Mac problem

Factual Questions
1

I was putting my PowerBook G4 to sleep when I noticed that the Finder/HD icon that usually lives in the upper-left corner of my screen was missing. I checked the trash but it wasn’t there. I used Finder from the Dock and tried to Macintosh HD to the desktop. Instead it ‘poofed’. I checked Trash and it wasn’t there. I did find it by using the Search box and put it back in its place in the Finder window. But it’s still not on my Desktop.

I clicked Show all options in my Finder folder and now I have a Speech recognition ‘disc’ on my Desktop (always on top). I can’t close/hide it.

  1. How do I get my HD icon back on the Desktop?

  2. How do I hide the Speech icon?

ETA: I did try rebooting.

2

Under ‘Finder Preferences’, ‘General’ pane:
Checked the checkbox to show hard disks on the desktop.

-If it’s already checked, uncheck it, then check it again.

3

Thanks. (It was checked already, so I did what you said.)

Any idea of how to hide the Speech thing?

4

That’s in ‘System Preferences’ under System:Speech.
Somehow ‘Speakable Items’ has been turned on.
Turn it off.

I’d run the disk repair utility at this point. Something, somehow has glitched your preferences. It’s best to take care of the problem before it starts in on other things.

5

The Speech icon came up when I clicked Show all options.

EDIT: I clicked the Off box and that worked.

Disc utility has three options: Verify Disc Permissions, Repair Disc Permissions, and Verify Disc. Do I choose Repair Disc Permissions?

6

Verify the disk. If it comes back with errors you’ll have to start up from another drive or CD, so you can repair it.
Once that’s done, repair permissions.

7

Macintosh computers don’t have problems. Don’t you read Apple’s promotional literature?

Stranger

8

However, mine’s got a Vista partition (Nibiru). Damned thing causes no end of troubles. :wink:

9

Apparently not:

:stuck_out_tongue:

I must have clicked something inadvertently.

10

As opposed to “Unspeakable Items?”

Paging Howard Phillips!

11

But it only has the one button. Wait a minute; did you click Open Apple-Ctrl-C-Mouse Button at the same time? Yeah, you’re fucked.

Stranger