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| Net Snippets Professional Edition 3.1.1 | |
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Net Snippets gathers bits and pieces of information from documents and the Web into one location. Whether it’s a single image or an entire file, Net Snippets saves them along with source information, keywords and personal comments. Then it organizes your information and lets you create reports. When you start Microsoft Internet Explorer after downloading and installing Net Snippets, there will be a new button on the main toolbar, a new toolbar and a column on the left of the Internet Explorer window, sporting a folder called “My Snippets.” This represents an actual Windows subdirectory. Right-clicking this folder lets you create additional folders and subfolders. To capture content from the Web, select a whole page, a section or a screen capture from any site, and drag it over to one of the Snippets folders. You also can add a Net Snippets “drop spot” to your main Windows taskbar to drag and save information from almost any Windows application into the Net Snippets folders. To create a report, right-click on the folder where you have stored all your snippets and select “Create Final Report.” Choose a header, a table of contents, the contents themselves, a bibliography and a footer. Then, create an index page, or a properly formatted bibliography if you like, arrange the snippets and any subfolders by moving them up and down, deselect snippets and folders you don’t want to include in the final report, and then click the “Create” button. You easily can customize almost any part of the report by changing the fonts and colors or by using your company name or logo. The report can be saved in different formats, such as a “text only” version, which is useful for sending via e-mail or saving in a compact format. You can save or send the final report or the whole file as an e-mail attachment, in several formats, including .zip and .exe, as well as a proprietary (.ns) format, which can be viewed by someone using Net Snippets. Keep in mind, however, that Microsoft Outlook doesn’t allow .exe files to be sent as e-mail attachments, so if your recipients use Outlook as their e-mail client, they will have to know how to unzip files. The only drawback is Net Snippets only runs in Internet Explorer. Although it only supports Word directly, you can collect content and save entire files from any kind of Microsoft Office application. The application would not allow me to drag Corel WordPerfect documents to the Net Snippets folder. I could drag them to the “drop box” and eventually view them, but not as easily. Before I acquired Net Snippets, I had to keep a WordPerfect document open on one monitor and the research page on the other when researching online. I copied and pasted blocks from cases into WordPerfect. The problem was that I ended up with numerous paragraphs of material, with no index and little organization. Now, when researching using Net Snippets, I highlight the paragraph I want and drag it over to the Net Snippets folder without leaving Internet Explorer. I can add comments and reminders to myself with each snippet. When I am finished, I can sort the paragraphs into a logical order and create a report. By the time I need to write the argument, all the authorities are organized and annotated in one document. I also can drag transcripts I previously scanned into Adobe Acrobat to the Snippets folder to give me a direct link to the transcript. One click and the scanned transcript will display in Internet Explorer (or it will open in the default viewer that is installed on your computer). Another annoyance about research is I am always finding cases that are relevant to arguments other than the one I am working on. Using Net Snippets, I created folders for all of my arguments, in addition to cases other than the one I was working on. When I saw a great reference, I just dumped it into the appropriate folder. Net Snippets earned a permanent spot in my computer. That is the highest praise I can give. I use it every day to collect and organize all the little jewels I find on the information superhighway, from tips on cleaning scuff marks off vinyl floors (filed under “Household”), to research on my capital case. |
Net Snippets Price: $129.95 for the professional edition, $79.95 for the standard edition. Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003. Works well with Microsoft Office 97/2000/XP. Reviewed by Grace Suarez, an attorney and knowledge management consultant in San Francisco. She can be reached at gracels@electric-law.com. PROS CONS VERDICT |
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