Regarding my Windows applications

You can add spyware/adware removers and anti-virus software to your list (unless you want to be a good citizen and install anti-virus software to stop yourself accidentally forwarding an email containing a virus to others).

My son has a Mac Mini (1.42/512Mb) and is very happy with it. He has a Playstation and Gamecube for games, so the Mini is pefect for his general purpose needs.

Good luck, and post back when you take the plunge

 

I switched last fall so I know where you're coming from. Basically you won't really need any of that stuff on you Mac. There's no such thing as a registry on the Mac, so obviously the registry cleaners are not necessary. I've found OS X to be much less "messy" than Windows, so I don't use any kind of system optimizer, although I think there may be some out there. Macs have builtin periodic maintenance scripts that run in the middle of the night. They're also known as crontabs (the UNIX term), you can find lots of threads about them here. I can't say I know what RAM/Memory boosters are exactly, but OS X is widely regarded as having much better memory management than Windows. I don't think you'll need context menu editors. Some of that kind of capability is built in to Tiger now with Automator. Mac OS X has a really nice GUI as you know, but if you want to change it, there are theme changers available. Generally uninstalling applications on Mac OS X is as simple as dragging their icon to the Trash. Unlike Windows, applications are not spread out all over the system, they're just one folder (which looks like a single file to the user) and can be installed/uninstalled by drag and drop.

Like I said, I switched last fall, and I couldn't be happier. Using a computer had gotten really frustrating with Windows, now I really feel like I can get work done without having to deal with all kinds of weird, stupid problems.

 

Antivirus on OS X does more harm than good.

I just use cocktail for all my system maintenance needs