Tools I use and I recommend!

In the order of preference -

Knowledge:

• TED (Ted.com) or download via Miro (Look below).

Torrent and downloading:

• Azureus Vuze (Client)
• Torrentz and mininova.org for torrents.
• Desitorrents for Indian torrents.
• Miro client for Discovery, Natgeo, TED and technical videos downloads.

Document Editing and File Editing:

• Notepad++

Productivity / Health:

• Workrave
• Belevedere (search for it on lifehacker.com)

Media Player:

• VLC Media Player (Video)
• Media Monkey (Songs)

Desktop Must applications:

• Picasa 3 for Photo viewing and editing
• MS Photostory and Moviemaker for making videos out of photos
• Comodo or Zonealarm or Windows default firewall for firewall
• AVG for anti-virus application
• Putty and Putty connection Manager for SSH, Telnet or remote logging.
• Foxit reader for PDF file reading
• Photoshop CS2,3,4 for advance photo editing
• SUPER application for Video file format converting. (VOB to AVI, FLV to AVI, WMV to MP3 etc)
• 7-Zip for Zip, Unzip, Rar, Unrar.
• Filezilla for FTP

General Websites I recommend:

• Google (For all your requirements)
• Gmail (Mail)
• Google Reader (RSS)
• Lifehacker (Check posts everyday for something fun and interesting)
• Twitter (Microblogging)
• WordPress and blogger (Blogging)
• Delicious (Bookmarking)
• Alltop, Google News (News headlines)
• LinkedIn for professional profile

Internet Browsing:

• Firefox with plugins
  • Firebug
  • Downthemall
  • Web Development
  • IE Tab
  • Delicious
  • Stumbleupon
  • Video DownloadHelper
• Google Chrome
• Safari (Experimenting)

Java and Web Development:

• Netbeans and Aptana
• Blueprint CSS framework
• Groovy and Grails framework
• Scriptaculous, Prototype and jQuery Framework for JavaScript
• Firebug in Firefox
• iUi and IWebkit frameworks for iPhone Web Development

Geekier Websites:

• Nettuts, PSDTuts, VectorTuts for all tutorials
• Themeforest.net for web development tutorials
• Hacker news and YCombinator for Geek news
• slashdot, codinghorror for geek news
• eSnips for documents, ebooks.