I HATE MACS!!!

Poster: Andy
Dated: Wednesday December 1 2004 - 13:29:46 GMT

Hi All,

Got a problem with my Mac.

I really can't believe how much trouble this has caused and how long I've pissed about with it but I need some help from a Mac guru.

I've installed Firefox, did the install from Mozilla's site everything went well and I've even used the browser, Wahoo!

Anyway, shut it down and here's the problem. I can find where Firefox has gone. WHERE THE BLOODY HELL IS IT . It's installed OK but do you think I can find it? Not a chance. All I want is to create a shortcut but I need to know where it is to do it. I can find one reference to firefox and when I drag it onto the desktop it starts copying a 24.2Meg file - NO I DON'T WANT THAT - stop. . . . Stop. . . . . . . .STOPPPPPPP - thank you. Jeez, how do people use these useless pieces of pap?

Anyway, my question. How do I get a desktop shortcut for Mozilla Firefox? I've been in computing for almost 20 years so no spring chicken but I'm struggling with this, must be going senile in my old age

Anybody?

Cheers
Andy

Poster: John
Dated: Wednesday December 1 2004 - 13:45:26 GMT

My, my - we're a bit touchy today, aren't we...

I could start by saying you're working on the best machine around (don't know what model you have), but maybe I'll just leave that for later.

House calls (38 years service, support, and training experience...) - in your case, $1,000/hour plus expenses (first class, of course - and no cracked planes, either!).

So, double-click the HD icon. You should show some icons down the left side of the window. Hilight the HD name, and in the upper right corner type Firefox and hit return. The bottom of that window should show all hits on that search.

Typically it should have been installed in the Applications directory. Once you find it just grab the icon and drag it to the dock - instant alias. When you dragged to the desktop it was just doing a full copy.

For an alias elsewhere (once you find it), just hilight Firefox and hit Cmd-L. It will make an alias right there that you can drag to the desktop.

Poster: kevin3442
Dated: Thursday December 2 2004 - 8:57:35 GMT

OK, so we could have a lively discussion on the relative merits of various computing platforms. But the really important thing is...

What's a piece of pap? (Other than a Mac, of course.)



Kevin

Poster: Andy
Dated: Thursday December 2 2004 - 11:32:42 GMT

It's just a word I use for crap.

-- Andy

Poster: John
Dated: Thursday December 2 2004 - 13:28:01 GMT


Oh, my - here we go again...

Poster: Andy
Dated: Thursday December 2 2004 - 13:39:46 GMT

Heh, just powered up the Mac and as always, I gotta download 40 something meg of updates before I can use it.

What a machine (sorry John).

I tell you what REALLY annoys me about Apple ATM - Every little update they release for OSX means you have to buy the whole OS again.

I mean, it's not mega bucks but FFS why can't we just have an upgrade like everybody else. I only use it for testing and it costs around $500 per year just to keep up. Let's face it, if they developed the software properly in the first place we wouldn't need to keep buying these new releases.

Another thing, and I've said this before, OSX is based on BSD and that's Open Source. Seems a bit naughty to be charging so much for what is effectively free software.

Oh well, back to work I feel better for my rant now.

Cheers
Andy

Poster: Andy
Dated: Thursday December 2 2004 - 14:00:02 GMT

It's still upgrading the OS - been like 20 minutes now

Anyway, still can't find it. I can see "Firefox" in "Application Support" but all I've got in there is pluginreg.dat, Profiles and profiles.ini - No executables.

Any other ideas?

I'm finding this quite amusing now

-- Andy

Poster: John
Dated: Thursday December 2 2004 - 14:23:04 GMT


You must have had it off for a long time. There hasn't been that much lately.

But what you're getting now is free. Yes, 10.3 you had to buy. But it's up to 10.3.6 now - all free updates.

They're putting out security updates and enhancements just like M$ - but not nearly as many. Further, Unix wasn't really targeted in the past by hackers the way Win is. Now, with Mac sitting on top of it, folks want to go get it. Exploits are being found that were always there. Apple didn't write BSD!

Yes, the underlying code is, but the Mac-look on top is all new and not part of BSD. Also, mixed in with the updates you're getting are a lot of app updates as well - apps that were included free with the system.

Oh, I'm so happy...

Poster: John
Dated: Thursday December 2 2004 - 14:39:36 GMT


Yup. Sounds like RTFM...

Firefox downloads Firefox 1.0.dmg.gz first. That should automatically get unpacked to firefox-1.0en.US.mac.dmg (over here, anyway), and then the .gz gets automatically dumped. That in turn gets pulled apart to Firefox, with an icon that looks like an HD on your desktop. Think of it like a mapped drive on Win. Basically this automatically opens up on your desktop with the app sitting right there.

IF you double-clicked that app it would run fine, but you were running from the "mapped drive". What happens to a mapped drive when you shut down? Bye-bye - and so goes the app.

The firefox-1.0en.US.mac.dmg (or whatever) should still be on your desktop (or wherever you have your downloaded files set to go). Double-click it and you'll get the Firefox "HD" back again with the app in it. Drag the Firefox icon in there to the Applications folder (you'll see a "copying..." dialog). NOW you've got it.