Hi Geoff: I'm excited for you getting your Mac. I'll try to answer some of these.
I thought I'd ask here for suggestions on what to do after I take it out of the box and plug it in. Ok, remove all packing materials first.<grin> The on button is top right. You'll get a musical tone, and a welcome dialog should come up inviting you to start right off with a voiceover tutorial. If this doesn't happen, command f5 will initiate it. Command is in the same position as the alt-key usually is on a PC keyboard. From your spacebar left there are the following: Command, option, control, function. From the spacebar to the right should be command, option. Everything you really need to get started is contained right there in the mac, including the getting started voiceover tutorial, and "getting started with snow leopard." It might be titled users guide. Just a couple of very brief comparisons: The command key is in the same place as an alt key on a pc keyboard, and in some cases functions in the same manner, such as when you move through open applications by using alt and tab. The voiceover commands are accessed by using control and option together (these are next to the command key), and pressing other keys with them. They are typically referred to as the VO keys. To get a feel for where things are on the keyboard, press command/m to get into "keyboard help." You should also know that page up, page down, home and End keys are accessed by using fn/arrow keys. For purposes of voiceover, you'll likely want to change your function keys from accessing hardware functions to access software functions. You can do this by go to apple menu by pressing vo/m. You'll hear menu, apple. Arrow down to hear'about this mac", "software update:, "Macos10 software", and "system preferences". Select system preferences by pressing the spacebar. (spacebar or VO/spacebar often select and initiate things, unlike the PC where you would often ust the enter key. You can now use either your tab key or VO/right arrow to move through the various options under preferences. If you vo/right arrow, or tab over to keyboard and select it with Vo/spacebar. Tab (or vo/right arrow) once and again use vo/spacebar to select keyboard. Now vo/right arrow until you hear "use f1, f2, etc as standard function keys". This is a checkbbox, and you select it with vo/spacebar. Press commandw to close the preferences window for now. You can also access system preferences with command/coma. This should give you enough to get started with. Just remember, you can't really mess things up unless you start going and deleting things, or get into the library. Unlike a windows system, the Library on a mac is more like a registry. Probably want to stear clear of that until you're a little more familiar with things. I assume I can press command+f5. If you always remember command is in the alt key position, next to the spacebar, this key does a lot of things. Are there any gotchas like with some Windows computers ? I don't recall set-up, but I don't think there were any gotchya's. (unless you have a naughty tutor.<grin>) ? Will I need to enable the trackpad? If you experiment with the trackpad, and it's not turned on, simply use the roatar gesture to activate it, or to deactivate it as you need to. I located the MacBookPro manual, but it was a PDF document. If an HTML version exists I have not been able to locate it. Perhaps I should be reading about Snow Leopard instead of my specific model anyway? To find anything on the mac, you can use what's called the Spotlight. This is a search tool. Press command/spacebar to open an edit box. type in what you're looking for, such as "user guide," and you'll get a number of potential hits, which you can access with arrows or VO arrows. I hope I've helped rather than confused you. Please call if I can clarify anything. Best of luck, and I hope you enjoy your mac-journey as I'm enjoying mine. Take care carolyn Geoff -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
