TextMate is the best text editor for OSX, hands down.
NewsFire - My choice for a RSS reader, I like it’s simplicity over NetNewsWire, YMMV.
Firefox.
Yojimbo - Great app for keeping all of your notes and bits together, it can store webarchives so you can save a webpage exactly as you viewed it, forever. Very Useful.
AppZapper - For easily deleting the little pesky bits and pieces various apps leave lying around.
Pathfinder - This Finder replacement kicks ass, I would go with using the finder at first but when your looking for more flexibility try pathfinder.

Since I know you are photographer:
CaptureOne LE - My RAW converter of choice
iViewMedia Pro - My image cataloging and management platform of choice, iPhoto just can’t handle the needs of a high volume DSLR shooter.

…nice to meet you.

It’ll be a whole different world now that you’ll be using a Mac, and I believe that it suits the creative types much more than pc’s. I highly recommend these programs (most are free, others for a very small price):

iSquint - great for converting videos for your new shiny ipod! (This one is my no. 1 recommendation!)
VLC - you can play every region DVD without changing your mac’s settings, and it will play just about every type of video that Quicktime won’t.
SuperDuper - awesome data backup program.
iPod Rip- great program for getting music off other people’s iPods (even if they’re Windows formatted.)
Mac Janitor - helps keep your mac running smoothly if you’re the type who shuts down your computer often.
Adobe Photoshop CS - WOW! if you’re not using this already, it is a must!
flip4mac - a Quicktime plugin that allows you to play all WMVs in Quicktime.
VersionTracker - helps keep you updated on the latest versions of third party software you may have.

That’s my list, I hope it’s useful.

PS. I really enjoy your blog and flickr stream, it’s a breath of fresh air and a nice break from daily life in Baghdad!

And btw; your site and photography looks terrific!

anyway, here are my tips:

1) http://justuse.it/

it’s a site created by the guy who maintains www.styleboost.com and it suggests the best software for the job for both mac and PC platforms.

also, if you’re planning to use firefox, i’d suggest you look into camino, which is based on mozilla (aka, firefox) but a little better bc it’s built especially for mac. http://www.caminobrowser.org/ . i find firefox to be a little slow for me. (safari is unarguably the fastest browser on the mac, but it’s still a little discriminated against out there in the world of big corporate websites.)

after you download camino, you’ll “want” to go to http://www.pimpmycamino.com for all your extras.

there’s another noteworthy browser called flock that’s great for the whole web 2.0 generation. (http://www.flock.com/). it incorporates photo sharing, blogging, tagging and all those fun “sharing” conventions that web 2.0 is all about. i haven’t used it myself, but it looks cool.

for your ftp client, i recommend transmit (http://www.panic.com/transmit/)

for music/file sharing: acquisition (http://www.acquisitionx.com/)

for font management: linotype font explorer x (http://www.linotype.com/fontexplorerX)

if you get tired of flickr, galerie is a great photo site creator that works directly with iPhoto. (http://www.myriad-online.com/en/products/galerie.htm)

also, assuming you have a billion or so photos on your computer, i recommend iPhoto library manager to help with iPhoto. it’s great if you have lots of libraries going at once. (http://homepage.mac.com/bwebster/iphotolibrarymanager.html)

for keeping things running smoothly, i recommend cocktail (http://www.maintain.se/cocktail/index.html). great all-purpose utility for keeping things orderly.

also superduper for backup and system recovery. i hate to say we all need it, but we do. (http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html)

i think that’s about it. or at least, that’s all i can think of now.

have fun!!

Sorted.

Some mac websites to keep an eye upon:
www.macintouch.com - the best for news
www.macrumors.com - best for summries of all the other rumor sites
www.joyoftech.com - good cartoons
www.crazyapplerumors.com - once you come to know the apple world, this site will crack you up.

Best

Pete

Anyhow, as for Apps you can’t live without… I can think of a few.
Adium - excellent multi-protocol IM app.
Firefox - I prefer Safari most of the time (superior keyboard shortcuts alone keep me from switching), but Firefox is excellent, and a must-have.
NetNewsWire Lite - at least give it a shot. I love it, and the free version has all the features I need.

Flip4Mac - allows you to play WMV movies in Quicktime.
VLC Player - for all those other, stubborn movie files.

Senuti or Podworks - lets you pull music off of your iPod. I use it all the time if I have put something on mine at work, and want to have it on my Powerbook.

TinkerTool - one of a few different utilities out there that allow you to do some cool stuff with some interfaces of a few major apps. You could do all of that from the command line, but who needs to do that when you’ve got this?

There are surely other apps that I would consider essential, but unless you’re doing audio editing all the time…

Ooh, and if you don’t want to shell out for Photoshop, give GIMP a look. Not a perfect replacement, and you need to make sure you have X11 installed (it’ll be on the system install disc that comes with your Mac). And Gimpshop makes it a little easier for Photoshop users to get used to GIMP.

AS for HTML, dig around and try out different text editors. There are many, and different people prefer different ones. BUT, NVU is an alright WYSIWYG editor, if you don’t need anything too fancy.

Resources for software:
Version Tracker - You can search, and check for older versions too. A ton of apps are on here.
Open Source Mac - A personal favorite. Especially if you’re a fan of open-source software like me.

That looks like a decent list to get you started.

Because my friend and I were pulling our once-a-summer late-nighter.