Some of my favorite software

Internet related software

Netscape Navigator - I don't care what the magazines say, IE may be a touch faster, but Netscape is easier to use and navigate with if you have more than 2 neurons. IE's biggest failure is how it treats bookmarks...oops...sorry, Favorites. Try searching for a particular bookmark in Netscape and then in IE and tell me which one you prefer.
Pegasus email client - the most versatile email client, powerful filters, advanced reply-to options, but its best feature may be that it strips HTML off incoming mail.
Forte Free Agent - the best newsgroup reader, allows more offline work than the others. And it's free!
Dunce - automate your system for internet connections. Does the following:

Bypasses the Connect To Dialog.
Redials even when Windows 95 internal redial won't work.
Reconnects you in the event of a disconnect.
Minimizes the Connected To Dialog.
Expands the Details on the Connected To Dialog.
Enters your password for you in the Connect To Dialog.
Runs and Closes up to Four programs.
Responds to one User Defined Prompt.
Dials into the Internet when you start a program that needs you to be connected.
Bypasses Microsoft Network prompts.
Allows you to schedule connections to run at set times.
Has a convenient tray icon to show you that it is running and allow you to access its feature

On a somewhat related note, if you've got your email client configured to send HTML, turn it off!!! Not all mail readers can handle it, it's extra code to upload, download (makes notes at LEAST twice as large) and display. And if you're on a mailing lists that has digest mode it shows up as garbage. If you're not sure how to turn it off go to one of these sites:

http://www.expita.com/nomime.html or http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/listadmins/plaintext.html

Music related software

Catraxx2000 - An amazing CD database package. Tons of reports, customizable, and outputs html. I've tried them all and paid for this one.
Musicmatch Jukebox - The free version rips mp3 files at near cd quality (the $$ version does it faster and at higher quality). It also burn cds, and allows you to listen to music at work :-)
Exact Audio Copy (EAC) - a painstakingly thorough program for doing the best DAE of a music cd.
Feurio! - CD Burning software that supports cue sheets, cd-text, cddb support and several more cool features.

General Use software

Notetab - a versitile text editor with tons of customization options. Great for doing HTML the hard way.
Smartboard 2000 - tired of the fact that Window's clipboard can only remember one thing at a time? Then get this. The free version makes you look at ads but only at the instant you invoke Smartboard.
PowerDesk - a file manager that provides you with single or dual pane file management windows, a powerful file finder, zip and unzip capabilities, a dialog helper, plus many other features. FREE for the download, $20 to upgrade to the Pro version.