Which type of programs are you planning on using?
For customization, I highly recommend CandyBar, an app that allows you to change any program or system icon, as well as the appearance of the Dock. In the same vein, I don't know whether it's SL compatible, but search for SuperDocker 3 (if you can't find it, PM me and I'll send it to you). SuperDocker also changes the appearance of the Dock, but it also tweaks some other system behaviors that are normally not accessible.
For word processing, Microsoft Office. It's the industry standard. If you don't have money in your budget, or you want to wait for Office 2010, a free alternative is OpenOffice.
For music/video, grab a copy of VLC and Perian. If you don't already use it, VLC is a very powerful video player, sometimes even a better alternative than QuickTime. If you want to continue using QuickTime, though, Perian is a free plugin that allows QuickTime to open just about every video and audio file known to man. I highly recommend it.
For gaming, Steam. Valve recently updated Steam to work on Macs, and although their selection is small atm, they're upgrading it.
For a modicum of Windows compatibility, WINE. WINE (which stands for WINE Is Not an Emulator) is ironically a Windows emulator for OS X, but instead of running a full copy of Windows in a virtual machine, per se, it only loads all of the files that some programs need to run. It's not perfect, and might require some virtualization software.
If you need virtualization software available, you have 3 choices: VirtualBox (from Sun Microsystems), VMWare Fusion 3 (from VMWare), and Parallels Desktop 5 (from Parallels). From experience, VMware is a really good program, though I've heard good things about Parallels as well. If you're cash strapped, VirtualBox is free, but requires a little bit of technical know-how to set up (and even then it's not perfect).
Lyoko is Cool wrote:Whenever they do the next round of it, I hear that the MacHeist bundle is generally good.
YES. MacHeist is an excellent little bundle that sells little Mac gems for discounted prices (or in one instance completely free; that time I got over $130 in software for no money at all).