Last night I set up a trial FogBugz account. FogBugz is a web-based software project management system that combines a wiki, scheduling tools, bug ticketing, and customer support tools. Yesterday I saw a video of Joel Spolsky giving a demo, and I'd found it almost as riveting as a Steve Jobs keynote. I had to try it.

It's easy to set up a trial account. Just go to the main FogBugz web page, scroll down, and enter the name you would like: _____.fogbugz.com. If the name's available, you go through a quick email confirmation and they reserve your account for one day. You don't have to enter a credit card number or answer any "May we contact you about future products?" questions. They just want you to try their product, no strings attached.

Thought it's designed for teams, FogBugz has a lot of qualities I've been looking for in a personal wiki/task-manager. For one thing, the user interaction is really nice. Comparing FogBugz to other systems I've used, I'd say it's like using the iPhone compared to other phones. There's a level of thought behind it that goes beyond the utilitarian.

I suspect the feature that blows most people away is the "Evidence-Based Scheduling." It would have been easy to do what every other project scheduler does, which is add up estimates and spit out a projected ship date that reflects the team's wishful thinking as much as anything. FogBugz models the uncertainty inherent in project scheduling, based on the historical accuracy of people's estimates.

FogBugz has some other cool goodies. For example:

• Screenshot capture. You can download a tool (Windows or Mac) that lets you capture a screenshot, crop it, and upload it to FogBugz in just a few clicks. On the Mac you install it with a .pkg, which I wondered about, but upon closer inspection I understand why.
• Snippets. You can define keyboard macros, which they call "snippets," and customize the key you use to invoke them. You can *group* snippets using a "category/name" format. You can define snippets to be global or personal.
• Easy SCM integration (haven't tried this yet). They give you the scripts you need to install on your SCM server so that links are automatically created between your FogBugz tickets (which they call "cases") and your SCM commits. I've used a Trac system that did this kind of linking, and I loved it, as well as the ability to receive emails whenever somebody commits.

At the special price of $21 a month, I'm almost certain I'll get an account for my personal stuff. I would do it even at the full price of $25 a month. Before committing, I want to play with it a little more, and see if I find any dealbreakers when I get over my initial enthusiasm. It's true that even committing wouldn't really be committing — Fog Creek offers an unconditional money-back guarantee on their products. But I'd rather not have to go that route.

I never thought I'd see the day when an Ajax web app would excite me as much as a major Mac OS release. Leopard is coming out today, and yet the thing I look forward to spending my money on is FogBugz.

UPDATE: In the comments, Eric from Fog Creek pointed out that you can opt for the "Startup and Student Edition," which allows up to two users on your account for free. Naturally, I switched over to that option, and the fact that Eric pointed it out is much appreciated. I'll have more to say about FogBugz when I've used it more — I haven't been able to give it much attention just yet.