If you're like me, your best ideas come when you're not at your desk. Meetings often result in major brainstorms, and so do hallway conversations and long plane rides. Luckily, there's now a good way to capture your brilliant ideas on the fly.

If you have a laptop or a tablet PC or even a Web-enabled cell phone handy, you can now create or cut and paste images and text--and even capture sounds and video--from a variety of sources, such as documents on file or Web sites, using note-taking applications. Unlike conventional word-processing apps, Microsoft Office OneNote 2003 and EverNote can record your thoughts to a blog or e-mail or export them to other apps, and in the case of OneNote, can let you add personal annotations to existing material. You could think of them as very personal blog apps. Ideal for students conducting field research, these apps may also be useful for salespeople visiting clients onsite or those who simply want to brainstorm in a new and creative way.