Re: The Windows 10 New World Order
@Arq: as per Safari preferences, Command-enter is equivalent to Command-click. So, if you use tabs and have tabs open instead of windows, Command-Enter will open the link in a new tab. You can close it with Command-W, whether it is a tab or a window. I do this all the time.
@Wanderer: You already have the Mac; that's half the battle. The next part is to reduce your dependence on Windows for everyday stuff. IMO, Windows is just for fun, or for those very few rare (and also mostly fun) things, so stick it in a VM. XP will work fine. Arch can go either in a VM or on a partition, your choice, although I've found that in many ways, like Windows, Linux is more fun when it's virtual and all its hardware is compatible.
For the very basics, I'd say that AppleVis, David Woodbridge's material, and Apple's own VoiceOver Getting Started Guide is as good as it gets. There's lots of use ful reference from within VO itself; start by exploring the menu that results from pressing VO-H to get help. Then of course all the communities out there are very helpful for solving your particular issue. It sounds like you'll be fine though. If you have trouble with the keyboard, don't forget your trackpad: VO+rotate-right to turn on TrackPad Commander and thus get a very iOS-like feel. Ditto QuickNav: left+right to toggle, and now you don't need both hands.
As to your other geeky questions, I'll give them a shot here, but everything you could want is on t'interwebs, and especially Apple Developer. Basically though, Terminal is the ultimate get-out-of-jail card for most things (see the help included with that for some introductions). OS X is just a Mach+FreeBSD microkernel hybrid with lots of Unix userland on top, and a nice Apple GUI and frameworks that make it all lovely. As Unixes go, configuration is som ewhat different--a bit less hacker-friendly, but generally you can get what you need by Googling and/or installing a package manager. You will find that there is not much in-between: either you are in the GUI, or you are in Terminal. Having said this, the number of things one needs advanced knowledge for is pretty small, but it's nice to have it. This is not really that unlike Windows registry, although I think it's probably true that the UI is more user-focused than on Doze so you will probably find you are in Terminal for the resolution of more things (app uninstallation comes to mind as a particular example). Of course if you also use Linux then I fully expect you to pick up the thread pretty quickly, since there is similar exposure there. Generally what you want can be done, one way or the other.
Web browsers: Chrome or Safari. I use Safari day-to-day, and Chrome for when speed and compatibility is key. Having said this Chrome is that little bit more rough around the edges, access-wise. You might find you get more benefit out of having ChromeVox as an option. Not Firefox. Alas, it's just not there. Ditto Thunderbird, I'm afraid. See also this.
Torrent clients: both uTorrent and Transmission work for me. Both have pros and cons, but they both work.
Media Management: VLC works; so does iTunes, of course. And I think you'll find iTunes a lot more useful on OS X, even though it's by no means perfect. The experience is much more amenable on OS X due to the UI exploration paradigm.
File system: absolute paradise, compared to Windows. Actually makes bloody sense; no registry. The folders you need to oversee (but not much) for startup, in addition to System Preferences in your user account's login items, are /Library/Launch* and ~/Library/Launch*. Leave the stuff in /System alone; Ap
ple knows best. Never again will (or should) you worry about startup of unneeded daemons; OS X generally always gets it right.
Efficiency: yes, this is generally worse than Windows, because of the way Apple does keyboard shortcuts. You will get used to it, though, I'm sure--I have. You need to understand that Apple puts the visual UI above pragmatics--so you don't cut-and-paste a file, you, er, copy-and-option-paste it, because then the copy stays in place until you decide to atomically move it. Pretty stupid, eh? But you gets used to it pretty sharp.
TTS: yes, I understand. Eloquence is nice (and no, I haven't tried it, but I hear that hack really isn't very reliable). eSpeak builds on OS X, but not as an OS X-recognised TTS, merely as a command-line engine. Somebody could do the work, if they were inclined to. Sadly I don't think my knowledge of C ++ and Apple's Objective-C speech platform framework is up to scratch to work on it, although I've often wondered whether I should make the effort someday; I've never liked C++ being the main reason. Meantime, perhaps look at the natural-sounding Acapela voices from InfoVox iVox, which are more responsive than Apple's MacinTalk. Myself, I stick with Alex, because for all his flaws, he is the best-spoken TTS on OS X IMO.
Right. I think that's everything. Any more questions?
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