Net Snippets has the unique distinction of being both the least expensive (free) and most expensive ($129.95) product in this review of web information managers. Net Snippets is actually available in three editions: Personal, Standard, and Professional (comparison chart). I've been using the Professional edition of Net Snippets to prepare this review but much of the essential goodness this application has to offer is available in all three versions.

In a number of ways, I would characterize Net Snippets as being the most "serious" of the tools I'm reviewing in this series. It offers, in both the Standard and Professional editions, the ability to generate a standard bibliography in MLA, APA, or Chicago Style. The reporting tools in the Professional edition go far beyond any of the other tools I've looked at in terms of the breadth of report types you can create and the degree of control provided over their contents and formatting. If you generate reports based on research material collected from the web as well as local files as a part of your business. Net Snippets Professional has to be on your short list for evaluation.

Net Snippets, like the other tools I'm looking at, manifests itself as a sidebar and toolbar in Internet Explorer. Support for Firefox is provided by a deskbar, a floating or docked sidebar that exists outside the browser. The deskbar has a number of very nicely conceived features that allow it work and play well with Firefox and other applications. You can, of course, minimize the deskbar to the system tray or task bar. But this deskbar can also be minimized to the right edge of the screen, leaving only a small, repositionable "tab" with the Net Snippets logo showing. A click on that tab reveals the deskbar. I prefer this approach to the auto-hide function used by many applications as I detest the random "pop out" that inevitably occurs when my cursor strays into the "hot zone" of a hidden application.

The deskbar also has a nifty button that resizes the current application window to fit side-by-side in an otherwise maximized state. This makes drag-and-drop additions to your Net Snippets collection quite easy. The deskbar also includes a button to launch your default browser. The interface goodies don't stop there. Net Snippets also provides a "Drop Spot" a resizable windoid you can either leave on the desktop or add to your task bar. As you resize the Drop Spot to your liking, the Net Snippets logo dynamically resizes itself - an elegant bit of eye candy that is indicative of the craftsmanship this application displays throughout its user interface. You can drag and drop content to the Drop Spot from any open application window or invoke a wide range of commands from its context menu including:

• Create a new, empty snippet

• View the Net Snippets deskbar

• Use Net Snippets built-in and quite powerful screen capture

• Add the current clipboard contents to your collection

Net Snippets provides the ability to add content in a number of ways. You can select content from a web page, Office document, PDF file or other source  which can be dragged to either the sidebar or Drop Zone. A right-click in the deskbar (Firefox) or sidebar (IE) provides menu commands for creating a link to or a copy of the entire page you're viewing.. There are a number of IE-only commands available from the Net Snippets toolbar and context menu for selectively capturing items from a page. Firefox users will have to first copy to the Clipboard and then use the deskbar command to add the clipboard content to the collection which adds a step but isn't particularly onerous once you get the hang of it.

Once content has been added to your collection, you have a number of options to add metadata to the item, including a completely customizable set of data fields, importance, abstract, capture information and a general description. This information can be displayed when the snippet is subsequently viewed in the browser if you choose and provides the underpinnings for Net Snippets search - a deceptively simple tool that produces a nicely formatted results page that can be immediately displayed in the browser or saved as a snippet itself, complete with hyperlinks to both the snippet and the source and metadata about each found item.

The reporting tools included in the Professional edition of Net Snippets surpass any other tool in this review. You have complete control over what is included the report and select the contents from your collection using an explorer-style tree display of your collection. Net Snippets does a couple of very smart things that I have really come to appreciate. First, the report is saved into your collection in the folder you initiated the report creation from by default (you can, of course choose a different storage location for the report). The report is saved in .mht format (the one-page HTML format used by most of these programs for shared content and also used by OneNote for export) which makes it fully indexable by virtually every desktop search tool. And, the reports, like any Net Snippets content, can be edited using the built-in editor (pictured) or, in the Professional version, an external HTML editor like Dreamweaver. Reports, like all Net Snippets content, can be sent by e-mail as an attached .mht file, a zip file containing either .mht or Net Snippets files, a self-extracting (.exe) archive file, or a Net Snippets package which can be imported by another Net Snippets user into their collection. Files can also be "sent" to the desktop, a floppy disk, or any other location on your PC or network you define.

There's much more to be discovered in this tool than space allows here. If you are serious about evaluating more than one of the products covered in this series, I encourage you to download the free edition of Net Snippets to get a solid feel for what this application has to offer. Any collections you build with the free version can be used in either of the commercial versions, should you decide the advanced features they offer better suit your needs and, like all of the tools in this series, a 30-day evaluation of the commercial editions is available.