New iMac user, bought one yesterday - I have a couple of questions

[SaN NizZLe]

What's up everyone!!

So I finally took the plunge last night and pick up a new iMac. Super excited right now!! I’m new to OS X and trying to figure out a couple of things. I did a search to see if I could find answers to some of my questions but no luck. Any help will be appreciated!!


Questions

Is there a way to remove that “enter in your password” feature every time you make changes on your desktop? It seems like whenever I move a file, work within the Hard disk, etc it asks for my login password before the change can be made…..can I disable this? It’s pretty annoying…

How can I move files from the desktop into the hard disk without them duplicating? For example, I downloaded Adobe flash and when it finished it was on my desktop so I created a folder within the hard disk and moved it into there, but when I did that, the flash icon stayed on the desktop and a copy was made in that folder. Is there another way of moving files without them staying on the desktop?

iPhoto – I dragged all of my photos from my portable hdd into my mac. Where does iphoto come into play? When I opened it up, no photos showed. Do I have to drag them all in there also?


Thanks again!!!!!!

 

[OptyCT]

What's up everyone!!

So I finally took the plunge last night and pick up a new iMac. Super excited right now!! I’m new to OS X and trying to figure out a couple of things. I did a search to see if I could find answers to some of my questions but no luck. Any help will be appreciated!!


Questions

Is there a way to remove that “enter in your password” feature every time you make changes on your desktop? It seems like whenever I move a file, work within the Hard disk, etc it asks for my login password before the change can be made…..can I disable this? It’s pretty annoying…

Ahhhh, the plight of an ex-Windows user. Don't worry, we've all been there.

I'm not sure if there's a way to change or remove this. My recommendation would be to not mess with it since it is an added level of security. I was running Windows 7 using Parallels and dl'd a file that contained a virus. This prompt is what saved me from having the virus installed on my system.

can I move files from the desktop into the hard disk without them duplicating? For example, I downloaded Adobe flash and when it finished it was on my desktop so I created a folder within the hard disk and moved it into there, but when I did that, the flash icon stayed on the desktop and a copy was made in that folder. Is there another way of moving files without them staying on the desktop?

There's no need to create a file on your HDD to store your programs (on Mac, programs are called "Applications"). All of the applications, including Adobe flash, should reside in the Applications folder. To make it easier to move applications to the Applications folder, I added this folder to my Dock. To do this, launch Finder and click-drag-drop the Applications folder to the right side of your dock (the right side of the dotted-line). After you download an application, you'll see it pop-up on your desktop. Double click this icon on your desktop. Usually a window will open. Take the application icon in this folder and drag it to your application folder on your dock. That's it. You're done! FWIW, the program files on the desktop will disappear after a reboot of your system (after the application has been moved to the Applications folder).

– I dragged all of my photos from my portable hdd into my mac. Where does iphoto come into play? When I opened it up, no photos showed. Do I have to drag them all in there also?

I can't help you with iPhoto since I don't use it.

Best of luck with your new Mac and OSX. You'll get the hang of it soon enough.

 

[glenncal]

1) It shouldn't ask you for the password when you move files to/from your desktop or documents folder as both are located in your user folder. You should use those locations to work with as other places will require admin privileges and will prompt you for a password.

2) To move files across hard disk without duplicating, press the alt (or option) key on your keyboard while moving.

3) To move your photos to iPhoto, drag them to the iPhoto icon in the dock.

 

[SaN NizZLe]

Thanks for these tips!! I will try all of these when I get home.

I can already see that the "typing in a password while working" thing is going to take a bit of getting used to....

 

[HBOC]

I think the Adobe Flash thing you are seeing could be the DMG (disc mounted image), UNLESS you chose to have it installed to the "desktop". Look on your side bar and see if you can unmount "eject" the Adobe DMG.

Also to import to iPhoto, you can open up iPhoto and click on import. I believe the files are stored just as they are in Aperture ; users>pictures

 

[Panch0]

Thanks for these tips!! I will try all of these when I get home.

I can already see that the "typing in a password while working" thing is going to take a bit of getting used to....

That should only come up if you are trying to do something that requires admin permission.

You mentioned this happened while trying to move files. Can you specify What you were trying to move, where you were moving it from and where it was moving to? It's possible that you were trying to move something either to or from a restricted location. Generally, you shouldn't really do ANYTHING outside of your home directory. Create all the folders and subfolders you want within the home directory, but generally, if you are creating a Folder directly on the root of the hard drive, you are probably in the wrong place.

That's over simplified, but should be a good starting point as you transition from file management in Windows to OS X.

 

[Trudy]

What's up everyone!!
Is there a way to remove that “enter in your password” feature every time you make changes on your desktop? It seems like whenever I move a file, work within the Hard disk, etc it asks for my login password before the change can be made…..can I disable this? It’s pretty annoying…

Anything within your own home folder generally doesn't need that. Perhaps you are trying to move things to the root of or special folders in the boot hard drive? That's protected. Try to stay within your own home folder except for software installs and other such things. The system is designed so that you don't need to go outside of it often. If you open Finder you'll see places to put your documents, videos, music, etc.

How can I move files from the desktop into the hard disk without them duplicating? For example, I downloaded Adobe flash and when it finished it was on my desktop so I created a folder within the hard disk and moved it into there, but when I did that, the flash icon stayed on the desktop and a copy was made in that folder. Is there another way of moving files without them staying on the desktop?

Command key switches from copy to move. Look for a little plus symbol to appear and disappear during copy. But in the case of Flash that's an installer. Run it, install, then delete the installer from your hard drive.

iPhoto – I dragged all of my photos from my portable hdd into my mac. Where does iphoto come into play? When I opened it up, no photos showed. Do I have to drag them all in there also?

You have to drag them onto iPhoto itself, then iPhoto will import them all. Same for music with iTunes.

 

[SaN NizZLe]

thanks for the help guys! I'm slowly figuring it all out....I've been going on the apple website for video on how to do certain things.

Have another question, how can I "drag" or transfer recently purchased iTunes media onto my portable usb HD for back up porposes?

I just bought some stuff on the itunes store yesterday and I need to back it up.

 

[Panch0]

click and drag should do it. if you want to do it folder or file at a time.
To find the location of the file, open iTunes, right click (or 'secondary click' - 2 finger tap on the trackpad is a common setting) the item and select "Get Info". This will show you a bunch of information, including the file path. Default will be something like users/your_user_name/music/iTunes/iTunes Media Library/Music/Artist/Album/Song

I have never tried this, but I kind of thing you can just gram the item within iTunes and drag it to a Finder Window.

THere are a couple of great free programs, Carbon Copy Cloner and SuperDuper, that allow you to set up cloning of a drive, partition or folder to another location. You could do something like this to keep copies in sync between their normal location and your external.

Or you could just open Time Machine and tell it to back up to your external drive. In fact, If I recall correctly, the first time you plug in an external, I thing Time Machine will ask if you want to use the drive as a Time Machine target.

 

[LiloThePleo]

For your files I also had that problem in the beginning, it kept asking for permissions to do anything with them. You need to right click on the file or group of files and select 'get info' in the window that pops up you can change the permissions. Make sure it's read and write (if you can't change it, look in the bottom right and make sure the padlock is 'unlocked')

 

[SaN NizZLe]

I think I figured out why my hard drive won't write files on it from my Mac, I haven't reformattedit for the Mac yet. I'll give this a try.

I'm slowly getting there....

Any of those DVD rip programs on the Mac app store worth it?