You were told wrong.
Avi is a wrapper for different kinds of codecs (including xvid, FWIW).
There is a comprehensive set of links to codecs and such here
The forums at http://www.macrumors.com are great and what helped me when I switched.
Being that I’m out of the country, I’m guessing that it’s okay for me to say that I get my Good Eats Season 8 off the internet. It’s invariably in Xvid format. beagledave’s posted a good link. I just Googled for it back when I needed it.
Unless I’m missing the shortcut keys in QT player, one of the reasons I like VLC is because it has TiVo like 10-second repeat, 30 second and 1 minute advance, and other things that make watching TV convenient. Although “Good Eats” has these edited out, the episodes of “24” that take FOREVER to download from my own TiVo over the internet haven’t been so nicely treated.
Also consider the MPLAYER program for the Mac as another universal-style video tool.
Just to give my small input to the fray… you may not want to bother with Extensis Suitcase, OS X comes with Font Book, which might completely satisfy your needs for font management.
A few pieces of (retail) software that you may want to consider are:
Toast Titanium: Although OS X has built-in capibility for dvd/cd-burning, i’ve found for burning homemade dvds, etc., it works much better.
Acquisition: (note: the trial/shareware edition works just fine, besides the annoying start message) great file-sharing software if you are looking for things like movie trailers and what-not.
“Free” software:
Mozilla Firefox: Fairly good browser if you are seeking an alternative to Safari and the (much-bewoed) IE. The browser has a pretty great library of plugins/extensions.
Mozilla Thunderbird: An alternative to Mail, works pretty well on my end.
I knew the part about .avi being a wrapper.
“Genius”, eh? Shows that it pays to get a second opinion, even if the person you’re talking to has “Genius” as his job description. How can this never have come up for this person?
Any recommendations on HTML editors for Panther? I’ve been using HomeSite on Windows, and I’ve been happy with it. I just need a clean editor with source highlighting (it would be cool if it also had source highlighting for css and perl), and extended search and replace across directories.
I don’t do Web design for a living anymore, but I still have a few sites I maintain. I definitely don’t want anything expensive, and I don’t need WYSIWYG.
I use SubEthaEdit, which is by far my favorite Mac text editor. (Don’t be scared off by all the talk about collaboration into thinking that it’s bloated or special-purpose; I’ve never had use for the collaborative edit features, but just use it as a light-weight, full-featured text editor.)
I’m not sure whether it does search and replace over multiple files, but the oddly named Smultron is a good monospaced text editor that does syntax coloring, including coloring for both CSS and Perl.
And it’s certainly not expensive; in fact it’s free.
Bare Bones’ BBEDit is a great, context-highlighting text editor. There’s now a free version I don’t know the name of.
I like also Macromedia DreamWeaver. It’s pricey, though.
I seem to think I remember some way to make Apple’s own Xcode editor to context-recognize HTML and PHP. Just install the free developer tools, and then (sorry) Google for the HTML support (if it’s not built-in now; sorry’ it’s been a long time).
Don’t forget to get a nice, free HTML cleaner while you’re at it. You’re welcome. 
Balthisar: I looked into BBEdit, and found that they killed their old free version and made TextWrangler a free product. It looks like a great programmer’s editor, and I’m looking forward to downloading it and experimenting with it as soon as my Mac gets here. It looks like the HTML and perl support are great, but judging from their Web site, the CSS might be weak. Of course, I can always pop for the $199 and get BBEdit…
Bytegeist: I checked out Smultron, too. It looks like a good basic product, but TextWrangler is much more sophisticated, including stuff like direct editing of files through an FTP connection.
I’m still browsing around for a good CSS editor. In HTML and perl, I’m comfortable enough that I can remember all of the keywords. I haven’t gotten there yet with CSS, so a smart editor is more important.
Thanks, guys!
You know, there’s also an excellent Windows-only CSS editor, but even as the author of it, I think it’s quite useless as a CSS editor. Really. And it’s the best CSS editor (for CSS editing purposes, it has other, uh, unique quirks). Invariably I find that writing CSS in a context-sensitive text editor is way, way better than using a CSS editor. I do, though, use Cascade as a reference if I’m on a PC, because, like you, I don’t memorize everything about CSS. Maybe I should change its marketing strategy to that of a CSS reference rather than editor…
[QUOTE=InvisibleWombatI’m still browsing around for a good CSS editor. In HTML and perl, I’m comfortable enough that I can remember all of the keywords. I haven’t gotten there yet with CSS, so a smart editor is more important.[/quote]
CSSEdit, the app with the obvious name. 
Thank you all for the comments and suggestions!
I’ve received the new Mac, and the thing that impresses me most with OS X (Panther) is that everything just works. The only difficulty I had was that it didn’t recognize my flat-panel digital monitor. I had to plug in an old monitor, get through the initial startup, and then switch. Other than that, everything’s been a piece of cake.
When I unplugged the one-button mouse and plugged in an old two-button with a scroll wheel, it just worked (and better than it did on my Windows system). I installed OpenOffice (well, its NeoOfficeJ incarnation), and it opened and saved my Word docs with no problem at all. All of my Web sites work. It networks better with my Windows machines than they do with each other! So far, TextWrangler works like a dream (and I love being able to open and save files through FTP).
I think I’m going to stick with Apple’s Mail and Safari for the moment. They lack a few features I’ve grown accustomed to, but in general they seem to work beautifully.
Thanks again for the suggestions and tips! Keep 'em coming!
You know you’ve made it as a Mac user when you automatically assume every new piece of gear will work with your Mac and never give it a second thought.
Congrats on your new toy!
Thanks, rjung. So far, the only thing I haven’t been able to transfer from the Windows machine is the iTunes database. I pulled across all the music with no hitches, but I lost the playlists, ratings, date added, date last played, and so forth. I haven’t added any new music since the transfer, so if anyone knows a way to keep all of that, I’ll re-transfer it.
I don’t have a Windows version of iTunes to check, but I believe the iTunes library information should be stored in
C:\Document and Settings<username>\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes 4 Music Library
Off the top of my head, I’d try moving that file to the Mac, sticking it in ~/Music/iTunes/, and seeing if that works.
I’m not sure if the Library file has any filename information in it, though. It’s a text file, so you can probably open it with TextEdit or Notepad and take a peek.
You asked about must-own software/utilities? I’m still a Mac novice in many ways, though I just made the complete switch to a Mac desktop as well as owning a TiBook.
Buy Alsoft’s Disk Warrior. It will do wonders for the health and well being of your new hard drive. The Mac Genius’ at my local Apple store all swear by it. They typically run it first when a machine is dropped off for diagnosis…
Cartooniverse
p.s. Make sure you buy the release that runs Panther. 