You can make a technomancer without Unwired, but it does add some nice options. I will mostly tailor my advice to be stream neutral.
Technomancers are definitely a "slow burn" character type, they will start out very specialized and likely always be very specialized, but their power progression will go from "A little better at hacking then a well built hacker" to "tiny matrix god".
Thoughts on races:
Human, Elf, and Dwarf are really your only viable choices. Orks can give you a technomancer with a little more physical survivability, but your never going to be that tough in the scheme of things. Trolls will be tough to kill physically but their mental stats and agility hits, with the lack of ware or other abilities to compensate means they will never be good at anything.
For my part i usually make my technomancers human, saves on points, and extra edge is always a blessing.
Advantages you'll want:
Technomancer: (Natch)
Analytical Mind: From Runners Companion. This quality would be worth it just for the +2 dice on logic based puzzle and data sifting tests but the +2 dice on data search and software (which threading falls under) make this pound for pound the best 5 points a technomancer can spend.
Paragon: From unwired, Paragons are like totems/mentor spirits for mages, some are neat, some are traps, all can offer interesting roleplay opportunities. All the write ups on them can be found in unwired
Skills: Do not take the cracking or tasking skill groups, they both have "booby prizes" in the form of cybercombat and and decompiling respectively. Plus in the case of cracking a maxed out cracking group gives you a hacking skill of only 4. A technomancer with a hacking of only 4 is someone who I wouldn't want on my team, no matter how many points they saved.
Two things set technomancers apart from mundane hackers: The ability to thread up their complex form (program) levels to insanely high levels, and their sprites. As such you'll want at least two points, potentially 3 in compiling and registering (fixed this). Eventually post character creation you will want to at least invest in de-compiling, for that one random free spirte that will bother you one day and then you'll want to enslave and bind to your will for being so annoying. But until that point it's kind of a waste.
In addition to the groups I mentioned above you'll need high ratings in hacking, and moderate ratings in electronic warfare, no less then 3. You want a point in cybercombat but lets face it, as a hacker, and especially as a technomancer, in most cases if you have to bust out cybercombat you've already done something wrong.
Electronics group however is very good for you and you should probably take at least 2 points in it up to 4 would not be points wasted..
I also recommend a point in influence and a point in athletics and stealth if you can afford it, but this is my advice for all starting characters and is not technomancer specific.
Depending on how your points are looking a point in gunnery goes well here.
Lastly you'll want to drop a point in a weapon skill, i recommend some kind of firearm so you can smartlink it and then throw a machine sprite on it. Your not going to be outshooting the gunbunny for a long time (if ever) but this trick will at least keep you from being a detriment when and if combat breaks out.
Stat wise your going to want your mental stats soft capped (one point from racial max). The exception to this is charisma if you are not a charisma stream, but even then I wouldn't let charisma be much lower then 3. There really are no dump stats in shadowrun but if there is one, especially for technomancers I'd say strength is going to be it, that's another reason why orks, trolls, and to a lesser extent dwarfs are a subpar choice (although they make up for it with their high willpower).
Now if you've maxed out your disadvantages (which i recommend you do) you'll have a fair number of points left over that's great because your not done yet. You've still got to grab your complex forms.
Now unlike hackers you can't just take everything to start and are instead limited to some computation on your resonance. The one you MUST HAVE capped out at your resonance are going to be exploit, and stealth. For my part my next picks (assuming resonance of 5) are going to be browse (because nothing sucks like giving yourself a nose bleed trying to google something) defuse (because loosing childhood memories and fine motor control to a databomb is only a mistake you make once) and analyze. I could also recommend decrypt at some level (higher is better) defuse (ditto) an option also worth considering for starting runners is smartlink (although you can get goggles) and simrig (for participation in your teams tacnet, although again you can get tech.
I believe my actual last technomancer I built started with a resonance of 5 and had analyze, exploit, stealth, browse, and defuse as his starting forms.
To where or not to ware: Technomancers take hits tot heir abilities when they get essence hits just like mages do. Having said that there's a lot of good stuff out there. I would never get more then a point of ware at character creation and I would always focus on stuff that boosts your hacking. Off the top of my head some of the best picks are simsense booster and sleep regulator (a technomancer with time to probe the target should never get caught) cerebral booster is great especially for a logic based stream.
Finishing Touches: If you've got points left the pilot skills won't hurt you in case you branch out into rigging. Likewise first aid (or the whole biotech group) will synergy well with your high logic, as can demolitions.
Final words: Technomancers are difficult to build, unlike most SR characters who are going to start able to do a couple things most technomancer builds are really only going to be able to hack but, especially with threading up your stealth before your hacks, you should be able to own every non milspec system out there and milspec should cause you minimal annoyance especially with time. Even as you build up in points you are never going to be a front line fighter down that path lies death. I built a technomancer hand to hand expert, and he's great fun, but i knew i'd be starting with enough karma to pick up a couple of submersion powers (see these in unwired, they are where you move from "really good hacker" to "digital god") that I don't think the concept would ahve worked without.
That should be enough to get you started
