Retrophisch™ on the Eddys
Taking a cue from Michael, I'd thought I'd look at the 2004 Macworld Editors Choice Awards to see how they fit in my hardware and software toolbelt:
+ GarageBand 1.1 - I used it once. It needs more oomph than my 1 GHz PowerBook can provide.
+ BBEdit 8.0 - as with Michael, I use it every day
+ Toast - has saved the bacon more than once, and again, as Michael says, nothing else can touch it
+ Snapz Pro X 2.0 - still using the last 1.x version, and I rarely take screen shots
That's about it as far as the items I have actual experience with. That said, a few comments on others that made the list:
+ Photoshop Elements 3 - I could maybe get excited about Elements if (a) I didn't already have Photoshop, and (b) it offered photo organization and competed against iPhoto (which I do not use for photo organization)
+ FileMaker Pro 7 - I want to like it, really I do, but I feel 4D still outmatches it; granted, I haven't played with either in three years, so I'm just going off what I read and hear from people I trust
+ Halo: Combat Evolved - like many Mac users, I was looking forward to Halo, until Bungie was bought by Microsoft and the entire project was lost for three years while the Evil Empire ripped off Sony and Nintendo created the Xbox; I'm not sure my PowerBook's 32MB of video RAM would do it justice, and the Cube's processor won't even touch it. Plus, it's still fifty bucks.
+ QuarkXPress 6.5 - not that they will ever tell us, but I'm curious to know how much market share Quark has lost to InDesign. Not only because Quark's customer service feeds on the bottom of the scum pond, but also because it took them a couple of years to come out with a native OS X version. I personally know of more than one shop that has made the conversion to InDesign, and plans to never return.
+ OmniWeb 5.0.1 - I want to like OmniWeb, really I do; I download every beta and play around with it, but always return to Safari and Camino. I'm addicted to tabs and Safari's bookmark implementation.