I've never used Garageband or Logic.

If you buy the iMac 24in, you will have iMovie 08 and I believe you can download iMovie 06 for free. They both work great for me and lots of books have been written to tell you how to use them. I have FCE4 and it works great but takes some time to learn. You need some type of camcorder, tape or SD card.

Aperture is more of an image management tool. I have used it and as such is an excellent product. I'm more of a PC Photoshop person for editing. Lightroom is Adobe's image management software. You need a digital camera.

The trouble with a suite of software like iLife or Adobe Master Collection is that you can't break them up effectively for use in more than one computer. With Mac and iLife, they come together. FCE4 is stand alone so you can put it in another computer to run both at the same time. No sense sitting around watching a file render. Work while you wait if you have two computers. Adobe Collection is a one size fits one computer type thing. No breaking them down for separate computers. With any computer setup, if you absolutely have to get the job done, you better have two computers.

Thanksgiving is family woodcutting day. First we hug the tree for what it is going to do for us. The person who cuts his own firewood is warmed twice. We hustle all day sawing, splitting, moving and stacking firewood. I hope you enjoy your day as much as I enjoy mine with the renewable resource. Green all the way.