Essential Hardware

Besides what came in the Macintosh box, you will need some other hardware. Some places I buy stuff: Apple Online Store, Amazon.com, Other World Computing, physical Apple Store.

• External hard disk for backup. I use a 1TB LaCie Extreme d4 connected to my AirPort Extreme. Another option would be to buy an Apple Time Capsule, which combines the disk and the AirPort Extreme.
• Spindle of blank DVD-Rs (or DVD+R DL) for backup.
• Spindle of blank CD-Rs for file interchange and music. Note the minus-R.
• Printer (buy it at the same time as the Mac, and get the rebate).
• Internet connection (from an Internet Service Provider (ISP)).
• Hardware firewall/router. (I use an Apple AirPort Express; I used to use a Linksys BEFSR41.)
• External display adapter if you want to hook your machine to a TV or second monitor.
• You will want a  Laser lens cleaner to fight dust and dog hair.
• A desktop UPS may keep non-laptop machines, cable modem, and backup drive running if the power should flicker. Mine is made by APC and has worked fine.

If you have a laptop, you probably want a bag for it: I have liked bags by be.ez and STM. I use a cheap USB mouse with my laptop: my wife uses a wireless Bluetooth mouse with hers (it needs new AA batteries every couple of months).

Essential Software

Free

There is a lot of free software available for the Mac. Some of it is more trouble than it is worth. Be conservative. Here are a few that I use.

•  Firefox or Chrome web browser. Use instead of Safari; bugs are usually fixed more quickly.
• Firefox add-ons: Perspectives, AdBlock Plus, FlashBlock. Maybe  NoScript too.
•  Adobe Flash Plugin to enable web browsers to display Flash content.
•  Google Earth for map exploration
•  Stellarium Planetarium
•  Audacity audio editor
•  Flip4Mac plugin to play Microsoft-format sound files.
• Dropbox helps share and back up files using the Internet.

Comes with the Mac

• iTunes does a lot of stuff: manages music; imports and burns CDs; sells you music, videos, and podcasts; and manages iPhones.
• Apple iLife (about $80, included with new Macs). iPhoto is a reasonable photo organizer and can do some picture correction; iWeb, iMovie, iDVD, Garage Band are useful.

Commercial

These cost money. Sometimes Amazon.com will sell Adobe and Microsoft software at a small discount.

•  Microsoft Office 2011 ($130). People mail you MS Word attachments often (of course a lot of these are jokes and chain letters). You can try to use Open Office for the Mac, which is free, and can read Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, but the formatting may be screwed up and not all Office features are supported.
• Adobe Photoshop if you want to do serious photo work. (It is expensive, about $600. Adobe Photoshop Elements is almost as good, costs $99, and is included with some cameras and scanners.)
• Quicken or some alternative if you want to do your checkbook. (Note that Quicken does not yet work with OSX 10.7 "Lion" which ships with new Macs.)
• Turbo Tax or some alternative if you want to do your taxes.

Essential Web sites

Here are some web sites I use often. Some require signup or accounts. You can add shortcuts to your favorites to your browser's bookmarks bar.

• MacInTouch - Macintosh news:  www.macintouch.com
• Google maps:  maps.google.com
• Amazon:  www.amazon.com
• My Yahoo - news summary:  my.yahoo.com
• Gmail - free mail account:  www.gmail.com (plenty of storage, good spam filtering)
• NOAA weather:  forecast.weather.gov
• LinkedIn - social networking:  www.linkedin.com
• Local newspaper
• Airline and travel sites