lots of stupid questions...

[lelune]

Hi everyone, I just recently (two weeks ago?) bought a Macbook. I'd owned a mac before, my family bought an imac back when they came in 5 colors and were huge clunky things but my primary computers were Windows based... Anyway, for the most part I am having a smooth transition, but there are a couple of things I just cannot figure out how to do.

1. How do I resize an image I get from the internet/my digital camera? I had to download a third party program to do this but there has to be a way to do it with Iphoto or one of the other ones the computer came with...

2. Upon attaching my digital camera (Canon Powershot a710) I have to manually load Iphoto (shouldn't it automatically load? this is not a big deal though), and then I cannot select which photos to upload. This is a huge problem, as I have a 1GB memory card and store a horrendous amount of data on there that I don't necessarily want to upload every time I take 2 pictures. In Microsoft Scanner and Camera wizard it shows you thumbnails of every photo/video on the card, which you can then select or deselect before uploading. Please tell me there is a way to do this on the Mac.

3. For some reason, when using Firefox's Find (at the bottom of the window) it will find some text blocks and not others. For example, typing this post right now and searching for the text "auto" it comes up in my post, but not on the page (where it says "Automatically parse links in text"... I'm sure you all have seen it under the text box where you type your thread/post). This even happens when I click outside of the text box onto the page's negative space. This happens all the time, on all sorts of pages, with text boxes and without, with frames/tables/etc and without. I used to design/write web pages back in the late 90s and I know things are different now but I know there is nothing in the nature of the text I am searching for making it un-searchable. I've even tried searching for words I see right in front of me and I get no results!! Baffling. This doesn't happen when I use firefox on my PC.

4. How do I save to a specific folder from the internet? When I click "download" it doesn't give me an option to save to, say, the "School" folder on my desktop. I have to manually drag from the desktop (where the downloads fall) into the folder, which seems unnecessary to me. Am I doing something wrong?

5. When I have installed some downloaded programs (Firefox for instance, some others) a "Disk Image" remains on my desktop. It cannot be deleted, as when I load up the program it goes from the trash back onto the desktop. I did some googling, which said to just put it in the trash, but like I said it keeps bouncing back. I don't want my desktop cluttered! How do I get rid of these?

Thanks for your help everyone.

 

[emw]

Hmmm. Surprised no one's taken a crack at this yet. I'll try and answer a couple of these...

1. You can use iPhoto's Export... function, or write an Automator script to do it. iPhoto is generally pretty easy for any number of photos.

2. Open the Application "Image Capture" in your Applications folder. Go to Preferences > General and make sure it says to open iPhoto when connecting a camera. I don't believe there's a way to scroll through the card using iPhoto, but you can in Finder and just select the ones you want. That would be a nice iPhoto feature though.

3. Can't help here, unfortunately.

4. In Safari, hold down the Option key when you ctrl-click to choose to download and you'll have the option to select the folder. In Firefox, the default crtl-click option is Save As.... If you are using a button to download, then I don't think you have the option to choose the location.

5. If you drag the application from the disk image to the dock, then it will always try to run it from the disk image. First drag the application to your application folder, then drag it to the dock. This should resolve that problem.

 

[Makosuke]

Can't help you with all of those, but I do have a few suggestions:

1. Assuming you mean scaling it downward (what's the point of upscaling?) to send a smaller picture via email or some such, iPhoto's Export command does this fine for me. I generally use Graphic Converter when I want a lot of precise control (shareware, although a version used to whip with some Macs), but iPhoto is fine for most purposes.

2. Pretty sure if you use Image Capture for this instead of iPhoto, you can select only what you want to download. In Image Capture's preferences, you can also select what to do when a camera is connected--usually the default is iPhoto, but if it's not that may be why it's not launching automatically for you. Once you download the images using Image Capture, just drop them into iPhoto.

3. I only use Safari and Camino (same engine, better interface, fewer bells and whistles), but I've never really had an issue with the find features in either of them. Maybe somebody else can suggest a fix.

