Desktop picture changes without being set on random

Hello all. My mac experience (3rd one) is becoming frustrating and I am debating going to the dark side. Always crashing unexpectedly. But the weirdest thing now is everytime I boot up, I never know which of three jpegs will fill the desktop screen. Could it be that after having to reinstall the OS a number of times because of other issues that there are a number of system folders running the computer? Can I find out? Any help appreciated and welcome.
Please convince me that if I go buy a new mac I won't have these crashes and gremlin episodes or what can I do to make my old G3 run efficiently. I really don't have the dough to go new.

Matt
Message was edited by: Matthew Morgan

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Desktop Pictures: "Change Pictures" in System Prefs no longer works.

I used to have my Desktop pictures change every five minutes using a special folder of photos. This function no longer works. The setting appears to be in effect according to the System Preferences Desktop Pictures Pane but the function appears to be broken in 10.4.5. I have trashed the Destop Pictures Preferences file in the Preferences Folder, but it still will not work.
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OK, that was really dumb!
The reason for the problem became abundantly clear when I quit Pathfinder. Suddenly the picture change became functional again.
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Hey Cocoatech, how about getting this into your next release?
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Thanks, I should have thought of that.
I tried it and it didn't work. My desktop picture changed almost immediately after logging in. but it did lead to the solution. I noticed that the desktop picture changed at the same time as Entourage Alert's launched (this was turned on the same day that the problem started. So I turned off Entourage Alerts and logged in and out. The desktop picture has remained as selected.
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I have lots of photos I use as desktop pictures. I like my Mac set up so the desktop picture changes frequently, like a continual slide show. However, five seconds is too short and one minute is too long. Is there a way to "hack" the system preference so that I can set the change frequency for say, 15 seconds or 30 seconds?

The relevant key section is at the top of my file. Did you already have a value set for the slideshow? Apparently the key is created when you first run the background slideshow. So, you might first set it and run a 30 second slideshow, then open the file and look for the key value.
Mine looks like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>Background</key>
<dict>
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   <real>0.0</real>
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  <key>ChangePath</key>
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QUESTION - Has anyone else recently experienced an iPhone or iPad's alarm going off by itself, without being set by the user?

Has anyone else had his/her phone alarm (on the clock app) go off by itself, without being set, and with a very weird sound?
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I know it's Halloween week, but some of us need our sleep!
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Hi Littleleslie,
Have you tried resetting the device (nothing will be lost): Hold down the Home and Power buttons at the same time and continue to hold them down until the Silver Apple appears (up to 30 seconds). Once the Home screen comes up, double tap the Home key and make sure you don't see the Alarm app in the list of background apps. If you do, swipe up on the thumbnail for it to close it out completely.
Then all you can do is wait to see if it will let you sleep through the night!
Good luck!
Cheers,
GB

Desktop Picture Change Setting

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Thanks for the help,

Several options are documented in another thread; the ChangeTime key is the time in seconds between changes.
(19471)

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Hi there,
Appears you can edit the...
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.desktop.plist
You'll need either Property List Editor, (part of Developer Tools installed), or PlistEdit Pro...
http://www.fatcatsoftware.com/plisteditpro/
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Thanks

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anyone ever seen this?

check and see if your alarm clocks aren't set on repeat. Clock - plus sign on the top right - repeat -

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It is possible that Firefox didn't close properly at the time that is happened.
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I've had a similar problem, and I think it is a bug in the system. But I get my desktop picture back after I disconnect from the projector. My experience has been that the settings for "desktop picture" are affected when the display changes. So connecting to a projector changes the display setting and thus changes the desktop picture.
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The Dock doesn't appear.
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/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist
/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist
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..Step by Step to fix your Mac
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Desktop picture changes without being set on random

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