AppleChronicles

Most everyone needs an office document solution. You can buy Microsoft Office for Mac. Office costs $150. But there are alternatives.

Apple's iWork is a high quality, user friendly office suite. It is an excellent solution if Microsoft Office compatibility is not a prime concern. I have experienced formatting issues when saving some files as Microsoft Office documents. iWork is the best solution if you want a Mac-like office experience. iWork costs $79.

OpenOffice.org has a native OS X version of their free award winning office suite. It provides excellent Microsoft Office compatibility.

If you just do simple photo editing, then you may find all you need is the Preview application that comes with OS X. Preview can do basic color adjustment, crop, resize, change file types, and more. OS X also comes with iPhoto, a photo album application which has a built-in photo editor (with a few more photo editing functions than Preview).

Google has a nice alternative to iPhoto called Picasa.

If you need more photo editing capability, Adobe Photoshop Elements is clearly the best alternative. Photoshop Elements costs $100.

For personal finance, take a look at iBank. It is not as functional as Quicken on the PC, but for most people it will do the job. It is very user friendly, and very Mac-like. iBank costs $60. There is also an iPhone app so you can take iBank with you.

For instant messaging (AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, and more), check out Adium. With Adium, you can connect to any number of messaging accounts on any combination of supported messaging services.

If you want to produce store-quality greeting cards, photorealistic scrapbooks, certificates, photo cards, and more, check out Print Explosion. Print Explosion costs $50.