Mike's Programs

Talking Clocks -- Mike's famous Talking Clocks. No install, just download and run.
MMKeys -- Simple program which runs in the background and allows you to press the play/pause/stop/skip/backwards keys to control Napster or Rhapsody, even if Napster or Rhapsody is minimized.
WindowCaffeine -- Simple program which allows you to tell your windows (2000,XP, Vista) computer to not automatically suspend/hibernate/shutdown for a predetermined time.
WindowPoker -- Simple Program to wakeup my desktop. You'll have to recompile it for you mac address. (Feel free to ask for registry or a text box mac address input)
Adaptive Cruise Control -- Mike's adaptive cruise control senior project

Favorite Programs

Every now and then I have someone ask me for a good program to do X.
This is a compilation of the programs I suggest. Unless it's marked with a '$', it's free.
They are ordered by my personal preference.

Internet Tools

Internet Explorer 7 for Vista -- With tabbed browsing and protected mode, I use this in Vista. For XP I still prefer Firefox, as IE7 for XP still has some issues on my machines.
Firefox -- Good overall browser. Safer than IE6.
Opera -- Fast Browser

Productivity Tools

Ideally use Office 2003. That is what businesses are generally using, and the more proficient you are in Office 2003, the better off you will be. Check for Microsoft Employee programs where you work. Many office have a Home Users Program, allowing you to buy the full version of Office for a mere $20 shipped. If you quit you can't run the programs anymore. If you don't have a program, consider the student, home version (non-commercial use only) for just $150.
If you just want something simple, go with AbitWord. It's fast and efficient. Yes it has a spell checker, and it opens, writes regular word files. If you want Office, but can't afford it, try StarOffice or OpenOffice (the open source version of StarOffice). They are slower than Office, but come pretty close in terms of functionality, and operation.

Microsoft Office 2003 $150 -- Fast lightweight. Student Version.
Office 2007 $150 -- completely rearranged. Free 60 trial. Student version.
AbiWord -- light weight open source editor similar to Word 97
StarOffice -- Free via Google Pack OpenOffice with a better spellchecker
OpenOffice -- Open source Office, but slower and not always fully compatible

Utilities

CDEX -- Free cd ripper (aka make mp3s from your cd collection)

Virus/Spyware Scanners

    Virus scanners are a personal preference. I prefer a fast lightweight scanner (AVG, Avast) with the built in Windows XP firewall. I get basically no performance penalty for having decent virus protection. No compatibility problems, and its free. I periodically run scans with Spybot, but don't have issues with spyware. Especially since I run firefox.
    Others may prefer an all encompassing solution (Bit Defender, Kaspersky, escan, etc..) with a custom firewall (not the windows XP firewall) with spam filtering etc..
    I recommend against Norton and McAfee due to their large footprint and install, uninstall problems. These programs give you about a 20% general system slow down, with about a 2000% file IO slowdown.

AVG Antivirus -- fast (~19% file IO penalty) , small footprint, doesn't slow down system. Free for home only.
Avast Antivirus -- fast (~8% file IO penalty), small footprint, doesn't slow down system. Free for home only.
Spybot Search and Destroy -- fast, free and effective spyware scanner
BitDefender $40/yr -- complete virus, spyware, spam, firewall solution. Check for rebate deals
Kaspersky $80/yr -- Arguably the best virus scanner you can get. Not many deals.