help with Ubuntu 12.04 - keyboard commands?

[Lenny]

Hi,
here are some problems I am having with my live session of Ubuntu.
I Googled Ubuntu keyboard commands, but many of them don't work.
I cannot bring up the applications panel so I can change some things.
Also, when I log out, to try and switch to Unity-2D, I cannot log back in, 
so I have to do a hard reset to get back in.
Also, after installing Orca, and telling it to start automatically, that 
option left the main Orca page, and it does not start automatically.
I did get the latest Voxin installed, so the voice is tolerable.
I do have a large persistence file, 4096 MB, on an 8GB drive, so I don't 
think it's out of storage.
Is there a command in terminal for getting to the panels?
Thanks.

Glenn