Task Manager equivalent is Activity Monitor, under Applications->Utilities

Most use Adium (adiumx.com) for a chat client, it handles *everything*

As far as I know, the anti virus software out there just scans for Windows viruses, to make sure you don't accidentally forward one to a friend

I wouldn't put much faith in Fink
Jay P. | Homepage | 07/08/10 - 12:52 am | #

I concur with Jay P.'s comments, with a slightly stronger message: resist, for as long as humanly possibly, the call of Fink or darwinports or whatever 3rd-party packaging system you might find appealing. They will eventually leave you with a very confused system.
Richard | Homepage | 07/08/10 - 1:01 am | #

Quicksilver!

You must get this and install it now. It will eliminate the "create a doc of type here" jones that you have and makes app launching and most file manipulation tasks much easier.
evgen | 07/08/10 - 1:27 am | #

Second on quicksilver. You're life will never the the same again. Make sure to spend some time on it learning how to create mini workflows with it.
Rick | Homepage | 07/08/10 - 2:15 am | #

To handle compressed packages in Finder I use http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/ unarc...unarchiver.html

Adium for GTalk. I use macports instead of Fink, seems more reliable and more up to date. I don't think you need an antivirus.

As Winforms on OSX you'll soon learn they have no market. Mac users are really strict about GUIs and .NET just isn't popular, neither are X11 apps, except for Gimp I guess.
Lawrence Oluyede | Homepage | 07/08/10 - 4:46 am | #

I used DarwinPorts now called MacPorts over Fink after learning a lot of the packages I wanted simply were not available, or were out of date and did not work on Fink.

http://www.macports.org/


I'm still searching for the perfect development environment but for the moment due to having to jump into Java/C/Ada/Younameit code I have used the open source Eclipse (Europa) IDE environment with the free PyDev plug-in for python support. But to be honest I still use a unix shell text editor for most small Python scripts.

http://www.eclipse.org/europa/

http://pydev.sourceforge.net/


For cross-platoform GUI there is of course wxPython.

http://www.wxpython.org/

and if you want to call native into OSX Aqua interface / Cocoa you can use PyObjC

http://developer.apple.com/cocoa...coa/ pyobjc.html


You are still new to Mac and OS X but you'll slowly find some of your searches/desires/needs driving you for finding certain software are really just from being in Windows so long that you think you "need" them. I found OS X refreshing in that after a few months of settling down in it from migrating from Windows that a lot of things I thought I needed I simply didn't and really enjoy the system quite a lot now.

Cheers,
Peter
Peter | 07/08/10 - 5:29 am | #

> Maximize doesn't maximize.

I had trouble with that too, till I came to know that it's called Zoom in Mac OS. They have a different approach, which does make sense.

See, for example,
http://www.xvsxp.com/interface/ m...max_vs_zoom.php

By the way, the fonts on this commenting page are awfully small.
Paul | 07/08/10 - 7:01 am | #

Thanks for all your comments.

Adium looks good.

For maximizing, I agree with Jeff Attwood:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog...ves/ 000912.html

I usually work with multiple monitors and I much prefer to have one full window per screen than manage multiple windows.

I may switch to Macports - package managers are too convenient not to use. I can't imagine debian without apt-get.

I have Silverlight. There is a near equivalent for Windoze (several actually) called Launchy. I don't use either much - I don't think I 'get it' yet.

Launching an application (by whatever means) and then saving a fresh document (navigating to the right location in the save dialog) is slower than first creating the empty document in explorer...

Still I should persevere with Quicksilver.
Michael Foord | Homepage | 07/08/10 - 12:38 pm | #

The delete key you are used to is invoked using fn-delete.
Mike | 07/08/10 - 12:38 pm | #

If you want the right click new file behavior back there is a contextual menu plugin called NuFile.

http://growlichat.com/NuFile.php
Jason Horman | 07/08/10 - 12:51 pm | #

Welcome!

I would suggest you read through my switcher's guide, over at:

http://the.taoofmac.com/space/HO...0To%20The% 20Mac

Some of the usual niggles and differences from Windows (or other OSes) are outlined there, as well as a list of apps (including Quicksilver, of course)
Rui Carmo | Homepage | 07/08/10 - 3:32 pm | #

another vote for adium and quicksilver - computers are broken without quicksilver
mark | Homepage | 07/08/11 - 12:26 pm | #