OS X and Mac Mini tutorial and configuration guide

I've updated the tutorial, and associated system configuration guide, that I prepared for my 77 year old visually impaired mother. The reference may be of general interest in preparing an OS X system for any person with visual impairment, or who needs a minimalist computing environment.

Here's the guide (the configuration information is in an appendix)

• Mac Mini Tutorial (PDF, 2.5MB)
• Mac Mini Tutorial (RTF, 3.5MB)

There's also a companion blog with screencasts, but to date those have not been very useful.

Most recently I made the following changes:

• OS X 10.4.10 allows one to change mouse pointer size. Maybe that's always been there, but I didn't notice it before.
• I stopped using the ctrl-mouse scroll zoom feature and instead enabled the keyboard zoom. I turned off the dizzying screen motion default behavior, now the screen is fixed and moves only when "pushed" by the pointer at a screen margin. I set maximal magnification to "two" and I changed the keyboard mapping from an obscure modifier key to the + and - keys at the far right of the keyboard (which she doesn't use).

I've not added it yet, but I have also found that a lower intensity halogen desk light ($12, I checked before purchase that the cheap thing worked) that illuminates the keyboard, without shining on the display, is very helpful.

See also:

• Adaptive iPod (old style)
• OS X usability hall of horrors
• older post on this topic

I think this would be a great Tidbits 'take control' book topic but they didn't respond to my suggestion. (Anyone who wants to do that can take whatever I put up. No rights reserved.)