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Hi there, Option key, command key and esc key pressed at the same time will bring up a force quit window. I use them all the time. Sometimes you have to staccato them all.

Sometimes files are so massive or there are too many commands and the system
bounces all around.

Entourage being slow is understandable--the only things that crash on my iMac are Microsoft Office items. But, hey, that is the way of Microsoft.
Puzzling, though as to why you are having some programmes take so long. What operating system to you have? Have you updated your programmes? Do you have enough memory?
I find Entourage slow compared to Mail, but Firefox opens readily whenever I use it. Safari has improved so much lately as I rarely have to open Firefox. The only thing that wont' open on Safari is ABC.com's video viewer so in order to watch ABC videos, one must open Firefox to watch it.

I get the beach ball of death all the time on facebook, but I have an old outdated system. Usually this happens when I am playing one of my favorite games during primetime. So I click on the desktop which allows me to pull down the menu from Finder and I click "force quit". When I re-start Firefox, it will be OK for a while.

Kythera,

can you tell us a little about your Mac? What "cat" do you have in it, and what type of processor and how much RAM?

You can get all that info from the black apple at the top left of your screen, and then selecting "About this Mac".

Pete

Hi all,
Thanks for the tip to hold option, command, and esc keys at the same time, Pond. I'll try it.
All of you have at least verified that I'm not the only one experiencing this. I'm grateful for that because I'm not very tech savvy so I always think I'm to blame or I'm so stupid that I can't learn this stuff.

I reinstalled Firefox yesterday so I'll watch to see if uploads (ball of death) go faster.

I know that I should probably migrate to MAIL permanently or rely on Gmail, but I'm so used to Outlook that it's hard to break a bad habit! I like gmail because it keeps "conversation" together.

Here's everything on this MAC:

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac8,1 (latest is 10.5.8)
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 1 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: IM81.00C1.B00
SMC Version (system): 1.29f1


what's worse: When I merely "quit" or "force quit" and turn off using the button, then hit the button to start again, I hear the APPLE cord music but no Apple icon appears. I just get an empty white screen! That leaves my no alternative (that I know of ) than to unplug it, replug it, and hit the start button at the back. Once that happens, the Apple icon comes on after the Apple cord music and everything else boots up as it normally would.

Hope this is enough info!
Kythera

Why don't you just put the iMac to sleep? Just click on the little black apple in the far upper left hand corner and opt for 'Sleep', then all you have to do start up again is to hit a key on the board and you are back in business.

If you have an application that continues to hang up and requires force quitting, instead of shutting down and restarting after the force quit, go to the little black apple and select Restart.

Safari kept hanging for me and restarting my laptop was the only thing that got it going again. I emptied the cache two days ago and it seems to be behaving itself now. BTW, Eons seems to cause the hang more than other sites.

For me it happens, relatively frequently, when I'm loading pictures into Photobucket, The only way I can get out of it is to press and hold the off button until my MacBook Pro with Snow Leopard stops. I then switch back on and it's fine. Until the next time.

I always use "sleep" mode when I finish my Mac time; but it doesn't solve my 'ball of death' dilemma. I'll try the "restart" at the black apple suggestion.

Reinstalling Firefox seems to have helped a lot.

Today, I used the option-command-esc technique and it worked! Thanks again POND for sending me that hint!

It's so nice to have a "home" to go to. I don't feel that I'm the only one who has experienced this! Thanks so much for all of your suggestions.

hugs and kisses ....

I used to just turn off my computer and restart with the on off button, but that created other problems as I did it all the time. I use Force Quit now.