"essential" Mac sites

[muzikool]

As a Mac user, what Mac-related sites to you frequent? I'm especially interested in support sites with good tutorials and updates, theme-related sites, and anything else that you might consider essential... especially for a novice Mac user.

Also, I already browsed through the free software thread here (great thread), but I'd also appreciate mention of any "essential" software that might not be listed there. Thanks!

 

[SPeedY_B]

http://macrumors.com/ - great for news and rumors
http://versiontracker.com/ - Software, kinda like download.com for mac.
http://macupdate.com/ - same as above
http://www.macosxhints.com/ - hints and tips
http://spymac.com/ - bit of everything, sure you've heard of it
http://www.macnn.com/ - news etc

Surprisingly, I don't actually browse that many mac based sites, so don't know many.

For software recommendations, there's a thread here: http://forum.osnn.net/showthread.php?t=120

If there's anything else you need to know, just ask here, this section needs a kick up the ass

 

[muzikool]

Thanks Speedy. I look forward to posting more in this section.

 

[muzikool]

The "OS X Guidebook" and "Terminal Basics" guides from macosxhints.com are outstanding! They are exactly what I needed to get started. I recommend them for any new users.

 

[SPeedY_B]

The thing with OSX is that there's not really much you need to know, or get. I mean after a day spent with my mac I was at home, the only things missing were specialist applications such as CuBase, Reason and what not, oh and Office. But other than that, everything is so easy to pick up and there's enough to keep you entertained for hours for example the default mp3 player is iTunes.. as you know, superb piece of software, and the default browser is Safari, which is bloody amazing, although I feel it's currently let down by poor rendering speeds (constantly in development, and there's always FireFox, so not a huge problem )

There's plenty more under the hood to play with and tweak etc, but for new users it's a very welcoming operating system.

 

[muzikool]

Yeah, I understand that it's supposed to be pretty simple for beginners. I want to jump in quick and get under the hood as quick as possible!