The top two Mac IRC clients. Register ircle ($20) or register Snak ($20). Learn more about IRC. For help, come visit us in DALnet's #macintosh (instructions on how to connect are here).

The most powerful ircle script, this will really change the way you IRC. It's a free download, and the extensive documentation is online. HipScript has no war features, only things that are useful on IRC, such as user-defineable alises, timed commands, and automatic DALnet services integration.

An ESSENTIAL file if you download anything from the Internet. Now availble for Windows as well! StuffIt Deluxe is the full suite, DropStuff quickly creates archives, and the freeware Expander is used to decompress archives, such as .SIT, .HQX, .BIN, .ZIP and others.

DAVE emulates NetBIOS, allowing you to share files between Windows and MacOS, as well as log onto NT networks and share printers. PC MacLan emulates AppleTalk, allowing you to share files and printers to a Mac.

Software that provides Network Address Translation (NAT), allowing multiple machines to access the Internet. Also acts as a firewall, preventing unauthorised access.

Telnet clients for Mac OS, used to access remote systems -- a must have!

ICQ clients for Mac OS -- Gerry's ICQ has more features.

Implementations of the internet standards ping, traceroute, finger, whois, and other utilities. OTTools is free, IPNM isn't.

A free FTP client, another must-have for basic internet functions.

If your drive has problems or you need to recover data, try this excellent piece of software from MicroMat Software.

If TechTool Pro can't help, chances are Norton will instead.

DiskWarrior uses different methods to the above tools to recover your data in the event of a serious crash.

Bare Bones Editor, which is anything but. A highly extensible piece of software, used by thousands of people around the world for HTML creation, word processing, and general text file editing.

This page was created in Dreamweaver. A wonderfully intuitive HTML editor, with a built-in HTML reference and on-the-fly syntax-checker. The HTML development tool of choice by many webmasters. Integrates with all other Macromedia products.

You've all seen them -- the online games such as the ones provided at Newgrounds, Flash is the most widely used interactive content generator.

If Photoshop is out of your price range, Firework is an ideal image editor, with professional features such as image slicing.

A handy free utility to tell you about your CPU (temp/speed/type, etc).

The best Macintosh emulator available for Windows. You will need a ROM file from a working Macintosh in order to use it, or you can buy ROMs from the above site.

Emulates PC hardware on your Macintosh, allowing you to run Windows or whatever other OS you like. Can be purchased with a variety of operating systems.

A free Macintosh compiler, supports C, C++, and a variety of languages.

The Apple Software Update library, a fully searchable archive of all Apple software updates. Many pieces of software will require you to be using the latest version of various Apple extensions -- download them here.

The Apple Technical Information Library, a huge database of any compatibility issues Apple hardware may have. Make this your first stop when trying to troubleshoot seemingly obscure problems.

Having problems? Check this site out, you may well find far more than you're looking for.

Bookmark this website now, it's invaluable. This is a huge database of Macintosh software, which keeps track of the latest versions.

Mac OS Mac OS X

The Windows version of the above, keeps track of WIndows software versions.

C|Net's Macintosh download area, including shareware, freeware and commercial demos.

Another large software archive.

The main Tucows archive, with software of loads of platforms.

A massive Windows shareware/freeware archive, covering practically every category of software.

A search engine for software. If you know what you're after, look here.

The InterNet Macintosh User Group has a collection of links and resources, and provides support over IRC. Join today!

For those of you wishing to run an eggdrop IRC bot, check out this site, it's full of useful information, and tells you exactly how to set up an eggdrop.

THE place to buy your RAM online or offline, for Macs and other machines. As well as being one of the cheapest places online, the memory they sell is high quality and backed by a lifetime warranty. If you ever need any RAM, check them out first.

If you need to make your Windows machine talk to your Macintosh machine, here is a great place to start. They have a large assortment of software to enable cross-platform co-operation.

The Mac Show Live - on every Wednesday at 0200GMT or 1800PST. Turn on, tune in, drop out! Even better, call in. The bet Macintosh chat show on the planet.