[learning2]

DH's company was raffling off surplus computer equipment, and we were "unlucky" -- DH's ticket was called in the third round of drawings. All of the laptops and mac desktops he was interested in were gone. He ended up with a computer we've nicknamed "the beast" -- all he knew when he got it was that it had a huge case and two monitors. Probably nobody wanted it because it really does take up a lot of space. Well, we popped open that case and it's got a quad core cpu, 8 GB memory, 2 video cards, and a TB disk. Not bad for a 20 buck raffle ticket!

He's busy turning it into a "hackintosh", and I want to set it up as a place for the kids (13 and 15) to do art/ music. They already use Adobe Sketchbook and Audacity on the old PC, which is a lot less powerful than this guy. DH doesn't do art/music on his Mac, so I need to do a bit of research to figure out what we should put on it. Where should I start?

[Just_Me_D]

Here's two screenshots for you. One is the result of typing "art" in the OS X App Store search field and the other is the result of typing "music" in the same search field. Both should give you somewhat of an idea of what you can install once you're all set up.

[learning2]

OK, obviously, I can click on all those apps and read the descriptions, but I was hoping for some "been there, done that" advice on where to begin among all those choices. Maybe a review website or guide book that gives an overview?

[warcraftWidow]

GarageBand
Pixelmator