Computer Stuff

Acer GridVista (Vista Only): I really don't like Vista—it helps me too much—but I really like this tool. It will partition your monitor space in various ways, which is especially good if you have multiple/very large screens. What this tool does that I absolutely love is it will lock a window to always be on top. It also has the ability to make a window transparent.
Notepad++: I absolutely LOVE this text editor. In fact, this entire site was coded using it.
This is a no-frills editor with very nice, customizable syntax coding. It's recognized every language I've ever needed, minus JSP, but you really need an IDE for that.
I'd also recommend the AutoSave plugin. You'll have to manually drag-and-drop the plugin to the plugins folder for Notepad++, but it's worth it.
FreeMind: This is a great multi-platform mind mapping tool. If you don't have a white board, this is the next best thing. While the controls take a little getting used to, the overall benefit more than justifies the learning curve.
Fences: I'm one of those people who uses their desktop for everything, and doing that sometimes makes it a bit confusing. Fences is a product (free!) for desktop organization; it literally "fences" your icons into manageable spaces which can then be resized.
WinFontsView: This tool is incredibly handy for people who do a lot of graphics work involving text. The light utility shows every what every font looks like without having to deal with the annoyances of some graphics programs' own displays.
UBitMenu: I love this plug-in. It puts the familiar menus back into Office '07/'10.