Despite owing much money on other electronic devices at various retailers I went out and blew my tax refund on a Macbook. Why? Because OS X is a million times better than any Microsoft OS to date. I’ve always envied my unix-ified cousins since OS X was released and now I can join them.

Before “the switch” I actually tried to go full-time with Linux. First Gnoppix, then Kororaa, SuSE and finally to Ubuntu’s “Feisty Faun” edition. All of them had their own strengths. None of them ran crash-free for more than a day or two. And this is running them all on several different hardware configurations. I remember running Linux in high school on anything I threw it at and now it seems like I can’t get a stable setup.

No matter. OS X offers most of what I wanted with Linux…and SOOOO much more.

So now that I’ve gotten more used to operating on what has become my most favorite compruter ever, I present a list of things important to know if you switch. Most of these are applications you’re going to need or want, fresh from a Windows environment. My list here is going to ignore common suggestions that fill up other blogs and focus on specific solutions that I found particularly helpful and weren’t so abundantly suggested other places.

1. Transmission. Best lightweight bittorrent client on Macs. This replaced my trusty uTorrent
2. DoubleTake. Panoramic photo stitching app. This is a pretty one, folks.
3. Mozy. I can’t help plugging this over and over. I use it to backup the server where I work and I rely on it to safely ferret my files away inside of a mountain in Utah.
4. Camino. Not particularly smitten with this one, but basically it serves to replace the slow-on-intel-macs Firefox. Seriously, Firefox is dog slow on the newest Intel Macs. Camino is based on the same browser but fully integrated with OS X.
5. TiVoDecode Manager. Since TiVo essentially charges mac users $100 to be able to transfer their TiVo recordings to their PCs to archive or burn, something Windows users can do for free, this free alternative is especially helpful.
6. Perian. Flip4Mac? I’ll take Perian. Lets you watch different video formats with Quicktime. This is good because Quicktime is integrated, kinda like how Windwos Media Player is on PCs. (Props to Drewsephina for this one)
7. VirtueDesktops. Get virtual desktops on your mac, for free. Well, at least until Leopard comes out and this fall and we receive the Apple-developed solution.
8. Lego Digital Designer. This is actually a free, first-party Lego kit that you play with on your mac (or your PC, if you still haven’t seen the light).
9. ComicBookLover. A decidedly dumbass name for a great app – iTunes for comic books; which, by the way, are freely available to download in scanned format all over the interweb. Most apps just let you view the comics, this one gives you a whole organization app quite literally like iTunes with meta data tags and cataloging.

If only this had selector tools, and maybe even layers (ok, that’s too much maybe), I would add this to my list of Web 2.0 apps that I use daily. Currently it’s:

·Bloglines (reason=excellent mobile friendliness)
·gCal (this needs to be made the official way name of Google’s Calendar)
·Remember the Milk (task lists)
·SlimTimer (project timer, this is essential for working at an ad agency, digital or traditional)
·del.icio.us (FINALLY, i can remember where to put the periods)
·Picasa Web Album (gPics anyone?)
·Mozy (remote online backup solution for $5/month, can’t beat that…ok so it’s not completely web-based)

…and someday soon I hope to add a finance management Web 2.0 app to this list. It would make budgeting and tracking so much more fun than it is using spreadsheets.

Anyone know of one?