Hargobind Khalsa

Apache is the industry standard. As such it commands a high degree of respect. The biggest asset that apache has is that you can trust it. You can trust that development isn't going to stop tomorrow. You can trust that it's still going to be around in a few years. You know that you can get support. You don't have to worry about the software being abandoned a few weeks after completing a project that depends on on.

For some these are very important reasons to pick apache. On the other had there are several newer http servers out there that are less bloated, quicker on their feet, and still provide all the features most users will want. So if you want a server that you can depend upon not only from a technical perspective but also from a social perspective, apache may be exactly what you need, but if what you want is something a little lighter and easier to completely wrap your head around then projects such as lighttpd or nginx might be worth a look.

GPG is a great tool, but this attempt to wrap them with a Cocoa interface leaves a lot to be desired. The tools in this project tend to fit together poorly. One tool will duplicate the functionality of another tool while implementing it in a slightly different way or letting you do something *slightly* different with it. This makes the interface confusing and inefficient.
Despite the interface being native Cocoa they feel more bolted on then most application that run on X11.
I installed these tools once and quickly decided that installing gpg with mac ports and running it from the command line was much better. If you absolutely don't want to touch the terminal thou I suppose Mac GPG might be able to help.

OpenOffice.org is bloated and is just as confusing as the horrible Microsoft Office it's trying to clone. If all you're looking for is a free Microsoft Office then this is it. If you want something that you can use, that isn't slow and bloated. That gives you good looking results... well look somewhere else. I'd recommend LaTeX, but the learning curve means that it isn't necessarily a suitable option for everyone.

Pros:
- Free
- Open Source
- Supports open standards
Cons:
- Confusing
- Bloated
- Clearly a clone of MS Office