Yes, OS X features a free built-in FTP server. But it's not the most easily configurable program ever written. You need to get very familiar with the command line if you'd like to do things like set quotas or time limits or restrict users to certain directories. You also have to create real OS X users to allow people to login as a certain user name.
CrushFTP is a Java-based FTP server which is as fast as, or faster than, the built-in FTP server. You configure it all through a GUI, easily specifying things like connection time limits, folder restrictions, bandwidth restrictions, and many other such options. But perhaps its nicest feature is that you can create users within CrushFTP itself that do not need to exist as full OS X users. No more adding multiple users to your machine just because you wish to allow someone to FTP into the box once and a while. Just create their username in CrushFTP and launch the program when you want to let them in.
CrushFTP made it possible for me to offer FTP for a co-developer on a project without needing to learn the very obscure command-line FTP configuration commands, and I could rest easy knowing the user had no way into the machine if CrushFTP wasn't already running.
A simple product that does one job very well. Configure a list of stock prices you'd like to track, and then watch them scroll across your menubar. You choose the font, width of the tracker, which fields to display, and how to use colors, and PTHStockTicker goes to work.
Simple, free, and featuring a great preferences interface, PTHStockTicker is one of those background tools I often forget I'm running until someone asks me what that thing in my menubar is...
Goliath brings fast access to your WebDAV servers, be they on mac.com or anywhere else. The Finder offers direct WebDAV access, of course, but accessing the same server through WebDAV is a much faster experience.
Keyboard Maestro is an application switcher that brings back (in the registered version) a horizontal mid-screen switcher, ala OS 9. It has a number of other features, including the ability to hide apps when switching and configurable hot keys.
jEdit is a multi-programming-language (70 of them!) text editor written in Java. It features a highly customizable environment, third-party extensions to add functionality (over 60 now available), and its own macro language.
I really like jEdit's tabbed window feature for managing all open files in one main window, and the syntax highlighting on php pages is very nice (and fully customizable, of course). I used jEdit extensively while customizing the PHP code for macosxhints.com and the macosxhints forum site.
Why only 7 out of 10 on the scorboard? jEdit is a Java application, which leads to a number of interface issues - the look is somewhat different, the scroll wheel doesn't work on the mouse, etc. But the editor itself is powerful and easy to use, so I don't mind the interface glitches all that much.
Zingg! adds an "Open With..." menu item to the contextual menu in OS X. Once you've tried it, you'll wonder how you lived without it!
Update: OS X 10.2 includes this functionality, but Zingg! still has a couple tricks up its sleeve, like specifying applications that never show in the Open With menu...
Asteroids ... Crystal Castles ... Donkey Kong ... Pac Man ... Missile Command ... Space Invaders. If the previous words have no meaning for you, then you'll probably just want to skip this article. But if some of those words bring back fond memories of a wasted youth, then you need MacMAME. MacMAME can play those games, and hundreds more, perfectly. You won't be playing a close approximation of the game, but the actual game itself! And thanks to the OpenGL plug-in (make sure you download it), the games will look much better than they ever did when you played them in the arcades. How does MacMAME play the actual game? By using the actual game's ROM (the code for the program), and these are not included with MacMAME (for obvious reasons).
This, of course, is a problem. Technically, you'll have to own a full-size version of each game that you wish to play ... and you'll have to find a way to dump the machine's ROM to a media that you can read on your Mac. All this because the game manufacturers won't come up with a ROM licensing scheme -- despite the fact that they would make much more money on licensing than they do on the games - which is basically $0, given that most have long since died out. So if you don't own the game, you have no easy means to play it legally...
I leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide for themselves how, if at all, they will acquire ROMs to use with MacMAME.
If you work with MySQL databases at all, and would like to interact with them with something other than the command line, check out phpMyAdmin. This web-based tool is easy to configure and offers nearly the full power of MySQL in a much easier to access tool. From queries to browsing to importing and exporting, phpMyAdmin makes it easy to manage you MySQL database.
I use phpMyAdmin extensively to manage the local macosxhints.com database I use for testing and story posting each day. Once I've published each day's hints locally, I use phpMyAdmin to export them, then run a script on the main website to import the resulting text file.
phpMyAdmin makes it easy to manage your MySQL databases from anywhere you happen to be with an easy to understand interface ... check it out!
So you want to print the contents of a Finder window, as you did in OS 9. But wait, the "Print" menu is missing! Never fear, PrintWindow to the rescue.
Before I found this utility, printing Finder windows involved pasting text from the Finder to a text editor, or opening the Terminal application, or taking screenshots. None of these were ideal, to say the least. Now I just drag and drop the folder onto the PrintWindow icon and I'm done!
Until Apple gets around to adding "Print" back to the Finder's menu, PrintWindow is the best solution I've run across...