JackandtheBeanstalk



The Preview program built into Macs has become much more powerful in the last year. It's not just for previewing. Learn to use the annotation features, and you can make use of it as an inexpensive editor, or an aid for comprehension and coding strategies.

Some basics: Go to Tools to control colors and add different kinds of notes. I like the Question Mark note, which Apple calls Help. It doesn't have to mean Help. Go to Preferences to set the name that appears with the notes Different people can "pass the pen" and annotate the same document. Noteshare can do this, but everyone has access to Preview, or Acrobat Reader, and Acrobat Reader will open up these notes and comments on a Windows machine. PS. If you're getting into the commenting and noting, go right to Neo Office 3.01 (did not ship with the laptops, but it's available online and easy to install as an upgrade.) It has a pretty powerful commenting feature.



//Do this:// Open //System Preferences > Speech pane//. The //System Voice// field is a drop-down menu. Recall that Alex is a relatively new voice and based on what is known as “concatenative” technology. That is, Apple took a human-recorded voice and synthesized it together to create words that might not have been recorded. If you listen closely, you’ll even hear him breathe. As good as Alex is, individual students may prefer or need a different voice. Among others, Cepstral and Infovox iVox offer additional naturally-sounding voices, including world languages, for download. Once you’ve selected a voice from the //System Voice// menu, adjust the //Speaking Rate// slider until you get the right voice-rate combination. Then, select the box next to the statement, //“Speak selected text when the key is pressed,”// and the //Set Key…// button. A drop-down box will appear. This is the field in which you press your self-assigned key combination to activate speech. Remember to make it something unique (i.e., if you choose command-S, that keyboard shortcut will no longer be applicable to saving files). In my experience, //“option-`”// has been a reliable combination, where //“`”// is the grave/tilde key, just below the esc key in the upper left corner of your keyboard.
 * Say you want to: Enable Text to Speech**