annotations

It may not beat Photoshop, but Aviary is still one of the most comprehensive photo editors available for Android. What's more, it's incredibly simple to use.

From the get-go, Aviary makes it simple to edit your photos, as it opens up directly to a carousel of all the saved images on your device. From here, you can swipe through your photos straight away or go to your photo gallery and make your selection that way. Otherwise, the app also gives you the option to take a new photo to import into the editor.

Once you make your selection, … Read more

As its name suggests, Quickoffice Pro HD is a mobile office and productivity suite for use on the go. It lets you create and edit office files, and even sync them to your favorite cloud storage service.

If you're a fan of Google Docs like I am, then you've probably noticed that editing files from your mobile device can be a bit of a pain. The Google Drive (download) app (which recently slurped up Google Docs) doesn't offer a very robust menu of formatting tools, which makes workflow more complicated than it should be (especially when dealing … Read more

It may not be a mobile version of Adobe Illustrator, but Skitch can handle basic image annotations and sketches exceptionally well. It's easy to learn, its tools work well, and it can even export your work to Evernote.

Getting started with Skitch is simple. From the Home screen, you can open up a blank canvas, import an image from your gallery, or take a new photo with your mobile device's camera. Also new to Skitch is a feature that lets you pull up and add annotations directly onto a Google Map, which is perfect for giving detailed or … Read more

Foxit PhantomPDF is a blazing-fast PDF creator and editor that gets the job done. It comes in three different editions--Express, Standard, and Business--all of which are easy to use and significantly less expensive than Adobe Acrobat.

Foxit PhantomPDF's interface has the look and feel common to most document and word-processing software: a menu bar, customizable, icon-based toolbars, and a main display. In addition, the program features a distinctive, ultrathin navigation panel on the far left that allows quick access to documents via bookmarks or thumbnails as well as attachments, signatures, and layers. Hovering the cursor over the subtly colored … Read more

Foxit PhantomPDF is a blazing-fast PDF creator and editor that gets the job done. It comes in three different editions--Express, Standard, and Business--all of which are easy to use and significantly less expensive than Adobe Acrobat.

Foxit PhantomPDF's interface has the look and feel common to most document and word-processing software: a menu bar, customizable, icon-based toolbars, and a main display. In addition, the program features a distinctive, ultrathin navigation panel on the far left that allows quick access to documents via bookmarks or thumbnails as well as attachments, signatures, and layers. Hovering the cursor over the subtly colored … Read more

I've written a screenplay or two in my life. When the iPad was released more than a year ago, I imagined that it could eventually be a killer tool for reading and editing scripts, saving a trip to a printer or laptop. Well, so far, the iPad's been great for a lot of documents and publications...but a little slow on the uptake when it comes to the complicated formats of screenplays.

For my last screenplay revision, I actually saved my script to PDF format using Final Draft, then opened up GoodReader to check out my work. iBooks … Read more

XPS files, where XPS stands for XML Paper Specification, define the layout, printing specifications, and other factors about a document. They're similar to PDFs, but are based on XML. Windows has a built-in XPS Viewer that opens automatically when you click an XPS file, but it's pretty basic. XPS Annotator is a free, full-featured, standalone XPS file viewer, document annotator, XPS-to-image converter, properties adder and editor, and digital document signing tool. It has familiar operations such as zoom, search, save, copy, and print to a variety of output options. It supports hyperlinks, too.

XPS Annotator is a compact … Read more

Longtime readers might remember the YouTube piano, an ingenious use of YouTube's deep-linking feature that turned a video with various keys on it into a working piano. This week its creators are introducing a follow-up that's slightly less interactive, but just as amusing, called YouTube radio.

Its function is to emulate an old radio with a tuning dial. Users can switch between the eight stations, which include pop, jazz, rock, and even one for cats (no, seriously). Each of these has been composed by musician Adam Ben Ezra, who was one of the co-creators of the piano project. … Read more

Mac users have several good choices available when it comes to bibliography-management applications. Bookends is among the best, and its trial version certainly merits a look from anyone who spends much time working with large numbers of academic and technical citations. This app makes it easy to search for, download, and organize reference materials, as well as quickly create tightly formatted bibliographies in a variety of word processors--including excellent integration with Mellel and Word 2008.

You can search across and save documents from any standard source, from PubMed, JSTOR, and the Library of Congress to Amazon, Google Scholar, and even … Read more