Mac laptop iphoto question

[kaneohe]

Today I loaded some pics from camera to Mac laptop and forgot to put in the title for the group of pics. Now it just has as title "untitled May 17,2010".
Is there is an easy way to change that title?

[ikonomore]

Just put the pointer over the title and click it but hold the button for an extra second. It should turn blue and change to a cursor.

[kaneohe]

Thanks, Ikonomore. Worked like a charm.......I guess if I had been desperate enough I might eventually have discovered that....the sign of a good design....but there are enough non-obvious things, esp for an ex PC person, that I thought I'd ask for help first.

[donheff]

Hey, let me throw in another Mac question. I have never used one but an old guy who is switching from Win 98 to a Mac asked me to help him transfer files to the Mac. I was going to copy them to a USB flash drive and then plug it into the Mac. I assume you then click on the Finder and do something but what? Mac people tell me they don't store files in hierarchical folder but just sort of dump them in there and use the finder to find them. Is that correct or should I set up folders for photos, documents, etc. in the guy's home directory? And will it be intuitive in the Finder howto copy from the flash drive to the Mac HD?

[IndependentlyPoor]

The Mac OS file system is organized with folders. It is not that different from Windows. In fact, Macs can read Windows files.

When you plug in the flash drive, an icon for the drive will appear in the finder. Click on the icon and the top level folders and/or files on the drive will appear. Just drag them to your friend's home folder or desktop or wherever. Don't drag them to the Macintosh HD folder; it is above the user's home directory in the hierarchy and should be reserved for system stuff.

Typically, a user's home, pictures, documents, and desktop folders appear in the left sidebar of the finder window and remain there no matter what folder is selected. This is user changeable though, so it might be different.

Here is a pic of my finder with a flash drive attached, and my home directory selected. (I blanked out my home directory name.) The flash drive is named crucial8gb.
finder.gif
It is important to "eject" the flash drive before removing it. Click on the ⏏ symbol next to the flash drive icon and name to eject it.

I don't know what you mean by not using folders but instead using the finder to find files.

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by IndependentlyPoor It is not that different from Windows.

Uh oh. Looks like the billion Apple spent on marketing didn't 'take' on at least one user....

[IndependentlyPoor]

[donheff]

Quote:

Originally Posted by IndependentlyPoor The Mac OS file system is organized with folders. It is not that different from Windows. When you plug in the flash drive, an icon for the drive will appear in the finder. Click on the icon and the top level folders and/or files on the drive will appear. Just drag them to your friend's home folder or desktop or wherever. Don't drag them to the Macintosh HD folder; it is above the user's home directory in the hierarchy and should be reserved for system stuff. Typically, a user's home, pictures, documents, and desktop folders appear in the left sidebar of the finder window and remain there no matter what folder is selected. This is user changeable though, so it might be different. Here is a pic of my finder with a flash drive attached, and my home directory selected. (I blanked out my home directory name.) The flash drive is named crucial8gb. Attachment 9267 It is important to "eject" the flash drive before removing it. Click on the ⏏ symbol next to the flash drive icon and name to eject it. I don't know what you mean by not using folders but instead using the finder to find files.

Thanks IP. That looks straight forward enough. I was quessing there would be a home folder by user since that is what I experienced in Unix. But years back some Mac using friends (admittedly not technically knowledgeable) told me they never saw or knew about any folders in their Mac - they just found everything with their finder. It sounds like they just didn't know anything about their file system. I guess my older sister would say the same thing about Windows -- files just go wherever they go. She emails me photos to post to her Facebook page.

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo Uh oh. Looks like the billion Apple spent on marketing didn't 'take' on at least one user....

Uh..... What do you think inspired "Windows"?

BTW - hierarchical file systems have been around forever, and Unix underlies the modern Mac OS (i.e. OS X ). Donheff - your friends are clueless - but notice how it doesn't keep them from being able to use their Mac. They probably are manipulating their file system hierarchically, but have no clue that they are doing it.

Audrey

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaneohe Thanks, Ikonomore. Worked like a charm.......I guess if I had been desperate enough I might eventually have discovered that....the sign of a good design....but there are enough non-obvious things, esp for an ex PC person, that I thought I'd ask for help first.

Almost all names, titles, etc. on a Mac can be changed by selecting the name/title once, and then wait a sec to click once again. This causes a blue box to appear around the name/title with text selected in blue, which means you can replace or edit it now. Click outside to be done.

If you click twice in rapid succession, that counts as a double-click and opens the doc or launches an app or drills down a level, etc.

This special click sequence is not easily discovered by accident, so don't feel bad about not knowing it. But if you had ever watched a "getting started with Mac OS" or other type video tutorial available free from Apple (there are loads of them available at apple.com) you would have picked up this useful tip. Hint - you might want to take advantage of those things now - there are a whole series available for iPhoto. Who knows what you are missing out on!

Audrey

[REWahoo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 Uh..... What do you think inspired "Windows"

I thought it came to Gates in a dream...

[ziggy29]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo Uh oh. Looks like the billion Apple spent on marketing didn't 'take' on at least one user....

Never mind that Apple "borrowed" the original windowed Mac interface from Xerox....

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by REWahoo I thought it came to Gates in a dream...

Yeah - some dreams after he had been staring at Macs for a couple of years.....

Audrey

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ziggy29 Never mind that Apple "borrowed" the original windowed Mac interface from Xerox....

Yep - that doesn't matter at all as the Xerox products had very limited commercial availability and were ultimately not commercially successful. I'm glad Apple ran with it and made it available to the masses.

There are lots of brilliant, innovative ideas buried in companies and many never see the light of day. Bringing truly innovative ideas to market in products that become commercially successful also requires genius at many levels. Over the decades Jobs has really proven himself to be a master at this.

Audrey

[IndependentlyPoor]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ziggy29 Never mind that Apple "borrowed" the original windowed Mac interface from Xerox....

Poor Xerox. They had a working prototype of the future in their hands and didn't know what to do with it. One of the great screw-ups of modern times.
The History of Apple Computers

[audreyh1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by IndependentlyPoor Poor Xerox. They had a working prototype of the future in their hands and didn't know what to do with it. One of the great screw-ups of modern times.

As I posted above:

There are lots of brilliant, innovative ideas buried in companies and many never see the light of day. Bringing truly innovative ideas to market in products that become commercially successful also requires genius at many levels. Over the decades Jobs has really proven himself to be a master at this.

IMO - these types of "missed opportunity screw-ups" are incredible common, because higher-ups, or even the inventors themselves often lack the vision of how "useful" something might really be, and ideas get buried never to see the light of day. We just don't hear about 99% of them.

Audrey

[IndependentlyPoor]

Sorry about the cross posting with Audrey, and now that we have totally highjacked this thread, a bit of history that I just came across

Quote:

MacWrite and MacPaint sofware came bundled with the Macintosh, and PowerPoint was developed by Forethought for the Mac in 1984. (In 1987, Microsoft acquired Forethought and made PowerPoint its own.)

From
1984: The First Macs