Well if people are wondering where I've been the answer is fairly simple.
on Saturday morning Avg decided to create a major error at windows startup, and unfortunately because it's causing my desktop to crash before supernova starts I cannot fix it and I didn't have another machine (I attempted to use safari on my Iphone on this forum but that was a dysmal failure).
I'm not worried about my xp machine. I know a shop who will gladly fix it, and even if they need to completely wipe the drive, well nothing on there isn't already backed up on my externals. However, this has made me have a think.
i still see little point in Windows 7 plus, owing to the lack of compatibility and stupidity of interface, however the one thing I'm running into trouble with on xp is net browsing, mostly because silly microsoft won't update the browser properly.
So, on Saturday I made several phone calls, including one long helpful one to an Irish chap at Apple customer services and I've decided to buy a mac desktop as an internet only machine.
This means essentially my Xp box (when fixed), will be used for all media, games, watching dvds etc, but net browsing and probably e-mail will be happening on a Mac.
I have checked, and it will still be possible for me to say download the setup file for a game like the wastes and stick on a usb to transfer into my xp machine (which is also plugged into some amazingly good logitech quad speakers and a 40 inch screen).
I will also still be able to use the xp machine for things like muds or playing beatstar when I plug the ethernet cable in, though I suspect it will be offline most of the time.
This setup I think will give me the best of both worlds. I wasn't going to go with two machines, but I've found aspace in my flat that will fit a mac desktop, and sinse the thing will connect wirelessly there is no worries there. I will be getting the solid state drive with the quad core proecessor (though only the 256 one sinse I don't plan on advanced video editing), though I haven't yet decided whether to get the 21 or 27 inch monitor, indeed that brings me to my question.
Tomorrow I am going to go and try a mac out, and unless I end up hating what I see I'll probably be phoning Apple on Thursday and having one delivered on Friday, (I might end up buying one tomorrow though I suspect it'll prove cheaper to buy from Apple themselves, plus they deliver).
I was therefore wonderingly firstly what are some basic vo commands I can use tomorrow just to get started, sinse unfortunately there are no dedicated apple shops near me and I doubt the staff at the reseller I'm going to go to will know about Voiceover.
The Irish chap from Apple (who was a gamer himself), said it's command F5 for startint Vo, the vo key (which is the function key), and d to get to the ock where you can hit left and right arrows to go through folders, and the vo key and a to document read. he also said tab would do as flicks do on Ios. is that correct?
I will also need to look at exporting my favourites from outlook express and saving them as bookmarks in safari, indeed the hole bookmkmarks thing especially with creation of subfolders is something I'll need to look into sinse I've not used the feature on my Iphone owing to Safari on an Iphone not working very well.
anyway, any thoughts or suggestions or vo commands from other mac users welcome.
Btw, no I do not plan to go entirely mac, indeed if I threw away my xp box I'd have to resign as admin of this site, plus I'd get very pissed indeed! at silly Apple's ignoring my folder structure and organization of media, not to mention miss my dvd collection.
Many things Apple does well, other things itt does not.
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)