Lusus Naturae - Tools of the Trade

While purging my email inbox a few days ago, I came across my weekly alerts to The Scientist magazine articles.  Before deleting one alert, an article caught my eye--Lab 2.0.  OK, catchy title. Mouse over, then click and browse.

It was short and sweet, just detailing the latest available tools for the lab researcher--the author picked out two: Labguru, a web-based lab notebook/scheduler app for iPad; and Papers, a virtual research papers library with citation functions.  Overall, the article gave good reviews for these apps, which are available upon subscription.

This just made me scratch my head for a bit.  What are the tools of the trade available in my lab?

1. Laboratory notebook, version 1.0 - That is, the analog type. With pages printed on acid-free paper, numbered, and with matching Table of Contents on the fly-leaf.
   Advantages: Costs less than an iPad. No need to worry about breaking the GorillaGlass surface.
   Disadvantages: Coffee stains. Or tea. Or maybe methylene-blue...or is that your labmate's Coomassie?
2. EndNote - Ah, your bibliographic library of journal articles...sync-ed with your PC (unless your lab is awash with cash and everyone's issued a Mac). Can search and store articles from PubMed (NIH) or Elsevier's Web of Science.
   Advantages: Citation format for a Nature manuscript submission? SCORE!
   Disadvantages: You need tons of patience to figure out all the possible commands. Sometimes, citation insertions will eff up your manuscript format.
3. That free pocket-agenda from your university - A small and handy way to schedule your workflow for the week.
   Advantages: It's free. You just need a pen and an actual workplan to write down. Will not crash.
   Disadvantages: Someone filched your stash of pens and markers from your desk. Workplan was crashed by your PI.

What are your tools of the trade? :-D