When I first got my Mac, I made a list of the software that I was using … of course, that list is old as some of the software just didn’t make the grade over time. So maybe it is time for me to revise my list.

Keep in mind that this list is my list of non-Apple programs for you to download. I use most of the programs supplied by Apple, especially the iLife suite.

• Ecto … If you blog, you must have this as it is simply the best blogging tool available.

• Shrook … an RSS news reader/aggregator. If you don’t know what I mean by that sentence, you may want to read this article. Anyway, I didn’t think I would ever replace NetNewsWire, but Shrook takes things a couple steps beyond by displaying the web page in the same window to ease the transition between RSS feed to web site.

• Proteus … a multi-protocol instant messenging agent. Since I log into multiple IM services, the last thing I need is half-dozen apps for each one. While not being actively developed, it works quite well and has a nice interface. I do keep my eye on Fire, but its features haven’t been compelling enough to make the switch. Update: AdiumX has just been updated, and it is pretty, er… cute. It has some potential for displacing Proteus.

• WeatherPop … nicely informative weather reporter that sits in the menu bar.

• QuickSilver … There are a number of programs that launch applications or files on your system by typing the initial letters of what you want. After struggling with a number of menu-oriented solutions, I was convinced to try QuickSilver by this article. I’m now a believer. But since there are a couple of other contenders in this market, I may have to try them out: Butler and LaunchBar.

• Konfabulator … I think most people who try this program out, just love it, but realize that most of these “widgets” reside on the desktop, and unless I’ve just rebooted, I never see my desktop. However, there is one widget that I position all of my windows around … iTunesBar.

  Update: It was hard to justify using Konfabulator for just one widget, so I got a dedicated app that I like a lot more: Synergy. While it doesn’t constantly display the name of artist, you can pull it up with a single key. Very nice. SizzlingKeys is another version, that while not quite as pretty, is freeware.

• Acquisition … a P2P file sharing program. While I don’t use it very often, I’ve settled on this Gnutella program.

• Fugu … a file transfer program that allows you to transfer using secure FTP and SCP. Granted, I mostly just type “scp” in my Terminal program.

• WireTap … takes the audio from any program and writes it to disk. I have a few concerts on DVD, and using this program I am able to extract the “songs” and convert them into MP3s to play in iTunes.

• DVDBackup … useful for making backup copies of DVDs. However, since most commercial DVDs contain double to storage of what a DVD burner can make, it really is just good for viewing DVDs from your hard drive.

• iPulse … a beautiful system resource monitor tool that sits quite nicely on the Dock until you are ready for more detailed information.

• StarfishX … an abstract desktop pattern generator that I run from crontab each day.

• iTerm … a Terminal replacement that puts multiple shell sessions in one window with multiple tabs. I also set up a list of SSH sessions on its pulldown menus, so logging into my servers is a snap.

• For Developers … I use Eclipse, a fab Java IDE that works quite nicely on the Mac, and would like to use CocoaMySql more often (but all of my MySQL database instances are running on my servers, not my workstations).

Some final thoughts … I alternate between Safari and Firefox for my browsing capabilities. I also alternate between Apple’s Mail program and Thunderbird (Mozilla) as I like the way Apple’s Mail program works well with the Addressbook (which I have syncing to my Palm Pilot), but if I have to send out HTML-formatted email, then I just into Thunderbird.

Most of the hacks that I’ve used, I’ve dropped. I really like FruitMenu, but it is based on APE, which makes my startup time painfully slow and I think it makes my system unstable, so I got rid of it. I really like YouControl, but I don’t like it enough to pay $70 for it.

Do you still need more software diversions?