New to MAC - help please
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Yesterday I made the plunge and bought an iMAC 27" (i7 3.5ghz [boosted to 3.9ghz] with 8g RAM).
What apps/programs should I get?
In Windows, you can do a lot of things with "right click", but I can't figure out how to do them in OS X (10.9.2).
Please help.
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The equivalent to right click on Mac is Ctrl+click … as for applications, it depends which things you like to do.
For video playback, you might want Perian (what is LAV for Windows) > http://www.perian.org/ or VLC
For torrenting, either µTorrent, Transmission or Vuze
For office applications serious user use Microsoft Office, or if you are occasional user Libre Office
For video encoding, I can recommend Handbrake, don't know a good video editor :afr:
and then there is the Adobe CS (if you can effort to pay it …)
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Congrats on your new iMac!
I just got one myself, a 27" i7 3.5 24GB RAM (ordered 16 more from OWC -very reputable Mac parts co, lifetime warranty, and half the price of Apple RAM) GeForce GTX 780 4GB VRAM 3TB Fussion Drive.What do you want to do? Unlike the myths, there's an app for everything. I've never had a problem finding an app to do what I needed to do.
Right-click should work the same as Windows depending on which device you're using from I remember…which might not be much -lol (apple mouse or trackpad, or 3rd party mouse). Just enable it in the System Preferences and you won't have to Ctrl + click...System Preferences -> device (mouse or trackpad).
Little Snitch to block outgoing connections or allow them from certain apps/processes. It's an easy way to complete the OS X firewall. The OS X firewall only blocks or allows incoming connections by default. So you'd have to install a more complicated firewall or open terminal and program the built-in firewall otherwise. Little Snitch and the default firewall give me everything I need. Comes in handy for crackz/warez/etc too, stopping them from phoning home and disabling.
http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.htmlPopper already mentioned VLC, Mplayer is good too for when VLC occasionally doesn't play a file. With QT and Perian, VLC, and Mplayer I've been able to play just about anything.
Here is the newest version of Perian (I think, kinda forgot). Someone took over development because the original team stopped; https://github.com/MaddTheSane/perian/releasesI use Xee3 instead of Preview. It'll play GIFs unlike Preview, can look at images with in zips/rars/etc, and has more file compatibility.
I like TextWrangler over TextEdit.
For IRC, I use Textual.
For a regular chat client like for MSN, AIM, Jabber, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, etc, Adium was pretty good (I haven't been using any of those Chat networks lately).
https://adium.im/What else?
Edit: Take time to learn OS X and you'll love it.
I've been a Mac user since mid 2006. At first, some things bummed me out and I was disappointed until I learned, and it turned out that my disappointments were just my ignorance to the new OS. Mostly tho, I was going, wow, that's cool. Maybe I've been lucky, but I've never had a problem, well only one that I caused myself using TinkerTool…then I had to reinstall/restore OS X, the only time since. My old 2006 Mac Pro still runs fine, but slow. Don't defrag your hard drive, let OS X maintain it. It defrags smaller files on the fly (can't remember the size), especially if you have an SSD or fusion drive don't defrag. You also don't need to install an app to run system maintenance (daily/weekly/monthly), the system does a good job of taking care of itself. -
As soon as I got it, I put uTorrent, Chrome and Skype on it.
I also have Sophos Anti-Virus home edition installed. I have Avast Anti-Virus home edition downloaded but not installed. Is one better than the other or should I get a different Anti-Virus altogether? I use BitDefender on my PCs.
Windows has TuneUp Utilities. Is there a similar program for Mac that I should get?
I noticed that the prices for Mac based software is a lot higher than for PC.
@ Trukr
We both have the same machine, except you have more a lot more RAM than me. I take it you ordered off the website, rather than buying in the Apple store?
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I just use Sophos too, read a lot of good things about it and it seems to work better than others as far as being light on resources (well, at least virusbarrier. had that installed but removed it after my subscription expired.). I haven't felt the need, yet, to install another AV because I've only been installing legit software lately and feel comfortable with Sophos alone for now to protect against flaws in 3rd party software. I'll probably try Avast later for secondary on demand scans but not enable live/active scan or whatever. Both have excellent detection rates from what I've read.
Onyx (Free) might have some of the features you're looking for as far as maintenance, it's very popular amongst Mac users; http://www.titanium.free.fr/index.php
AppCleaner (Free) and it seems to work pretty well for an uninstaller (got good reviews too), but it mainly detects the files installed after it was installed; http://www.freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/
If you just move an app to the trash, most of the time all that's left behind is a small preference file and sometimes some other small files in the application support folder. If there's an installer for the app, it'll usually uninstaller on the .dmg. I've only come across a handful of apps that don't uninstall cleanly and leave junk all over the place, that's where an uninstaller comes in handy.
What other features are you looking for in a TuneUp Utilities type app? I know there's duplicate file finder apps, disk cleaners, file shredder is built in OS X (securely delete trash), no registry so don't need to clean that :), OS X is pretty good at optimizing itself, StartUp Optimizer = System Preferences -> Users & Groups -> Login Items, DiskDoctor = OS X Disk Utility and/or something like Disk Warrior if you want data recovery if a HDD starts failing. Dunno if there's something comparable for free or cheaper than Disk Warrior, didn't look. Process Manager = OS X Activity Monitor.I bought my RAM here; http://www.macsales.com/
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/iMac/2012_27/DDR3L
Literally less than half the price of Apple RAM. $400 for 16GB from the Apple Store, $197.99 from Other World Computing.Cool, same computer.
I don't know about you but I'm pretty darn happy with my new iMac. 
Sorry for the late reply, BF problems and work, meant to reply yesterday.
Edit: I forgot to add that you can add your own functions to the right-click context menu through Automator IIRC, or another way I think. Also, a lot of apps have options to add or remove from the context menu.
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I believe control quick is equal to right click in windows. I can't be sure though because voiceover commands are different.
Yorufukuru (or however you spell that) for twitter, handbreak, VLC, onyx, u torrent, pc monitor (this goes for both windows and mac, by the way, as well as the other part of that for mobiles), bt sync. I feel like I'm missing something but I honestly can't remember. Oh. I also use fan controller for mac, but I'm more of a control freak that way. Oh, one other one - temperature monitor.
Really depends what you're wanting to do.
