My summer has just begun and I'm looking for a project to work on.
I've been thinking of making a pixel art program for a while now. To this end though, I have a couple questions that I wanted to ask you guys, the spriting gurus:

What program(s) do you normally use for your spriting?
What features do you use?
What features can you not live without?
What additional functionality would you like/what would you change about your program of preference?
What operating system do you use?

Thanks for your time.
Maybe it'll pay off for you in the end.