4. Again, not sure about FireFox, but Camino and Safari both allow you to select whatever default download location you want--the Desktop is just the default. Further, if you want to put a particular item somewhere specific, just right click/control click (depending on your preference) on the item and select "Download Link Target" or whatever, then navigate to where you want the file to be saved.

5. You may be running the app from the disk image rather than copying it to your applications folder. What you SHOULD be doing is, once the disk image mounts, drag the application file/folder from it into your Applications folder (or somewhere else, if you prefer). This makes a copy of the application on your hard drive. You can then eject the disk image, and drag the disk image file to the trash and empty it.

Think of .dmg files as an installer floppy that is entirely contained in the computer (or I guess a Nero disk image if you're familiar with that)--if you're just dragging the icon of the application from the mounted disk image to your dock, then it's going to re-mount the disk every time you click on it. If you first copy it to your Applications folder then drag that icon to your dock to get ready access to it, then you'll be opening up the local copy and can discard the disk image.

Remember the Dock is sort of like Windows' start menu--it doesn't actually store anything, it's just a link to whatever you drag there.

 

[lelune]

Thanks to both of you, I successfully got rid of the disk images and next time I hook up my digicam I will try what you suggested...I also figured out how to save to any location (by using the drop down menu on the control-click "save target as"... so obvious, I feel like such a dummy ) I'll try and figure out what's going on with the firefox search... Thanks again!

 

[SkyBell]

Thanks to both of you, I successfully got rid of the disk images and next time I hook up my digicam I will try what you suggested...I also figured out how to save to any location (by using the drop down menu on the control-click "save target as"... so obvious, I feel like such a dummy ) I'll try and figure out what's going on with the firefox search... Thanks again!

Ah a FF user... Which isn't bad, as it is the ONLY browser I use on a PC.

First thing I did when i got my Mini was download Friefox. But, I've come to love Safari. Looks better, and functions better.

Already solved, but with the disk image thing, after it mounts on the dektop, I open it, and drag the icon in the image to the apps folder. then eject.

Took me a while to figure it out too,.

 

[aj98]

1. How do I resize an image I get from the internet/my digital camera? I had to download a third party program to do this but there has to be a way to do it with Iphoto or one of the other ones the computer came with...

you can crop (and constrain to various sizes) any photo from within iPhotos edit screen.

2. Upon attaching my digital camera (Canon Powershot a710) I have to manually load Iphoto (shouldn't it automatically load? this is not a big deal though), and then I cannot select which photos to upload. This is a huge problem, as I have a 1GB memory card and store a horrendous amount of data on there that I don't necessarily want to upload every time I take 2 pictures.

It can autoload if you want; configurable it through a control pane.

If any given image already exists within your iPhoto library, the import will stop and ask you what to do. When it does, check the box reading to the effect of 'apply to all duplicates': it will then only import those last 2 pictures.

4. How do I save to a specific folder from the internet? When I click "download" it doesn't give me an option to save to, say, the "School" folder on my desktop. I have to manually drag from the desktop (where the downloads fall) into the folder, which seems unnecessary to me. Am I doing something wrong?

The default download location is set from within your browsers preferences.

5. When I have installed some downloaded programs (Firefox for instance, some others) a "Disk Image" remains on my desktop. It cannot be deleted, as when I load up the program it goes from the trash back onto the desktop. I did some googling, which said to just put it in the trash, but like I said it keeps bouncing back. I don't want my desktop cluttered! How do I get rid of these?

IMG is a disk image. It isn't intended for you to actually run a program from the IMG. 2x clicking the IMG file will create an icon that looks like an external floppy drive.

Install the program from the floppy looking icon. (usually, but not always, by dragging an enclosed folder to the Applications folder on MacintoshHD)

Once copied in that manner

Drag the the floppy looking icon to the trash; it will disappear from the desktop.

The DMG can then be filed away (for backup/reinstall purposes) or thrown away/deleted.

 

[joelovesapple]

How about using Preview for resizing? Would that work? I know I managed to compress some photos for my sister's and my Mums Glastonbury tickets.