Minor side note: I cannot for the life of me figure out why other operating systems won't borrow Apple's fantastic input scheme, in which this something as simple as a ß isn't a big deal. Need an emdash? Easy, option-shift-minus. Need an ñ? Easy, option-n-n. ß, ≠, ¡, ÷ or any number of other relatively common symbols? Easy. Most of them are even fairly mnemonic (e.g. ß is option-S, ¡ is option-1, ≠ is option-= and ÷ is option-/).
Lion made this even easier by stealing iOS's input scheme: Hold down a keyboard key for long enough and you can pick a special character out of a context pop out. îïíīįì šéē
