I've been using the Macintosh since 1988, when I switched from an AT&T computer with two floppy drives (no hard drive) running DOS. Still makes me cringe. Suddenly I found myself with a huge hard drive (40 gigs!), a mouse, and a wonderful graphical user interface. In those days, the Mac was way way WAY ahead of the PC world (and still is, BTW).

While I've always used the heavy-duty programs (Photoshop, Pagemaker, Word, PowerPoint, etc.), a number of very useful utilities and miscellaneous programs have come and gone. Right now, here are some of the "little" programs that I find useful.

• DefaultFolder makes quick work in dialogue boxes.
• iTunesRating, a menubar item, lets me rate songs while working in other programs.
• BBEdit, for writing and editing blog posts (I'm using it now), and writing and editing HTML. Will read most any text file.
• Fetch, my FTP program. I've tried bunches of others, but always prefer Fetch. Especially the integration with BBEdit.
• Databackup, for backing up my stuff.
• Disclabel designs and prints DVD/CD labels.
• Dragthing, a launcher, stays on tbe left side of my screen.
• FontAgentPro keeps my zillions of fonts organized.
• Microsoft Expression Media (formerly iView) for viewing gobs of photos (when I don't want to import them into iPhoto).
• SnapzProx takes my screenshots.
• ThumbsUp (freeware) is great for making thumbnails.
• Art Directors Toolkit continually helps me out in Photoshop and Dreamweaver.