Al's covered most of the bases here, but I'll chime in and repeat a post I made on the datebk group. Bit long, sorry!
Let's see if I can give you a rundown. I'm a recent Mac switcher, and by and large prefer the platform over WinXP. You have a number of syncing options: 1. Install Palm's Mac sofware to give you conduit support and a Palm Desktop that will mirror what you have on Windows. I haven't actually used the Palm Desktop on my Mac, so can't really comment on it. But it will obviously fully support all the fields and facilities provided on the Treo apps, and therefore datebk6. This is the easiest option. 2. Install Palm's software and MissingSync (MS). Missing Sync replaces the Palm conduit software, and has a lot more facilities and a better interface. For example, you can set up a number of conduit profiles that you can easily switch to at any time. You might use this, for example, to only sync certain conduits if you're using Bluetooth (because Bluetooth's slower). The web site has a listing of all the conduits it supports (it must mirror the Palm APIs but not perfectly), and not all conduits will work with it. But even if something's not listed it might still work. Bit of a "suck it and see". MS supports the Palm conduits that sync to Palm's desktop software. MS also supplies an Avantgo conduit. I believe this is the only way to sync with Avantgo - Avantgo themselves don't supply any Mac software, and point you to MS. 3. Use iCal and Address Book (AB) instead of Palm Desktop. This is what you would have seen demonstrated. MS let's you do this, and uses Apple's built-in Sync Services (more on that later) and its own conduits to do the syncing. It even supplies a Notes app on the Mac. Apple's own iSync also supports Palms directly so that you can use iCal and Address Book. It supplies, I believe, a standard conduit that works with either Palm's software or MS. But it doesn't support as many options as MS's own iCal and AB conduits. For example, it won't sync all phone number fields or (I don't think) categories (each Calendar in iCal is synced as a category to datebk6 by MS, which is nice). So if you want to use iCal and AB the best option is to use MS. Now, why would you use iCal and AB instead of Palm Desktop? It's all about integration really. Many things and products in Macos interface to iCal and AB. Also, you can share calendars and address books with other users via a .mac account, which I find very useful. For instance, I can see my wife's calendar on my Mac, and that calendar syncs as a category in datebk6. I have a saved view so I can quickly switch to my wife's calendar when I want to find out where she is! It all takes a bit of setting up, but works fairly well. I have the odd syncing hiccup, but nothing too major. Sync Services is an ambitious system-wide function that is a central database of events and addresses that is used to sync with anything that registers with it. This includes iCal, AB, MS and iSync, which in turn supports many other types of devices like mobile phones. So anything syncs with anything else. Quite clever really, if a bit slow at times. Also doesn't support repeating tasks which is a pain. You have to rely on datebk6 to re-generate tasks, but that's not too bad. A .mac account (which you purchase) can also register and keep your synced data on an Apple server. Then you can use multiple Macs and still see your calendars, addresses etc, even via the web. As to programs, you'll have to research each one and, if it has a desktop "end", find out whether it has a Mac version. Adobe Reader, BackupBuddy, BBVFS, DocsToGo I know are all OK. Hope this helps and doesn't confuse you even more!
