Problems with the finder - very slowly

[caro77]

I have a lot of problems with my ibook G4:
All these little programs like adressbook, textedit, changing languages, installer ... do not work anymore. The computer starts opening the programm and goes on working and working and nothing happens. Some days before, I tried to start the letter info (i dont know how it is calles in English, sorry, I am German) of teh finder. Know the mac always tries to open this window, so that he works very vert slowly. I have to wait minutes clicking something.

Now I wanted to boot from the system CD - but I had to realize, that I do not have it anymore! I live in Argentine, south america, and forgot this CD in Germany ...

Can you halp me please?

Tank you very much.

 

[Giaguara]

Hi Caro,
How much empty space do you have on your hard drive? (GB and as % of HD)?
What version of OS X?
Did you install any new apps or fonts etc recently?
Can you run some maintenance program like OnyX?
Does that happen also in safe boot? For any other user than yours?
For longer trips, if you can't bring the original DVDs with you, a backup disc of them doesn't hurt for situations like this...