After debating for awhile on the merits of laptop v. desktop, my wife and I decided to buy our first Mac and went with the 27" iMac. We are both new to the world of Apple computing (although we have iPads and iPods). Is there any must-have software we should look in to? To give some context to the question, my wife and I are both medical students. Thanks for helping out a newb!

 

my advice is to learn to use what you have first and then ask questions like this. i have a couple apple computers and wish i knew more than the basics as these are very capable units. having been in the apple world for about 1.5 years, i am ashamed to admit how little i know about something to easy to use... glad you have made the switch!

 

I'd say:
For torrents: Transmission
Office or iWorks
Toast 10

That covers basics...

 

^ ^ ^ ^
& as y'all are in school, I'd recommend the student edition of Office.
Unfortunately, Mac comes up a bit short with Pages & Numbers imo
Only other program I'd recommend is PhotoShop Elements, unless you are heavy into graphic manipulation, then go for the full blown edition of PhotoShop.

Mac does have the capability of running Widows 7 thru whats called Bootcamp, which is installed on your system.
Parallels will allow you to run both OS's at the same time.

 

If you wish photo editing beyond the capabilities of iPhoto, look at the free 30 day trials of Adobe Lightroom and Apple's Aperture, both are fantastic, pro level editing programs.

Microsoft Office for Mac is a fantastic program for work. Student editions are cheaper with the same capabilities.

Beyond that, use the computer and just keep an idea of what you feel is falling short for you, and then come looking for essential programs. Various specific programs (such as for torrents) can be found with a bit of searching and asking.

 

dropbox (cloud file sync)
vlc (play anything)
adium (multi protocol chat)
skype
office 2010
iworks 2009
google chrome (browser)
cyberduck (ftp client)
transmission (torrent)
Adobe CS5 (as needed)

plugins: flash and silverlight

 

Definitely transmission. Handbrake is awesome too.

 

uTorrent for torrenting, office for mac for productivity, and obviously p'shop.. oh and the new version of AIM syncs with fbook for a nice chat client.

 

Do Transmission and uTorrent slow down your macbook at all and is it bad for it? One of my friends has bittorrent and he says that it slows down his computer a ton, but he does have a pc

 

Any help yall?