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Aside from the fact that I like my line and paragraph spacing set up a certain way (a personal nuance), I need a word count and I'm not aware of any raw text editor that offers that.

Download TextWrangler - it's free.

Open your file. Click "View -> Get Info." Chars, Words, Lines, Pages in the document and for any selected text.

I'd suggest TextWrangler [by the same company that makes BBEdit]. It's free and is fully-functional as a general text editor [and also does file and folder diffs]. And it has a separate cli tool so you can use it from the command line [even from scripts or from other tools like p4 that want a tool that blocks until you are finished editting]. That's a feature I really like, because if you use 'normal' apps like TextEdit, you have to quit the application for scripted use to continue, while with TextWrangler, you just have to close the window.

http://www.bbedit.com/products/textwrangler/index. shtml

Linked version with condensed summary. I wanted to find out more about some of them. Others may benefit too.

Ecto a blogging client (but the site seems to be down: try this for more info). Shareware, $17.95.
Transmit an FTP client. Shareware, $17.95
Sync Services -- comes with 10.4
BBedit text/html editor. $125, but worth it.
Missing Synch for Windows Mobile - synchronize with PDA/smartphones. $49.95/$39.95
OmniGraffle - diagramming / flowchart program. $79.95 / $149.95
ConceptDraw - another diagramming / flowchart program. $299
IChat AV - built-in to 10.4
AppleScript, Scriptdebugger - also built-in. No link. I'm getting lazy.
Microsoft Entourage -- part of MS Office.
Sketchfigher 4000 Alpha -- a game from the great Ambrosia Software. $19.00
TypeIt4Me - keyboard macro expander. $27
NetworkLocation - automatically trigger configuration changes depending upon where you are on the network (e.g., at home, work, etc.). $15
Apple Remote Desktop 3 - control / configure Mac systems remotely. $499 / $299 (unlimited / 10 systems)
MacLinkPlus - file conversion software (e.g., from WordPerfect documents to/from Word, and many others). $79
Parallels Desktop for Mac - virtualization software (e.g., run Win XP simultaneously with OS X). $79.
Remote Desktop Connection - connect remotely to a Windows desktop. FREE
Snap X Pro - screen / movie capture. $29
Boot Camp - dual boot Windows. I'm lazy.
PDF - Portable Document Format from Adobe? What?
Lingon - tool for making launchd scripts for 10.4.
Workgroup Manager - manage local systems - part of 10.4 Server.

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Okay, a mildly interesting list. Here's a few more suggestions:

Cyberduck - FTP and SFTP client. Donationware.
VLC - cross-platform video viewer / transcoder.
Blender 3D - cross-platform 3D modelling / rendering.
Bookends - excellent bibliography software. $99
Celestia - cross-platform real-time 3D astronomy simulator.
Plot - a, uh, plotting / graphing program.
proFit - another plotting / graphing program, non-free. $95
WordService - adds a bunch of text reformatting tools to the Services menu, making them accessible in any program. The same page has a bunch of other useful and free services.

The original article lists PDF, but no tools. While its true OS X native support makes PDF pretty easy to use, there's still some tasks that are awkward and some useful tools out there to do t

realistically, how many ppl use Joe?

I use joe for several hours every day. It's the first thing I install on any new machine (including my Macs).

I'll use something like BBEdit if I'm going to be doing tons of cutting and pasting. But for 90% of jobs, joe is perfect and the fastest approach.

Also I can set the keybindings to be the same for joe and the Mac's edit widgets, so everything works more or less the same.

A little trickier. I have yet to find a really good text editor under OS X that I like.

Try BB Edit (Lite = free, Pro = commercial). It's generally considered to be the BEST text editor for the Mac. I wish something like it was available for the PC.

I used to use the Remote Desktop feature of MS's Netmeeting. Now I use VNC and the OS X VNCThing client to access my Windows desktop.

Not sure if that's the same as MS's Terminal Server Client, but if so, MS just released a freeware version of that for the Mac as well.

We have two iBooks in the "Casa de Officemonkey" and we've been very happy with them.

Hardware

Mrs. Officemonkey runs an older clamshell tangerine iBook running Mac OS 9.2. Her battery is good for ~4 hours per charge.

I have a newish iBook (tail end of 2001) in the snowcase. Sadly my battery is good for only 3.5 hours. It runs Mac OS X and does most of what you're asking about.

We both use Airport to connect to a base station that is hooked up to our DSL modem. The chargers for the iBooks are "Yo-Yo's", so the cords wrap up pretty neatly. I'm told the new chargers are even more compact.

I have big ham fingers, but I like the keyboard on my iBook. My keyboard features an inverted-T cursor pad on the right-hand side which also maps to pgup, pgdn, home, and end.

My iBook is smaller, slimmer, and lighter compared to my 2-year old Compaq Armada laptop, but the iBook doesn't have a floppy drive, infrared port, or card slots. It also gets pretty durned hot.

The one-button trackpad has my vote for the lamest Apple feature holdout. I'd also like a bigger screen, but I was cheap (I bought the system on clearance for $999).

All in all, I like the new iBook's hardware as much, or better than any laptop I've ever used. It reminds me of my Palm V.

Software

If you're interested in web development, Mac OS X is a good platform, but there are a few caveats...

Mark Liyanage packages PHP and MySQL, and Fink does a really good job of making a whole lot of *nix-y things available in Debian-like packages. Between these two sites you should be able to equip your iBook with the necessary tools.

Also, Mac OS X has some unusual directory conventions and the Apache configuration file is a little non-standard. The usual caveats about mucking with the configuration file apply, but if you're a novice with Apache, you'll have a steeper learning curve.

I think BBEdit is the best text editor for the mac. I use it to write HTML and Python scripts. It checks and colorizes syntax and you can use regular expressions for search and replace. I'm usually quite cheap about commercial software, but BBEdit is worth buying.

Mail.app does a good job with e-mail and if you're on a low-Microsoft diet, you can dump Internet Explorer and download Mozilla or OmniWeb. Appleworks (which comes with the iBook) is a 'good enough' office suite and my experience with the demo of Microsoft Office is that it is very very good (but not necessary for my home machine thanks to having a Wintel machine at work).

Don't worry about file formats between platforms. Virtually all software that runs on both Mac OS and Windows will use the same file format. The only notable exception is the line-endings on text files (I eliminated the problem by changing the default options in BBEdit).

Mac OS X application development is taking off and you can run most of the command-line tools you're used to. You can also install the X Windows System and run the Gimp, Xemacs, or whatever.

The Verdict

Even if you get a low-end iBook, you'll get the second-most happening *nix on the planet, solid hardware, and good battery life. Everything works right out of the box and, feature for feature, the iBook is comparable in price to other major manufactuers.

What about looking at BBEdit? It can do everything emacs can (and a lot more), and you can even set it to the emacs keybindings. It's carbon, but truly a coders dream of a GUI-text editor.