This is a bit frustrating . .

When I installed 10.5 (not a clean install) all worked well but I kept getting 'authentication' problems when moving stuff around. I had to input my password to move from certain folders to other. I thought I would be smart so I did a command-i n my hard disk and changed to accesss privileges so now have:
system = Read & Write;
admin = Read & Write;
everyone = Read only.

But now I cannot copy and paste any links into Safari or even in this post . . . what can I have done??

All help is greatly appreciated!!

The get info on the hard drive is very limited. It only affects your access to that one folder that opens up when you double click the hard drive. It has no effect on the hundreds of thousands of other folders on the hard drive. (and for that one you DO NOT want to click "apply to enclosed items")

Next step is probably to find the scope of the problem. Try creating a new user and login as the new user, see if the problems affect the new account also.

If you will boot from the Leopard install DVD, select your language, then on the second screen on the menu bar go to Utilities > Reset Password. In the Reset Password window select your hard drive then at the bottom of that window where it says "Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs" click on "Reset". That will reset the ownership and permissions in your user folder to Apple's default settings which IMHO is the best place to start anytime there are ownership and permissions issues. It is all too easy to end up with an unusable or even unbootable system when ownership and permissions get too far astray.

If for any reason you need to change ownership and permissions in a particular directory tree, Finder is notoriously ineffective at drilling down through multiple directory layers even when the "change enclosed.." button is clicked. I have always relied on the donationware utility BatChmod for that little chore. But it should be used very judiciously.