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Sometimes iPhoto takes a while communicating with the camera, and the more images you have the longer it takes. If the beach ball spins and you can move the cursor it means iPhoto's doing something, so just wait it out. It should eventually show "working...", then a while later it should show the name of your camera and how many images it contains. For instance, with 800 images on a card in a firewire card reader it takes about a minute for iPhoto to get ready to download, longer over USB. If your camera is a less expensive model or uses a CD or floppy to store images it may take even longer because of the inherent slowness of the camera. While iPhoto's getting ready you can move the cursor but you won't be able to select anything from iPhoto's menus, that's normal. You should be able to switch to the Finder or any other app, so just relax and let iPhoto communicate with the camera.
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