Problem installing applications

[mrgorth]

OK, first, I spend all day on PCs and not as much time on my Mac. Second, I have dial-up. Please, no preaching. I can't afford cable or DSL. I have been trouble installing apps on my Mac. Specifically, I had a hard time installing Firefox and can't install NVU. Both are DMG files. AppleHelp says that Safari will download and install these things automatically but what I've been doing is downloading the file and work, burning it and than taking it home. When I try to open the file at home it seems to do something but then I get the icon blinking on and off in my dashboard(?). I somehow wrestled Firefox on and it works but strange icon shows up on desktop when in operation, the same one appears when I try to run NVU. It looks like a zip drive or something. Can anyone think of what's going wrong or a why I can install these things w/o downloading them at home? Thanks.

[Poiuyt]

1. If I am understanding correctly, you need to open the zip drive looking

icon (a disk image) and drag the contents onto your hard drive, typically into the applications folder (if it's an application).

[dwckabal]

2. Correct

A .dmg file is a disk image. When you double click the .dmg file, it "mounts" to the desktop. When mounted, it looks and acts like any other drive (hard drive, removable drive, etc.)

Double-click the mounted file, and it will open to reveal the application (Firefox, whatever). To install, simply drag the application icon to your Applications folder (or wherever you put your applications). To unmount the .dmg file, simply drag it to the trash, or control-click the image and select "Unmount <name>". And lastly, you can trash the actual .dmg file as well.

[mrgorth]

3. If this works I'll kiss you.

Psyche.