I’m not sure even sex or nirvana would be quite as good as Apple would have you believe the Mac to be, but for most of us, the Macintosh is to the PC as a good back rub is to poking yourself in the eye with a sharp stick.
Mostly they just work and are flexibile enough to allow you to do whatever you want to do and last for a long long time before they become obsolete. There are apparently a few lemons out there, but I’ve been using Macs since 1986, and I’ve only owned 3 of them, two of which are still mine and in active use. (this msg typed on a 1998 vintage PowerBook that’s still my latest and greatest, used both as my work machine and my home machine).
Things you should get, hardware:
Extra hard drive. You can get an external FireWire cheaply. When one volume gets sick you boot from another and fix it. Having an external is also nice for tossing in a drive from anywhere (your old PC, your best friend’s sick computer that won’t boot, etc) to get files off of it.
Second monitor and card to drive it. Life is too short to confine your computing experience to just one screen.
Nice 3-button USB mouse if you’re an old Unix X11 user; nice at-least-2 button USB mouse if you’re an old PC user.
Things you should get, software:
QuicKeys. Macros, baby.
DefaultFolder. (shareware). Life without DefaultFolder is more pleasant under Panther than it was in earlier OS X versions but it’s still on my indispensable list. Try it.
FruitMenu. (shareware) Whether you’re an old Mac user who customized the Apple menu or an old PC user who customized the Start Menu, you’ll want this. The Dock is no replacement for a customizable menu.
Things you should know about:
MacOS X Panther Unleashed, John and William C. Ray.
MacOS X Hints which has a very helpful message board.