One (or perhaps two) remark(s) about dragging files within one drive, let’s say Macintosh HD. If a file or directory is owned by a group you are not part of and is read-only for others (those “others” would be you as well), dragging that file or directory will result in a copy of the original file (explanation follows further on in this comment).

This is especially important if you’re not logged in as an administrative user. Some files are part of the admin group (see the Get Info menu, under Owner and permissions, when you right-click on a file or folder).

As a non-administrative user, you are not part of that admin group. Having administrative powers just means that: being part of the admin group. As a non-administrative user, therefore, you cannot be part of the group called “admin”.

Now, if you look in your root folder (Macintosh HD), you can see your System folder. Double-click on that folder, to open it. You will see the Library folder inside there. Double-click that as well.

Next, locate one of the folders inside there, select it, and drag it over to the desktop. You will see a plus icon being attached to the folder, to indicate it is copied, instead of moved.

Why can you not move that folder? Well, because you don’t have the correct access control permissions. That folder is read-only, so you can only read what’s in it. You cannot modify it or replace it. So, the only way for the Finder to comply to your mouse action is to create a copy of the original folder on the desktop.

You can use this “trick” to protect your Applications folder, or any other folder, so no one can install files and folders (or applications) in that folder without providing the administrator’s user name and password.

On my Mac, the Applications folder is owned by the user called “system”, which is part of the group “admin”. Both the user “system” and the group “admin” can read and write, but others can only read. I also applied it on all items contained within the Application folder.

After you have done that, every time you put something in the Applications folder, and you are not logged in as an administrator, you will need to supply your administrator’s user name and password. The same applies when I try to delete an application from the Applications folder.

Thanks for another great show Victor. I just have a wee tip to help people to see at a glance whether they are moving or copyin a file. Like you explained OS X has a set of rules it uses internally to decide whether to move or copy. As Rene showed that rule set gets complicated. When you actually start dragging a file you don’t have to work this all out though, OS X shows you what it’s going to do!

When it’s about to copy a file a little green + icon appears under your cursor, if it’s about to move the file that doesn’t happen. I find it very handy that Apple thought of that little detail.

Thanks again and keep up the good work!

Bart.

Victor asked me to post this in show #111 so I hope this is the right spot. He won’t be doing shows for about 2 weeks and thought this would be best to try to get a little help on this until he returns.

Hello,

I am having problems finding some much needed details on what the best software/hardware is for converting video formats on a Mac. I should note I am using a new iMac 4GB memory and Leopard OS so what I use needs to be compatible. Here’s is what I need to do:

1. Transfer old VHS tapes (home movies and such) to DVD. I need to be able to use DL DVD discs for my recordings so I don’t have to switch DVDs. In other words make them just like the DVDs you play that you buy. Therefore, they also must be able to playback in home theater DVD players, not just on the computer. I would assume the best way as for encoding is to get the VHS tape in digital format on the hard drive, then use the codecs to turn them into DVDs? Another option I thought about is getting a basic VHS-DVD combo unit and transfer the VHS tapes to DVD using it. Then, put those DVDs in the Mac for converting to a neutral format for playback on Mac or PC.

2. Regardless of method used, once on the hard drive I also need to convert them to a format neutral playback on both the Mac and PC. What is the best, MPEG 4?

3. The ability to do some nice editing of making bookmarks, chapters and thumbnails for the DVD menu and divisions I wish to make. In other words, if I have a home movie containing my Summer and Winter vacation, I want to insert bookmarks at points to skip to like in a movie DVD and also have a thumbnail of it just like DVD movies does.

4. A nice MAIN menu for the DVD that will let me hit the main categories, not just chapters for the TOP level DVD menu. Such as Summer Vacation, Winter vacation.

5. The software should be easy to use so I don’t have to take a HUGE crash course requiring lots of work making the project a chore. Also, I don’t want or need a professional package, just something simple that is less than $200 per software program. Not the expensive $500+ options for movie makers.

6. It would be nice to find some books on this, like iMovie 08 that are coming out just now that you can find on Amazon.com. Any thoughts on help books would be very useful.

Thank you for any tips and advice on this matter.