Hi Scott: I'm going to clean up and recycle a post from earlier this month wherein I tried to answer a few questions and give another lister a couple things that helped me in getting started with the Mac from JFW. Hope these help some.
Having cleaned it up, I also appologize to Geoff and other listers for how sloppy my original post was. Yet another learning experience:). Carolyn ----- Original Message ----- From: Carolyn To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Out of box, then what? A couple keyboard basics: >From your spacebar left there are the following: Command, option, control, >function. From the spacebar to the right you'll have command, option, and >then your arrows. 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: At first, the mac may seem a bit labor intensive. It's a whole different animal, and a whole different way of accessing the screen. 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/tab. The voiceover commands are accessed by using control and option together. These are often referred to as the voiceover or VO keys. They are next to the command key, on the left side), and a lot of things are accessed by pressing other keys with them. To get a feel for where things are on the keyboard, press command/k to get into "keyboard help." If you are on a laptop, such as a macbook pro, 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 accessing software functions. You can do this by going to apple menu. Press vo/m. You'll hear menu, apple. Arrow down to hear'about this mac", "software update:, "Mac O.S.10 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 use 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 command/w to close the preferences window for now. You can also access system preferences with command/comma. 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. If you always remember command is in the alt key position, next to the spacebar, this key does a lot of things. 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. 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.
