Best Tool For the Job

One of the most helpful tricks I’ve learned as a web designer has been to save copies of good designs for future inspiration. I’ve found that the best way to do it is rather than bookmarking the site (only to find it’s been taken down or changed) I take a screenshot of it and make a folder in iPhoto (on the Mac) or Picasa or Adobe Albums (on the PC) and store it there for quick, easy access.

Something that has helped keep me motivated is having good tools to quickly and effortlessly take screenshots. I use:

1. Paparazzi – This program lets you take screen captures of the entire webpage – whether or not it fits on the screen without scrolling. A very simple, useful, well done (free) tool.

2. Freesnap – Another simple, functional (more general usage) screen capture program.

3. Shift + Command + 4 + Space – the OS X shortcut to take a screenshot of just a window.

4. MWSnap – A great, free windows screenshot utility.

Also, since I recently discovered Furl, I’m considering also using that service as a way to save actual HTML copies of sites in a centrally accessible location.