy, but if you need to take several quickly, the Automatically Take Screenshots app can take as many as you need as frequently as you choose.

Mac OS X: Skitch is our favourite screen capture tool on the Mac and although it's free, there are a lot of neat features you get with the paid version. Currently, if you purchase it on the Mac App Store you can get those features for half off.

Mac OS X: If you've ever had trouble remembering all the different screen capture commands or were wondering how to access preferences, Captur can help you out. It sticks every screen capture option Mac OS X provides in your menubar and offers up some finer controls but letting you adjust the preferences — something you can't easily do through Mac OS X on its own.

If you have a few notes you always want quick access to, tech weblog CyberNet News has a handy trick for "pinning" them to the top of your list in Evernote: just change their date to sometime in the future.

Cross-platform note-taking service Springpad updated its service this morning, adding the ability to add notes via email, track any of your data through RSS and iCal feeds, and backup your notebooks locally.

Being a speaker worth listening to is an art, but most presentations aren't built entirely from scratch. With a clever, Evernote-backed filing system, you can quickly stash and pull up your best jokes, quotes, statistics, themes and images.

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http://www.youtube.com/v/dCWppklfSzU&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1","customParams": ,"width":570,"height":360,"ratio":0.615,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube","wrap":true,"agegate":false} );

Mac OS X only: Skitch is the best screenshot app for Macs. It's finally out of a very, very long beta with a 1.0 release, adding some neat sharing/social features for free users and many more goodies for $US14.95 per year.

newVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http://www.youtube.com/v/MUVfhSg7-yE&hl=en&fs=1&hd=1","customParams": ,"width":570,"height":360,"ratio":0.615,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube","wrap":true,"agegate":false} );

Chrome: Awesome Screenshot is a screen capture and annotation tool with text editing, drawing and free image sharing — all accessible from the Google Chrome toolbar.

Windows: Ybex Clipboard is a clipboard and screenshot tool with an emphasis on sharing with a remote computer. Snap, annotate, and share screenshots with the including free image hosting or shuttle your clipboard contents to another computer with ease.

Android only: Universal memory tool Evernote has finalised the features in their recent 2.0 beta, giving its free application speedier access through offline caching, a dramatically improved look and interface, home screen shortcuts and Google search bar integration.

Windows: Among the screen capture and encoding tools, Microsoft's name probably doesn't come up. Too bad, because their Expression Encoder offers a free, high-resolution screen capture tool that works great for how-to recordings, demonstrations, and other desktop video capture needs.

If taking notes isn't quite your style, you can import conversations, interviews, lectures or any other voice recording into free service VoiceBase, which will transcribe them and make them searchable.