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Hey guys--I've got through all the trouble shooting I know to do and still can't fix my computer. My IMac switches between open windows what seems like randomly. I'll be working in one window and then all of the sudden the pointer will turn to a little hand and all of the other windows "come to the front". It is very frustrating cause I'm not able stay in the window I want without much pain and anguish. I've got through the mouse and keyboard preferences and messed with them a bit but it has not solved the problem. Any ideas? Thanks.

change your screen corners options in "dashboard and expose". when you move your pointer to one corner, it will let you see all open windows and choose one to work in. you can take the option away that pops all windows up

Yes, sounds like a dashboard/expose preferences setting. Check that setting in system preferences.

Thanks for your suggestions guys but its still not working right. In the Expose settings I have all four corners set with a -. Should it be something else.

This shit is driving us CRAZY. I basically stopped working on the computer now.

No that sounds right, just because make sure spaces is not set-up either. Explain again when it does this. Is it when your mouse moves up to one of the corners of the screen only or does it do it another way as well?

It will switch between windows even if I'm not at the corners of a window. It's not like it switches from one window to the next either, it will oscillate between the two so that you can't really work in either until you manage to get a "click" in. Once you are able to get into the right window your easily fucked because the whole process will likely start again.

The weird shit is that after I wrote the post last night I went back to the Expose preferences just to make sure I had them set at - (which they were) but then last night the oscillation stopped. I doubtful it's for good though. I'm positive I did not change anything.

Could it be my mouse?

Thanks J.

OK, I think I know what's going on. I have mine set-up to do this. I assume you have the mac mouse which has the two side buttons on it (one on each side) there is a setting so that when you press both of those buttons at the same time it does what you are explaining. Mine is like that and sometimes I hit it by mistake, its easy to do. I am not in front on my iMac right now to tell you where that setting is, but its either in the mouse setting or the expose setting somewhere.

Thanks man. I'll look into that tonight.

I noticed that sometimes if there is food in my keyboard (and also before it died after it drank coffee) some keys become very sensitive and get triggered by vibrations or very light touch.

If one of your F keys assigned to exposé or whatever is doing that then that might be a problem too.

Jeez, I feel like such an idiot now. Fixed very easily thanks to J's advice. Make it a twelver now. U da Mac Man.

Glad you got it figured and glad I could help.

Macs...........so easy even Ecobrad can use them.

I only have two of the hot corners enabled on our macs. Upper left corner is expose, upper right takes you to the desktop. Fuggin love it. It just makes getting to the desktop so quick and switching between open windows so easy. At work we use PCs and we have to have like 10 windows open at once. Life without expose and hot corners sucks.

One tip I've found with hot corners is that generally enabling all four is too much. The wife and kids also often activate expose in the upper left corner with they go to close an open window as the red/yellow/green browser control buttons are also on the left side. Being a little more precise with the cursor helps. Also as jcocci said, in your system preferences options under mouse and keyboard you can designate what those two buttons on the mouse do. Out of the box they are set to expose and pressing down on the trackball brings up dashboard. You can set these to do different things. Please tell me you're still not rocking the left mouse click only that comes as the Mac default? Make sure you enable the right click as a secondary button (top right) on the mouse so you can have right click functionality.

Having used a mac lappy (wife and kids use the Imac) for the last couple years that has a multi touch/gesture trackpad I pretty much despise using a mouse (same for buttons on my phones). The mouse does less and requires more effort. I want to see Mac put out a keyboard that has their trackpad replace the number keys. Then you just use the keys for typing and the trackpad for cursor, no mouse. I've see at least one company make something similar. I bet we'll see more someday.

Also lusting after a Mac tower right now to edit home movies. Might pull it off before years end. Haley is saving for a new mac too.

J and NM,
Have you guys upgraded to snow leopard yet? I'm not in a huge rush, should I be?

I have upgraded to SL on both my iMac and MacBook Pro. Not a whole different just looking at it or using it, but it seems more stable (not that it wasn't before) and runs quite a bit smoother and faster. Both of my machines shut down in about 5 seconds and both boot up way faster too. Only bummer I've had with SL is that my printer (that wan't technically compatible with Mac to begin with, but i made work) now no longer works with SL. Honestly I'm Ok with that though as I've wanted to get a new printer and couldn't convince the wife we needed one.