Capturing the screen, or a portion of it, can be a function that's very handy. You can use

screen capture programs

to save the screen to a file for later reference. You can use them to snag an error message before it disappears or you can use them to grab pictures from the Internet. This week Doc Callahan takes a look at three

free screen capture programs

that make it easy to save your screen.

Find something cool on the Web you want to show your friends? Have an error message you want to share with your geeky friend? You can use Print Screen Deluxe to capture all or part of your screen. You can save it as a file, print it out and more.

When you're trying to explain an error message, show your geeky friend a strange quirk that keeps cropping up on your computer, when you're trying to share information from a web page or save it for posterity, it's true that a picture is worth a thousand words. Snagit from Techsmith is a great way to capture all or a portion of your computer screen. We'll show you how.