Here are some bits of software I use.
Many of them are free, but some require a registration fee (shareware).
If you download a shareware application and find that it's useful, please please please pay the author.
Textpad is a very good text editor.
It loads quickly, has a good interface, handles files of any size (as binary or text), and has configurable highlighting.
What more can I say? It's cool. I use it. Still, I'm always on the lookout for something better:
a good text editor is an absolutely essential tool.
I use it for HTML, SQL, ASP, awk, csh, ksh...
Also has a nice diff tool.
Shareware GBP 16.50
(http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/Default.aspx)
This is an awesome project: an open source integrated development environment (IDE) for .NET.
#Develop enables you to build C# or VB.NET projects in the same way that the Visual Studio .NET IDE does.
It aims eventually to let you do anything you can in VS.NET (and more).
At the time of writing, it's in beta, and I've had a couple of crashes, but it's very stable.
It has visual designers for VB.NET and C#, and the code editing has intellisense which is almost as good as VS.NET.
Well worth a try if you can't afford 800 quid or so for the MS product.
Open source competitor for MS Office.
Has word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software.
I've only really used the presentation part so far.
It's cool.
I don't think you can do quite such nifty stuff as you can with Powerpoint, but for me it's way good enough.
A particularly nice feature of all the apps is that you can export directly to PDF.
Excellent little FTP client. Flexible. Usable. Nice.
The also have a pro version which supports SFTP.
Shareware USD 39.99
Compression utility. You've heard of it. You've probably got it installed on your PC.
<rant> So PAY THE REGISTRATION FEE, TIGHTWAD! </rant>
Shareware USD 29.00
This may sound slightly esoteric, but when you need it, you need it.
Ethereal is a snooper or port-watcher. It logs all the data sent/received by your PC to/from the network.
You can filter to look at a specific port, or traffic to/from a particular IP address.
Freeware
(http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/)
Telnet client. Supports secure shell (SSH). also has secure REXEC and secure FTP clients.
Essential if you're hooking up to secure hosts.
Freeware
Unix users are used to having a powerful, fast file-search utility, but windows users are starved in this area. Windows Grep is simply a windows equivalent for its unix namesake. It works nicely; it has a good interface; it's fast, and it has a nice replace feature. File searching is often overlooked in windows, because the operating system doesn't come with a nice utility for doing it. I shall omit the very tempting rant. Just get Windows Grep.
Shareware USD 30.00
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/htmlhelp/html/vsconHH1Start.asp)
This free microsoft product is a collection of tools to build windows HTML help files.
That's the kind of help you see with all MS - and most other - applications.
Essentially, it's a compiler and a tool to manage collections of source files (mostly HTML files). There's also a simple editor, but you probably want to use your own.
The whole process is a bit clunky, but quite usable. There are a whole raft of free and shareware products which sit on top of this one to give you WYSIWYG editing and superior project handling, and you may want to look at those as well. In particular, check out "Help & Manual".
Icon Editor (what did you think?).
Does everything you'd expect. Does it nicely. Handles your icons in convenient libraries. Buy it if you do icons.
Shareware USD 34.95
(http://www.fogcreek.com/CityDesk/)
Web site management tool.
The best I've seen. I use it for this site.
You set up templates (or use the default one)
to give your pages a consistent look and feel.
Then all you have to do is click "New Article", type in some text and click "Publish", and voila, your new page appears on your site.
Not only that, but it's indexed on your home page (or wherever) and appears in the site map and navigation menu ... however you've set it up.
The library of templates on the website means you probably never have to write one yourself unless you want to.
The free version handles sites containing up to 50 items. That's a lot for most people.
If you need more then 300 dollars is a snip for something that will save you hours.
(And it's so much cheaper than many comparable products).
Freeware / Shareware USD 299.00
Finally, I have to mention the site without which I'd have found a lot less cool (and reasonably priced) software.
Larkware is run by a nice man who lives (as far as I can discern) in the Wild West of America. I don't know if he actually wears a six-shooter, but he owns a farm and is a guru in several areas of technology. Also, he gets up far too early in the morning just so he can post interesting links on his website for me to read.
Big Thanks, Mike ;-)