Geia sas/hello, I'm 24-years-old and have been totally blind since I was two-months-old. I've been a computer user for at least 11 years and bought my first Mac two weeks ago. It's wonderful but confusing. Some things I get immediately and some I don't. I've gotten some help from my friends and even wrote out the appendix to the VoiceOver Getting Started Manual in braille. But I still have some questions. Sorry this is so long.
1. Safari How do I edit the bookmarks on the bookmark menu (the ones that came with the machine)? What about regular ones? How do I select text from Safari, copy it and paste it into Text Edit? How do I properly read a webpage? I've been using the vo keys and the left and right arrows but am not sure if this is right. How do I get the browser to stop bringing me to the top of the page when I switch windows? Can I open another window with safari in it and have two websites open at the same time? How do I download and install things? I tried with Skype and MSn but neither seemed to be too accessible. Of course, I chose the ones for Mac not Windows, so I know that's not the problem. How do I delete the programs or uninstall one if I find that it doesn't work? Sometimes, VoiceOver won't read text fields in programs. It'll just say edit. How do I get it to read these? 2. Text Edit What are the editing commands to use with Text Edit? I can use most of them but I can't seem to use select all, copy and paste. How do I get to the menu of Text Edit where I can save and open files etc? Also, in the manual, some of the commands used page down, but I can't seem to find that on my Macbook keyboard? Am I stupid or are they not there? 3. Zips and Accessing Files I uploaded all of my music and documents to divshare.com in zip format. Can Mac handle zips? If so, does it come with preinstalled software or do I need to download something? I once found myself in a place with things like documents, desktop, downloads, music. How do I get there again? I'm assuming I could open all my files etc from there. 4. ITunes Once I have my music in the Macbook, how do I listen to it? I heard I have to use ITunes and that I can't just put my music in a folder and then have it play like it would with Windows Media Player. Is this true? If so, what do I need to do? 5. Greek Synthesis I'm not sure if anyone could answer this one, but it's really bothering me. One of the main reasons why I switched from JFW to Hal two years ago was that it offered a Modern Greek synthesizer. I know that I could just install Windows through Bootcamp on the Mac, but isn't there an easier way? Do any Greek synthesizers for the Mac exist? The ones I saw were either for Windows (Loquendo and Realspeak and perhaps E-Rhetor) or they seemed to require knowledge of programming (Festival, ESpeak and Demesthenes.) If such a synthesizer does exist, can I just install it and use it or do I need to install the Greek keyboard and fonts as well? If I'm wrong on the above ones, please let me know. Thanks for all your help. I really love my Macbook and I look forward to being able to use it more efficiently. Talk soon, Tiffany aka Tiffanitsa
