how do I move an app from my desktop or system preference or finder onto the background?

Thanks for your informative posts. As you can see navigating the mac for a newbie like me is quite a task. I wonder how long it takes.

As for the applications folder i just opened it up as you said on the finder right clicked giving me an option of putting it in dock which is what i DiD.

bY THE by do you use your dock on bottom of screen or right or left side.

Right now i have it on the left and it seems better

Man o man you are way qualified for usage of the OSX. must have been a breeze for you. For me it is like navigating through some crazy waters. And i STILL have not even begun to use it for work and heavy processing stuff. Going to do that soon. Right now am still struggling with the keyboard cover to take it off or not before I use it for typing. This cover slows me down so much.

I dont know how people wash their hands often and use this keyboard without being wary of water creeping in no matter how many times you dry your hands. Me Im a frequent handwasher

thanks for he reply. So finder is very important for you . And I am not the only one who finds using the mac after windows tricky. It is crazy. I am going to try and rea d the manuals as well and to see how much I can learn and glean. It seems though that whenever I do pick up some interesting tit bits I then forget it when i have to perform that function like days later. Get my point ?

whats crazy is though that if I begin to learn the osx lions manuals when it comes time to upgrade to mavericks i then have to spend days learning that. I wonder why they just cant leave well enough alone but develop new softwares that then take more time to learn?

nice customization there. SO let me get this straight. you first bring the application that you dont use onto your desktop (how do you do that?) Then you group all these apps into a new folder called misc....

You then drag this folder into the finder ...Okay and by the way how do you quit the finder?

Thanks Ralph and all for taking the time out to write me replies. Esp Ralph your detailed replies really help. I never knew how confusing it would be at the start when using a new operating system. However, I will keep at it and work on it so that it becomes second nature. Just for kicks I was using my windows 7 partition today and it still tickles me how easy windows 7 is for me. Maybe i.e. because windows in all its forms has been organic and second nature to me.

But I feel maybe OSX has a better future ....who knows thanks again though

Exactly. Some of my thoughts mirror yours. You mentioned stacks . Which leads me to one other question I had which was i read somewhere of stacking up documents or folders. How does one go about that?

I never really thought of the right handed thing but now that you brought it up makes sense.

On a lighter note how did you get the santa simulation running at the bottom of your avatar?

Wow I have to spend some time to figure how to construct a gif image or convert one into gif....and make it happen.....

Okay so when I right click on say the applications folder which is next to the garbage can segment on my dock it just opens up the complete folder. So does the stacks, fan option work with all kinds of folders and drives or just some of them.

At another place I read that you can make documents into stacks as well. Is that true as well?

Thanks Ralph....

you are right tried the loading on the right side.....works out well...i think I prefer the icon view as well...the fan is too scatttered ........I still have the dock on the left side of my screen .......vertically....feel that clears up space for me....might change it up in the future....at the moment going through your links to the gifs........

thanks I am going to get cracking on this and then update my progress

that may be true but everything else is upside down hahahah

so true so true one needs to constantly update their minds with OSX