Global Delight has recently announced their release of a public beta for Viola, an image capture and annotating tool for Mac.

Voila features the ability to capture a region from the screen in a variety of different shapes as well as take a full screen, timed or menu capture — significantly broader functionality than that built into OS X by default. After taking a screen capture, Voila includes annotating tools (text, arrows, callouts, sprays, stamps etc) to make editing simple and, after you’ve completed your annotation, a variety of different export options are present.

When installed for the first time, the application asks whether you’d like to use it as the default system screen capture utility, making it easy for new users to switch.

The software has a whole range of different annotation facilities, such as:

• Arrows: Rounded, straight and double ended
• Line: Curved, dotted, bracketed and zig-zag
• Shape: All manner of squares, circles and squiggles
• Brush / Spray: For freehand drawing
• Callouts: A particularly versatile range of shapes and styles
• Stamps: Novelty stamps, such as ‘OK’, ‘Approved’ and ‘Denied’

Mr. Rohith Bhat, CEO of Global Delight, notes that “currently, the Mac platform offers a few image capture tools, none of which have the capability to have multiple capture options along with a good blend of annotation tools. This makes Voila very unique and different from the rest of the tools out in the market.” While competition was indeed scarce a few weeks ago, Voila has been released at a very similar time to Little Snapper – a competing screen capture and annotation utility. It will be interesting to see how competition in this software area develops, as demand certainly exists for a more full-featured screen capture utility.

Voila is a great tool for those being required to create screenshots for the web, with a comprehensive range of export formats available: PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PDF, GIF and BMP. Captures can also be exported directly into an email, or sent to iPhoto for further customization.

However, the software is not without limitations (although none which seriously hinder the usefulness of the app). It isn’t possible at this stage to capture more than one monitor at a time, and the software is lacking slightly in explaining how to use the annotation tools. It’s easy to be confused as to whether a single or double click is required at times.

The beta version of Voila is available for immediate download and is free at present. Pricing information will be released when the app comes out of beta. It runs on Mac OS X 10.5.2 or later, and supports any Intel-based Mac running 1.25Ghz and above. iPhoto v6.0.1 or later is required for exporting captured or annotated images.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

Saltwater Aquarium

Nothing says “international man/woman of mystery” like a saltwater fish tank. Whether you’re plotting to destroy the world, or just aiming to become a master of seduction, your lair should definitely house Finding Nemo and his buddies. Real aquariums are expensive and hard to maintain, but your Mac has you covered.

I know it has been around for a while, and it might not be the most useful software on the planet, but I still can’t get enough of SereneScreen’s Marine Aquarium. It comes in both pay and free editions, with the free version lacking the fish variety and customizability of the paid-for software. I set it up on my 32-inch LCD TV and let it run while working or entertaining.

More recently, SereneScreen has released a version for the iPhone, which, while it lacks the options of the desktop version, provides a nice way to grab a little zen in the midst of a chaotic day. At $1.99, you might have to be a fish nut to actually pay for it. I’m nutty for the aquatic little buggers.

International Espionage Tracking Device

Now that you’ve got the diggs outfitted for the spy game, you need some of the Q-type gizmos to go with it. How about a location tracking device? All you have to do is distract the bad guy, make the swap, and you’ve got a homing device. All it will cost you is your Mac, and your target has to have an identical one to switch it with. It could happen.

Thanks to GadgetTrak, this scenario is entirely possible. They make MacTrak, software which uses Wi-Fi location technology to tell you where your computer is, within 10-20 meters. Not only that, but it uses your notebook’s iSight camera and Flickr to post a stream of photographs of whoever’s using your computer. The GadgetTrak folks seem to think MacTrak is for tracking down stolen computers. No imagination, that’s their problem.

Clever Disguise

In your line of work, you deal with sensitive information, and its important that both you and your computer aren’t compromised or identified. I don’t need to give you advice, that horsehair mustache, eyepatch, and fake limp turn you into a different person altogether. But what to do about that computer?

It can show a false front too, thanks to Desktop Curtain by Many Tricks. This handy app shows a desktop picture of your choosing complete with menu bar, hiding your actual desktop clutter and classified information from prying eyes. Handy in a pinch for deceptive screenshots and screencasts, also.

