New Mac User...Advice Request from MAC Vets

[MacPro]

Dear All,

First let me say hello to everyone. I have been reading posts on this site for a while, and I find it an amazing place to connect with other Mac users, and a lot of people here I have seen to be extremely helpful.

This is why I am here today. I am a new Mac user (lifelong PC user, or should I say ex-PC user). Just like everyone else, I am in love with my MAC (Although I have literally only had it for 24 hours). I purchased a 2.8 ghz Macbook Pro w/ 4gb RAM, etc. Definitely no buyer's remorse.

This question is for vested Mac users...As a new user, are there any programs (apple or third party) that you find useful or any programs that you feel with enhance the mac experience. I am not speaking of anything in particular, and any suggestions would be welcome.

I have downloaded Perian for Mac as my friend suggested it would be useful for playing Divx files, etc. I purchased Fusion (Although I would like to get rid of Windows altogether I have to have it for my job). Other than that is there anything you Mac users find as a useful program? Thank you in advance for all your assistance, and I hope in time, I will be able to give advice to some lucky new MAC users.

[dandantheitman]

As far as third party apps for your macos for day to day stuff I use the following:
Firefox (Obvious)
Adium - Multi User Messaging. Great for connecting on multiple protocols + it uses messaging logging + Off the Record.
Transmission - This is an awesome application for downloading torrents
VLC - Lightweight Media Player - Will play anything under the sun.
OpenOffice - open source version of OpenOffice.Org
CyberDuck - FTP Client
Chicken of the VNC - Lightweight VNC Client
KisMAC - Great for finding Wifi Networks
RSS - NetwireNews
Handbrake - DVD Ripping Software - i am in process of converting my DVD collection to Itunes

[gierran]

istat menus - great set of menus put up in the top right menu bar
ilife suite - worth it just for iPhoto
parallels - install a slipstreamed version of XP for the fasted Virtual machine around. Even better, install XP on a bootcamp partition and then link it to parallels for the best of both worlds.

[Magnus]

This is why I am here today. I am a new Mac user (lifelong PC user, or should I say ex-PC user). Just like everyone else, I am in love with my MAC (Although I have literally only had it for 24 hours). I purchased a 2.8 ghz Macbook Pro w/ 4gb RAM, etc. Definitely no buyer's remorse.

Welcome to the site and the Apple world You've got some great suggestions already. I'll just add a few that I use all the time: TweetDeck, MailPlane, Fluid, Coda, WriteRoom, EverNote, Navicat, Transmit, BBEdit, ImageWell, OmniGraffle, WhatSize, VisualHub.

Finally, subscribe to Shufflegazine

[fangpyre]

You guys forgot:
- Growl
- Flip4Mac (to watch WMV)
- Medialink (if you have a PS3)
- Quicksilver

[sourskittle]

Welcome to the world of Apple! Smart choice!

As it is Apple comes with some great built-in apps that are worth keeping visible on ure dock:
* iCal - even if you dont schedule with it, the cute icon on the dock always updates to the current date making it very handy
* Preview - quickly see PDFs and images, like Windows Picture Viewer but better
* iTunes - music organization will never be the same!
* Text Edit - like Windows' NotePad

Apps to download for free:

* Firefox: Much faster than the built-in Safari, don't forget to add the ad-block filter (ads slow down my net connection!)
* Adobe Reader + Flash player: necessary
* VLC: plays all media files, very fast
* Adium: great chat client, sign in to gmail, hotmail accounts at the same time, great interface
* Image resizer: you can download for free from the Apple website, throw in your images and resize them to a more practical size to upload on facebook etc in one click!
* Filigree: amazinggg screensaver, again for free from Apple website, doesnt work on Snow Leopard tho
* Transmission: there is uTorrent for mac but Transmission leaves it in the dust!

All I can think of for now!!

[MacPro]

Thank you all very much for the numerous amount of suggestions, it is greatly appreciated. Now I just need to find out what half of these programs actually do lol. Any additional suggestions are always welcome. Once again thanks to all.

[michl]

Any additional suggestions are always welcome.

The best of the best: OpenSourceMac, the definitive list of open source software for Mac OS X! (by category, and with explanations-)

Contains many of the excellent apps already mentioned, plus Audacity for audio, Bean for text editing (although I would personally recommend TextWrangler, BBEdit's amazing little brother), Blender, the Gimp and Inkscape for graphics, Buddi for finance, FreeMind for note taking... not to forget ClamXav for virus checking. And much more...

For running Windows or Linux on your Mac check VirtualBox; for writing to NTFS volume use NTFS-3G with MacFuse. Other utilities I cannot leave without (not free though) include Default Folder and Little Snitch.

To learn about any Mac OS X software, and discover more, the best place for is probably VersionTracker.

[fido7up]

these ppl wrote all what i wanted to say !

ok i have few to add :

App Cleaner (use it when the software not in system preferences ((uninstall option)) that is my opinion to when to use it )
XBMC (If u r a big fan of 1080 and 720p movies so somtimes it lags and VLC crash this software run the movies smooth but little problems with subs)
Snow leopard 101% u should use it better than anything else for mac
any video converter (AVC) for mac ( it is free and it wil allow u to convert anything to any format u need so u can add it to itunes or ur ipod iphone ..... )
Google chrome but it still beta
Istat widget i prefer it more than the menu's
UnRarX
real-player to download you-tube videos

[binukalarickan]

Try HimmelBar