Brand New to the Mac Experience

Hello everyone,

I hope I am posting in the right area. I landed a new job that will require me to support both Windows and Mac machines so I took some money out of savings and purchased a Mac Book Pro. I thought that if I had one I wouldn't be so lost when supporting them. It should arrive by Wednesday and once it is here, I am not sure what I am going to do with it. I have a Windows based desktop and laptop and have various programs (Office, Adobe CS3, games, etc.) installed.

I am guessing I should purchase some of the same programs (albeit hesitantly) for the Mac. I could purchase VMware Fusion and just run a Windows environment on the Mac but that would defeat the purpose a bit I think.

So, I have Googled Mac Forums and now I am here. I would love some recommendations of what I can do to make the most of my new purchase without breaking the bank. I qualify for the student version for Office 2008 so I thought of starting there. I cannot afford the Adobe products as yet but there has to be some things I can do with this machine that won't require investing hundreds of dollars into software. I would love to have a combination of productivity software and FUN software. It is a given that the best computers for design, music and video production are Macs so I would love to experience that for myself.

I thank you so kindly in advance and look forward to learning all I can from all of you.

All the best,
Ben

Welcome to the world of Mac!

Once you get your machine, be sure to check out a lot of the useful "getting started" info on here and on Apple's own website (support tab).

As far as Office and CS3 go, there are a couple of alternatives to MS Office that are free downloads. Neo Office and OpenOffice are the 2 most popular with folks on here. Very similar and work quite well.

Also, it's been said on here that some Adobe products allow you to obtain a Mac version if you already own the Windows version for free. Couldn't say exactly how that works, but someone else can probably elaborate on it for you.

So you won't really have to spend a lot of $$$ to do the same things on your Mac that you do on your Windows machines.

Hey Ben! My name's Ben too (woooo!)

In terms of essential software, here's a quick list:
VLC player (will play anything)
Transmission (torrents)
CoconutBattery (checking battery health)
Cyberduck (ftp)
Handbrake (dvd encoder)
Tweetdeck

Microsoft Office 2008 works and is pretty good but you'll find iWork to be much quicker and, eventually, more efficient.

Not sure what else I can recommend at the moment...sure I'll think of something later!

Enjoy your Mac.

And here and here are useful resources