There is already a thread on free applications for the Mac, but in the last week I have helped two former PC technophobes setup their new iMacs and migrate their data from five or six year old PCs running Windows XP. As a part of that setup, I have installed a minimal set of free applications and utilities to help them get started. These include:

• NeoOffice (apparently the only bundled software on the currently shipping iMacs is iLife 11)
• OnyX
• TinkerTool
• Perian
• Flip4Mac
• VLC Media Player

I know there are a lot of other low cost apps and utilities, but these folks are very gingerly dipping their toes into the Macintosh pool and are already suffering a bit of technology and sticker shock. At the same time I have a nagging feeling there are other freebies out there that I am overlooking What have I missed for these technophobes with very modest computing requirements, at least for the moment, might need?

What say you?

How about checking out the FREEWARE! thread?

Applejack, which won't be in their faces but will be there if needed?

Edit: Whenever I work on a friend's Mac I install AJ and, depending on degree of savvy, don't even necessarily mention it.

Our zesty red country plaid Macintosh curtain valance gets a designer's touch when matched up with Macintosh and Apple Jack Kitchen Decorating Themes, Red Casual Classics ...

Sounds interesting, even a little creepy, but to each his/her own ...

Hmm...sounds like an ethical gray area to me.

I've been relying on TextWrangler (and its predecessor, BBEdit Lite) pretty much as long as I've owned a Mac. Beside its coding-friendly features—admittedly not likely to be needed by "technophobes with very modest computing requirements"—its Find and Replace capabilities, its ability to open almost any file containing text (more than once, I've extracted the essence of a WordPerfect document via TextWrangler), its ability to count characters, words, lines, and pages, and to batch remove hard returns, make it as much of a Swiss Army Knife utility for text as GraphicConverter is for images.

As Nubees, it's only a matter of time before they run into major problems. So, as soon as they can (IMNHO), I recommend they develop a bootable backup scheme with SuperDuper or CCC and have DiskWarrior (or TTP) installed (on more than one volume).

actually both purchased an external drive and are using Time Machine.