Hot Keys and Mouse Wheel Emulation on Mac

Hot Keys and Mouse Wheel Emulation on Mac

I've recently moved into an office that has standardized on Apple
computers and have run into two potentially three things that I have been
used to working with in Linux that I know are going to drive me nuts on
the Mac.
The most egregious of these is that I can find no equivalent to evedev's
EmulateWheel and EmulateWheelButton. I use a Logitech Trackman Marble and
have been able to remap one of the little navigation buttons to enable
EmulateWheel. The default Logitech tool does not appear to have this
feature on mac (or I can't find it). Any suggestions on how to accomplish
this feature would be appreciated ...
The other issue has to do with launching applications, at least what I've
come to understand as launching applications. On Linux I have hotkeys
setup to create a new terminal window and to open a new window in chrome.
These do not require that I be in any special context (i.e. I don't need
the chrome or terminal window selected for the hotkey to work). Is there
an equivalent means of accomplishing this?