[chuck]

Quicksilver

zen mac-ified.

although rumors persist of it's demise - it's a sweet little launcher - and has so much extension power built in.

Growl - is dead handy - system-wide and nifty.

seconded VLC - although with Perian and Flip4Mac - most content plays in QT. Get QT Pro-d.

get more RAM - 2GB if you can. that'll make everything better.

If you feel like mucking around - VMWare's Fusion is super. I've got Ubuntu and Windows XP virtual sessions that I fire up every now and again. Although Ubuntu is so GUI - it doesn't feel very hackish at all.

I like TextWrangler for text editing.

I use Firefox 3 on my personal iMac - but on my school supplied Macbook - FF3 eats itself - so trial your browsers.

Fluid - is neat. Helps you make stand-alone web apps. Try it out.

Appcleaner is good for tidying up your files/apps - and deleting associated crud.

I should have done links with all of those - but just do a google for them.