Mac OS X Leopard - ARCAism

The Text to Speech tab (Figure 4-55) controls how your computer speaks to you. Here you
can change your computer’s voice and the speed at which it talks. You can then set up options
that will cause your computer to speak certain items:
Announce when alerts are displayed: Causes your computer to read any alerts that pop up
Announce when an application requires your attention: Causes your computer to tell you
when an application is awaiting your input or has some message for you
Speak selected text when the key is pressed: Allows you to set a key that will cause any
selected text to be read back to you
Figure 4-55. The Text to Speech tab in the Speech preference pane
Some applications have their own capability for reading back text as well. The important
thing here is that the voice you pick on the Text to Speech tab will be the default voice used in all
of the applications.
NOTE Outside of some of the universal access uses of Text to Speech, this too tends to be
more fun than useful. That said, speech has come a long way over the years—just compare the
Fred Voice (one of the original voices) to the Alex Voice (a new voice in Leopard), and not even
accounting for improvements in the underlying technology (of which there are many), you can
hear the improvements. (Zarvox, by the way, is still my favorite voice.)
Startup Disk
CHAPTER 4 SYSTEM PREFERENCES 93
If you have multiple bootable volumes connected to your computer, the Startup Disk preference
pane (Figure 4-56) will allow you to select which disk to default to when starting your computer.