Can anyone recommend any decent programs to use for laptop DJ work?

Abelton Live and JN can vouch for that.

Yup abelton live's new DJ features make it very slick for laptop DJ'ing.

native instruments traktor dj studio 2.6

http://www.pcdj.com/

i was goin to but ent got the funds, shame, i got 1000's of tracks

Forget PCDJ. Traktor's the one. The new version 3 is due end of November, with 4 decks, Allen & Heath mixer emulation, effects on all decks. It looks to be a dream. Their 2 deck version 2.6 is astounding, can't wait to try the new 4 deck version. Well worth the investment.

Sorry but I completely disagree. Traktor is one very annoying program to use. The interface is extremely ugly, the sync buttons do NOT work properly (2.6), and generally its not user friendly. Now don't get me wrong its still a good program but these gripes I have about it make me hate it entirely. I'm using Virtual DJ 3 which is soo much customizable. Tones of effects, samples, looping, skins that you can use with it. It has a very clean, sleek looking interface depending on the skin you use.

My hardware consists of two XP10 controllers (designed specifically to work with Virtual DJ), a Tascam X-9 Mixer and Technics RP-DH1200 headphones. Everything is hardware based except for loading the songs in Virtual DJ (if you choose to go this route) otherwise Traktors DJ 3 is coming out, so you may want to hold off and give that a try.

Heres a pic of my setup so you can get a better idea.

http://www.rave.ca/view.php?gallery=31781