My new MBP is here tomorrow! Ive never owned a mac and dont really know where to start. My question is: what are the essential programs everyone uses? What programs can you not live without?
I personally always have the following downloaded immediately on a new mac:
Adium (IM app that allows most IM clients)
smcFanControl (allows user to set fan speed...notebooks only)
Onyx (system optimization app)
WhatSize and/or Disk Inventory X (lets you find what is taking up HD space)
Dock Dividers (a 'do nothing' app that sits in your dock to act as dividers)
MacTheRipper (strips region codes and copies DVDs to HD)
HandBrake (converts/compresses from DVD or from MacTheRipper files)
Flip4Mac (allows playback of WMA files in Quicktime)
Perian (adds most other formats for Quicktime playback)
VLC (secondary media player)
ClearDock (allows user to remove/change color of dock)
Inquisitor - it turns the google search field (in safari) into a google search field ON STEROIDS...aka it adds spotlight functionality for the internet
Some I like are:
Coconutbattery (shows you a lot of information about your battery)
LabTick (Gives you control of the backlit keyboard)
MacSaber (it's fun.)
uApp (application uninstaller)
Candybar (change icons if that's your thing)
Audacity (basically SoundForge for Mac)
Pacifist (lets you extract individual files from dmg's and CDs)
Switch (converts audio to/from just about any format)
Toast (best burning software ever)
Adium for chat AIM/MSN/Yahoo/GTalk/etc...
Camino for browsing
Cabos for v. occasional p2p stuff
Flip4Mac so I can see .wmv files in Quicktime
Google Earth
Skype for video chat
Smultron (text editor) for sitting in the dock for dragging random files to when I want to see their content
Perian for viewing most codecs through Quicktime
VLC Player (probably obsolete for me now that Quicktime has fullscreen and I've discovered Perian)
Transmission for torrents
The Unarchiver for unarchiving everything
UnRarX for the few .rar files that The Unarchiver can't handle