Essential laptop utilities for bloggers

Perhaps, like Alexis, you already got yourself a new laptop for Xmas/Hannukah/Diwali/ Eid-al-Futr/Winter Solstice. (Maybe we should rename it the Festival of LEDs.) Or you're getting one in a few days all wrapped up in nice paper. Here are my recommendations for the three most useful laptop utilities. Each has the advantages of being intuitive to use and applicable to multiple tasks.

• Textpad (from Helios) -- A deceptively simple yet powerful text editing tool, indispensible for transferring text from one application to another while stripping it of bad code, graphics and unwanted formatting. Can't decide if the best secret use is doing search-and-replace on multiple files (I've used it to edit over 200 files simultaneously with a single search-and-replace string) or its help in tagging different kinds of HTML tags with colors that make a web page easy to edit. For those situations when you have to edit HTML (or any code) by hand, you can't find a better tool.
• SnagIt (from TechSmith) -- Fantastic screen-capture and picture-editing utility. I use it to grab all sorts of graphics from the web for my nefarious purposes and to edit pictures I take myself. If you think using Photoshop to edit simple photos is like using a cannon to shoot a fly, you'll find yourself using Snagit 99% of the time instead.
• CuteFTP Home (from GlobalScape) -- A lovely simple utility that allows you to upload stuff to your website. In addition to this obvious use, I also use it as a backup tool. I created a hidden directory, named with a nonsense word, on my website, and I FTP drafts of creative projects there. The best part of this is that I can now access the files in this password-protected directory from any web browser.

Altogether, these tools will cost you a hundred bucks. Don't you have three friends who are scratching their heads for something to get you for Xmas? Problem solved!