Installing applications
One of the major strengths of the tablets are their expandability. There are all sorts of 3rd party applications and packages available to users, and a variety of ways to get ahold of these packages and install them.
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Repositories
The preferred method for installing most packages is from repositories through the Application manager. The primary (and recommended) repository for most of these packages is Extras. Once a repository is added to your application catalog in Application manager, you will see the packages from that repository listed in Application manager's package list and can install them directly from there.
.installs
.install files are provided in many places as a way to install applications directly from the browser using Application manager. Downloads is a good example of this (the green arrows are .install files). Most of these .installs simply tell the Application manager to grab a package from a certain repository, and can automatically add repositories to your application catalog if required.
.debs
.deb (short for Debian) is the package format used by Maemo. .deb packages are roughly analogous to OS X's .pkg or Window's .exe installers. .debs are how almost all packages are delivered, but you usually don't deal with them directly, except when installing locally. Some packages are simply not distributed through repositories, or offered separately as .debs (which you may prefer for whatever reason).
You can install .debs by opening them from the browser, or opening local copies with Application manager. The major disadvantage to installing .debs locally as opposed to installing from a repository is that you wont be automatically notified of updates to the package.
Console
apt and dpkg are the tools for managing packages from the console. These can be used locally through XTerm or remotely through SSH.
apt
apt generally deals with installing packages from repositories. You can install packages from your repositories by running apt-get install <package name>, and apt will attempt to fetch the .deb and all of its dependencies and install them. You can then remove packages by running apt-get remove <package name>. To search the available packages from your repositories, simply run apt-cache search <search string> and it will display a list of matching packages.
dpkg
dpkg is generally used for installing local .deb files directly, which can be done by running a dpkg -i <local .deb> with a local .deb.