There you have it. Go from geek to spy in 3 easy apps. I’ve already done it and now I’m a bona fide MI6 agent. My license to kill is in the mail, they tell me. For now I have a license to mildly injure. It’s a graduated licensing system.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

This is where WebKit2PNG and Paparazzi come in. The former is a command line utility for OS X which uses the WebKit engine (the software powering Safari) to generate full page screenshots. The latter is a piece of software which offers a user friendly interface to the command line utility, making it much easier to use. I’ll focus on the features of Paparazzi first before going a little technical to explain some of the extra features offered by WebKit2PNG.

Paparazzi

Using Paparazzi is simple. Open up the application and enter your URL. You can choose the size of the window that you’re emulating and also choose to crop the resulting image. It takes a few seconds to download the screenshot, then there are several export options to different image formats.

The advantage of using this method over the in-built screenshot tool is that it takes the full length image of an entire webpage. The various export options also let you immediately compress the image, rather than being required to import into Photoshop to make changes.

WebKit2PNG

If you would like a higher degree of customization in your screenshot, or need to automate the process, you’ll need to delve a little deeper into WebKit2PNG. This is a command line tool which allows you to either take a standard cropped screenshot, or the longer variety as produced by Paparazzi.

One of the requirements to run the tool is PyObjC 1.1. This is bundled by default with Leopard, but if you’re missing it for any reason it will need installing before you proceed. It simply provides a method for executing the Python code which WebKit2PNG is built upon.

The process of taking a screenshot can be as simple as typing:

python webkit2png-0.4.sh http://theappleblog.com

This would produce three images in the current directory. One is a cropped 200x150px thumbnail, another is a full length thumbnail at 240px wide, and the final one consists of the full width, full length screenshot. The great thing about this tool is the level of customization available, some of which options are as follows:

-W WIDTH, –width=WIDTH : initial (and minimum) width of browser (default: 800)
-H HEIGHT, –height=HEIGHT : initial (and minimum) height of browser (default: 600)
–clipwidth=WIDTH : width of clipped thumbnail (default: 200)
–clipheight=HEIGHT : height of clipped thumbnail (default: 150)
-s SCALE, –scale=SCALE : scale factor for thumbnails (default: 0.25)
-o NAME, –filename=NAME : save images as NAME.png,NAME-thumb.png etc
-F, –fullsize : only create fullsize screenshot
-T, –thumb : only create thumbnail sreenshot
-C, –clipped : only create clipped thumbnail screenshot
-d, –datestamp : include date in filename
-D DIR, –dir=DIR : directory to place images into

The variety of options available allow you to essentially create any size and layout of screenshot you require. The script could even be built into an Automator workflow to process a batch of files at once, or upload them to an FTP server after the script has finished running — the possibilities are endless!

A few other screenshot tools

Whilst these two tools are great at creating full page screen captures, there are a few other notable tools out there for taking advanced screenshots on your Mac:

• Snapz Pro – Takes various screenshot styles and can also record video
• Screenshot Plus – A fairly full featured Dashboard widget
• SnapNDrag – Click a button and drag the screenshot… very simple!

Are there any other tools or techniques you use for taking screenshots? Let me know in the comments — I’d be intrigued to hear about them.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks

You can also grab screenshots directly from your computer while plugged into your iPhone or iPod Touch. First, you have to download and install the iPhone SDK. Don’t worry, it’s free. You just have to have the desktop software tools that come with the SDK.

Open Xcode and open the Organizer window (from the Window menu). Plug in your iPhone or iPod Touch and in a few seconds, it should appear in the list of devices on the left. The first time you plug in your iPhone or iPod Touch you will be asked if you want to use that device for development.

Once you’ve got your device setup, just click the “Screenshot” tab in the Organizer window and you can capture screenshots from your device. You can capture literally any screenshot, including the lock screensaver, video as it’s playing, even as you’re holding a button down.

It can come in very handy when writing tutorials or taking screenshots of your application or mobile website for use on your marketing materials.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q4: All Eyes Were on Android, 4G and the Rising Tablet Tide
• Report: A Mobile Video Market Overview
• In Q3, the Tablet and 4G Were the Big Stories