To enable the right mouse button just go into the system settings, mouse, and enable it. No big deal. Or two-finger tap the trackpad. Either way, Macs do support right-clicking from the trackpad.

No Home and End buttons drive me CRAZY. Especially when I’m SSH’d into a Linux box. I’m a huge keyboard shortcut junkie so not having Shift-Insert takes a lot of getting used to.

Also, it seems that the Cmd button is used haphazardly. In Windows, you know that the Win key is for OS-related functions only. Win-R, Win-E, Win-Space, Win-ESC, etc. However, in OSX the Cmd key is also used for application shortcuts. It’s very frustrating. BTW, my absolute favorite OSX keyboard shortcut is Cmd-Space to open Spotlight. I’m a minimalist so I keep my dock clean and hidden. It’s basically only used as a system tray. To open an app I just Cmd-Space and start typing it’s name. It’s faster than using the mouse to open it from the dock.

Another HUGE frustration is no option to cut directories. You have to drag them to a folder, wait for it to expand, drag it to a subfolder, wait for it to expand, etc, etc. Which reminds me … Finder is just horrible. There are a lot of things Apple got right with OSX but there are some very fundamental things they completely missed.

As far as applications, Caffeine is one of my favorites. It’s like the Dell power utility but, being that it’s on a Mac, it’s much simpler. You click the menu bar application and it prevents the system from going to sleep. Be careful, though, as it will also prevent the system from sleeping when you close the lid (but only sometimes … just enough to piss you off :))

Growl is also pretty nifty, though I’m sure you probably already have it.

TextWrangler is also a pretty decent text editor.

The tip for full keyboard access is awesome! I’m turning that on right now. I really dislike having to stop my workflow just to grab the mouse to click on a button when both Windows and Linux lets me tap the spacebar.

One thing Macs will force you to do is slow down. For example, there is no holding the arrow keys down to move forward in a text editor (or am I imagining that? I don’t have my MBP near me at the moment to double-check that … maybe it’s just the stupid text editor I use!). The same goes with trying to maximize a window. That concept is completely lost on Mac users. Every forum post you see is “You’re retarded for trying to maximize a window. You Windows guys are all the same!” :). So instead, you have to move the window to the top left of the screen, then drag the bottom right corner (because you can only resize a window using the bottom right corner). Ridiculous! ;)

Another thing is that, while my MBP has been my favorite laptop design to date (it’s the perfect size and doesn’t weigh anything), the case is extremely vulnerable to scratching. Why does Apple give us these beautiful machines that are so delicate?

All in all, OSX or Linux would suite me just fine. Each has it’s on perks. I happily go for my MBP and have highly recommended it to two friends recently that needed new computers.

A small hint from my side would be the website hXXp://osx[dot]iusethis[dot]com/. They offer a showcase of new and popular software for the mac.
As for me, I usually just install macports and my most common used unix tools from there. As for OSX Applications, I need GVim, Evernote, iWork and Adium.

@ Naum:

Is echofon better than the official client? I’m sort of used to that one since it is almost identical to the iPhone client.

@ Jojo Dancer:

Heh, I checked out the RightZoom site, and I noticed that the first 4 items listed on the first page were keyloggers for windows. These guys know hot to inspire trust in end users. :)

@ Tino:

For what it’s worth, if you connect a mouse to it right clicking works just fine. Even the funky, multi-touch apple mouse is a two buttoner these days. :)

Oh, and I remember your story from last time. Didn’t you read that Steve Jobs must approve all font size changes first? :P

Speaking of fonts – I actually had to download a font in order to make ಠ_ಠ appear correctly in Chrome and Safari. I am dissapoint that Macs don’t come reddit ready out of the box.

@ road:

Oh, good tip! I’m surprised that there is no “expand menu” item equivalent to Alt on windows.

@ Mart:

Granted, most laptops I have used did not have a middle click support either. Command clicking works fine in Chrome, it’s just a two hand gesture.

I love OSX and the multitouch trackpad on my MacBook to bits but one thing that still peeves me is that macs still don’t have middle clicking support. Middle clicking is an essential firefox button! Straightforward way to open links in a new tab and kill tabs. Does it kill Apple engineers to allow 3-finger clicks to resemble a middle click?

Luckily, there’s MiddleClick for that!

I also came to Macs fairly recently after living with Windows/Linux for 2 decades. One tip that was absolutely huge for me was go to the Keyboard settings in ‘System Preferences’ and go to the ‘Keyboard Shortcuts’ tab. Then enable ‘Full Keyboard Access’ for ‘All Controls’. This will let you use the keyboard to navigate ALL dialog boxes (e.g. Save? Yes/No, etc) which is killer if you don’t like using the mouse.

Now, if I could only figure out keyboard shortcuts for obscure menu items… In Windows it’s so easy to navigate menus using the keyboard (Alt-F, S for save, etc) but there doesn’t seem to be a good way to do this on Macs. Anyone got a solution for this? 

MiniBatteryStatus http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/minibatterystatuswidge t.html

used on my hackintosh and

http://magnetismstudios.com/MonkeyBusinessLabs/PictureFramer

But, but, but… one mouse button?! :D

When it comes to software; way back I disliked mac os for the lack of configurability. In recent times I came across OSX, and had to find a way to change the font size in the menu bar, as it was used in a media center / conference room setup, with a high res TV controlled by people from a distance. It could not be done. I kid you not. That experience alone told me that unix-based or not, mac os has a long way to go before I will be comfortable with it.

I’m in the same boat as you (Sysadmin w/ some dev chops, Windows desktop, OSX laptop, Windows/Linux servers), and got an OSX laptop for very similar reasons.

Some handy things for the small screen:
– Spaces & Expose (these are built in, note that these are being merged together in Lion). Once you get used to the trackpad, I recommend using hot corners to activate these.
– RightZoom (http://www.blazingtools.com/downloads.html) – full screen your apps

For Unix tools, Macports and Homebrew has already been mentioned.

App launchers – Quicksilver, Alfred, and Launchy. I’ve been using Alfred

Other utilities – Microsoft Remote Desktop client, The Unarchiver, Perian (Quicktime codecs), muCommander, iTerm 2, JollysFastVNC

For text editors, Fraise or Text Wrangler are good free replacements for Textedit.

Must-have apps?

I dunno, I spend most of my time in Terminal, Chrome (or Chromium) Browser, MacVim (or TextMate)…

Some other apps…

BetterTouchTool — gestures on steroids, might be only powerful for magic mouse, extend the gesture capabilities…

Cyberduck — (S)?FTP utility, though I accomplish most of this from CLI

Echofon — native Twitter client

Handbrake — for DVD ripping

Skim — superior PDF reader

Skitch — screenshot sharing utility

Finally, all the F/OSS applications that run on all platforms — Audacity, Gimp, Inkscape — make certain you install Developer Tools (provided free, but not installed by default, if you do not have disk still, you can DL from Apple site — oh, and if you want to run a package manager (similar to apt-get or whatever it’s called on Ubuntu these days), I am using “homebrew” now (used to be MacPorts and before, Fink) — useful for keeping ImageMagick, Node.js, CoffeeScript, MongoDB, CouchDB, Lisp implementations, etc.… up to date…