new to mac. app questions

[ataboc]

Hi! i just bought my first mac on monday. a 2.2 White macbook. it's pretty awesome but it's taking me a while to get used to it.

my first question is about installing apps. when i d/led firefox, it was pretty straightforward. i just drug the firefox icon into the apps folder and that was that!

my next app was colloquy for irc. when i downloaded it, it went into my downloads folder. i wasn't able to drag it into apps. after i opened it, a disk image showed up on the desktop. the only thing i could do with it was eject it. and that didn't do anything. after a restart, colloquy wasn't even on the computer! i had to download it again to use it. what am i doing wrong?
thanks in advance!

 

[Father Jack]

Most Mac Apps are .dmg files which install when you double-click them. The installed App will appear in the Apps folder.

Generally you don't drag the App to the Apps folder unless you are told to do so ..

 

[ataboc]

do you have any idea why a disk image would be created on the desktop?

 

[72930]

From the disk image, double click it, and there should either be a package which you double click to install, or something to drag to the Applications folder (looks just like the app, and is in fact launchable)...then eject the drive and delete the dmg file

 

[ataboc]

thanks guys i'll give it a shot!