Folks, My gorgious little Mac Book pro has arrived today. it came with Boot Camp and Vista already installed and configured.
I'll say what I've learnt already from a five minute conversation with my good friend Erik Burggraaf who's on this list and what I've managed to come across in my own time today. Then I'll probably ask a few questions. First a bit of background. I've been using PC's for 16 years or more and am on my second Computer Science Degree. So I am very much a self confessed geek! I've used all the Windows OS's bar Vista. I am looking forward to installing Vmware Fusion and getting Linux up and running on here. The only time I ever used Mac was in my sighted days and that was at least 10 years ago at school, where I only really used the Word Processor and played Shuffle Board! Erik told me about the useful, key layout, bottom left fn, ctrl, options , command. ctrl options is vo keys, ctrl options f8 quick start guide for voice over (I did go through this and am finding the VO key combinations not to awkward to perform) ctrl options k for keyboard help and esc to turn off (well impressed with this). fn f1 lower brightness fn f2 raise brightnesss (handy I expect for battery and prevent nosy parkers in the lab looking at my screen! ) fn f11 lower volume fn12 raise volume. f13 top right - eject cd. The eject CD was a relief as I rang Erik in a bit of a flap because I'd one stuck in there. It's really brought me back to, "day one", with a PC this Mac. Only I am finding partly because of experience, and going through the tutorial it's fairly intuitive. I've found Boot Camp and can reboot into Vista and vice versa. I've had a look at Itunes Front Row, System Preferences, messe arund with the different voices for voice over, had a look at Mail but not set an account up in there yet. I've also looked at the Dock, and Safari. Oh yes and although i heard Eriks when i stayed there in August/September the sound system still blows me away on this! I have the Voice Over Daizy manual here and am planning on looking at it this evening. Several questions though. 1. Boot Camp. Does anyone know the exact keys and timing for when to press them to select the OS on power-up? I read on, http://www.winsupersite.com It was Options and then you used the arrows to select the OS, but that was for Tiger. 2. Apple account/ID or something? I got prompted for this to enter the Itunes store? I dont' have one do I? There wasn't a create. 3. Mail. Can I setup an apple mail account to use in there untill such time that I may decide to migrate my various other mail accounts into the Mac World? 4. Voice Over and HTML. Having used Windows Screenreaders I've gotten used to being able to navigate these like I could in a word processor because of the buffer the text is placed into. How to I intract with HTML like this or...? I've landed on several HTML Text in Help files and when I do VO Down Cursor to Interact it just bongs at me. though I can Interact with other things. 5. Podcasting. What application is people using for this? I've noticed Podcast Catcher in Utilitys but again it's asking me for a password along side my username? 6. Format Of USB Sticks. Do I need to turn USB ports on in Mac OS? If so how? When I plugged my USB stick in nothign happened. At first I thought this was because it was FAT32, but was expecting something? If I need to format a USB Stick to use on the Mac any stps on how to do this and how do I get it to see a FAT32 disk just so I can format it to Mac OSX format? Or do I need to go use Partition Magic on Windows to prep the disc? 7. Updates/maintenance I have airport tuned on and it connected to my WIFI Network. Will the system auto update and run cleanups or is there somewhere I can go to configure this stuff? 8. Office Suite. What one are people using and if Open Office how do I obtain it and install it? Never installed an App onto a Mac but have heard something about dropping them onto the Dock or into the Apps folder? no Wizards or Unzipping packages? 9 Further learning. Any recommended resources other than the Voice Over Daisy manual for teaching myself? Thanks heeps for any and all answers, I knwo this is a lot but I'm pressed for time as I was meant to have had this system 7 weeks ago, (granted it means I got the new Mac Pro now), but I need to get up to speed here as quickly as possible for final year projects. Dj Paddy
