I just discovered Fritzing; an application for designing electronic projects and laying-out PCBs. The software is dependable, has a useful website with tutorials and project examples, and they are even starting a fabrication service in Dec 2010. Fritzing was started in August 2007 by the Interaction Design Lab at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Germany.
When you launch the software you begin with a breadboard. Then you drag components from a large list on the right, choosing options for the parts. Adjusting rotation, color, and placement is all fairly intuitive. While I found working with “2.5D” perspective is a little awkward at first, you get used to it. For output, you can select between Breadboard, Schematic, and PCB views on the bottom right.
Here’s a design to accompany a previous sketch, Fading an LED with PWM and a Potentiometer
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