John, I wouldn’t really go Mini unless you have a specific reason. By the time
you add the monitor and keyboard and other items you don’t save much and I’m
not sure what you gain but maybe you have a specialized application that
requires this so I’m happy to be corrected.
I myself like the Macbook Pro line if you want a laptop. This gives you lots
of horse power for that audio editing and running virtual machines and you can
take the memory up as well. I would suggest at least 8GB if you want to run
more than one virtual machine at a time. If you just want a single windows
instance and nothing tricky you can certainly do it with less but I find once
you start one you want more and I run all sorts of operating systems so you may
wish to consider doubling down on the RAM.
All the other stuff you want to do should be no problem with the lower
end devices. The AIR is nice and thin but it’s not a huge power house although
it’s by no means weak. It’s just on the lower end of the product line in terms
of power but it’s a great solution for it’s size and weight.
> On Dec 30, 2015, at 11:50 PM, John Ylioja <john.yli...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I recently joined this group and would like to learn more about using the Mac
> and its accessibility. I am considering buying a Mac, and have been
> exploring some different models. I would appreciate any input anyone may
> have before I buy one.
>
> My main purposes right now for using the mac would be for learning how the OS
> works, using web browsing, email, word processing, listening to audio files,
> and trying some audio editing. I'd also like to try Apple Script, Python,
> and maybe the new Swift programming language. Does VoiceOver work well in
> the terminal?
>
> I would also like to have the option to run Windows as a virtual machine, and
> am considering whether to get 8 GB of RAM or go with 4.
>
> Recently when working on my resume, I found it helpful that my Windows screen
> reader was able to tell me the horizontal and vertical position of the cursor
> so that I could tell how far down on the page the text was, and make sure
> text was lined up horizontally. Does VoiceOver offer this kind of feedback
> in either Pages or Microsoft Office?
>
> I'm mainly considering the Mac Mini, Macbook Air, or Macbook. From reading
> Apple's OS X requirements, many 2012 or newer models of the Mac Mini are
> supported. If I go with a Macbook Air or Macbook, I may go for a newer
> machine to maximize its battery life since the battery isn't easily
> replaceable. Would I be ok with getting a Mac Mini from 2012 or newer if I
> decide to go with one of those, instead of buying the latest model, or are
> there any drawbacks from an accessibility standpoint?
>
> How valuable is it to have a numeric pad? I understand VoiceOver has a
> numpad commander that can be used to assign keyboard commands. Would it be
> worth considering an external Apple keyboard with a numeric pad if I buy a
> laptop without one? How about a trackpad, if I choose a Mac Mini without one
> built in?
>
> One of the things I am excited about is access to the recovery software, and
> being able to easily create and run Mac OS from an external hard drive or
> flash drive for troubleshooting or as a second system for experimenting. Can
> I use an existing external hard drive and repartition it so that I have a
> partition for backup file storage and a second partition to install OS X, or
> would it be better to have OS X as the only thing on the external drive? I
> recall reading that when choosing a startup OS by holding the option key at
> startup that there is no speech. Are there other screens like this to be
> aware of?
>
> Thanks for any ideas.
>
> John
>
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