I use Tomboy, an open source notetaking app, to cull and organize the hundreds of bits of information I track, and to prioritize it on to-do lists on the fly. When we first reviewed Tomboy 0.3.5, it had some obvious flaws. The project has had a number of updates since then, and the newest version, 0.10.0, really makes the grade.

If you use the GNOME desktop environment, chances are you already have Tomboy on your system, since it's part of the GNOME project. If not, or if you want to update to the latest version, you'll find it at the GNOME's Web site.

The first time you fire up the program, you'll get a welcome screen designed to help you get organized and get started, but you really don't need much information to be up and running in minutes. Simply click on the apps icon parked on the taskbar at the bottom of your screen, select New Note, and you're off.