Got Kids? Give them a User Account!

Do you really want your kids playing games on your Mac? Do you want them to get into your email or start your iChat? Probably not. They are never to young to have their own side of the Mac.

I have a computer in my kitchen ( I like having fast access to recipes) and on it I have a user account set up just for the kids. This is where the games live for the little ones. I even have a step stool at the counter so they can reach it. When a two year old steps up to the computer, I find it best to give them their own space on the computer and not let the mess around in mine. I know what you are thinking, “a two year old on your iMac”. You bet! I have one of the best software programs for toddlers. They love it and I am thankful to have something else to entertain those busy fingers with before they start emptying out all of my kitchen cabinets.

Apple’s Leopard and Tiger have excellent parental controls and I suggest using them. It doesn’t matter how old the kids are from tots to teens you really want them to have their own account and keep them out of yours. 

My older kids can login to their accounts and pick cutesy desktop pictures and set up their mail accounts. They can stock their own iPhoto library’s and download tunes into iTunes and use iChat to chat with friends.

With parental control built in I am able to control their mail, which website they can view, who they can iChat with, set computer time curfews, indicate which applications they can use and what system preferences they can change.

For younger kids you can simplify it even further by using the “Simple Finder” when setting up their accounts. Once they login all they are presented with is a desktop and large icons of programs they have permission to use.

I will explain how to set these accounts up and how to use the parental control in the next few issues.

Make a “Test” user account

If your Mac is running great right now thats terrific. But like most users, you will add new software, set prefs, move things around, currupt some files etc. Each user folder is unique in that it holds all the settings apart from other users. When something quits working right it is good to have a clean user folder on hand for testing. 

For instance you installed a new application or downloaded some files two days ago. Now when you double click on a file the computer locks up or an application crashes. What could be causing that? Is it the application or is it a setting the application created in your user folder.

If you have a test user account you can now login to that test user and repeat the same steps. If there are no crashes then you can narrow it down to something you just installed.

Go to the System Preference. Create a new user called Test and give it Admin privileges. Thats it.

Back it up!

My first Apple computer was a Performa 550 I think it was 1995. I didn’t start backing up my computers until ten years later. Macs were just reliable and never found the need for it. I still don’t run any virus software ( I will decuss that later.) 

As I have grown older and less of a rebel, I got that “you never know” feeling and started my backups. I have all my photos of the kids on my Mac and would just hate it if they were gone for good. And God forbid, an indoor football sends your iMac over the edge. Today Lepard makes it even easier backup using Time Machine. All you need is an external hard drive plugged into your Mac and let it roll.

After you plug in your new external drive, et up your Time Machine preferences located in the System Preferences Pane. Turn the slide bar to on. If you check the box “show time machine status in the menu bar it will give you easy access to your backups.

Look for a hard drive with at the very least the same amount of space as your Mac. The bigger the drive the further back in time you can go. USB drives can be a bit slow so if you have a Firewire 400 port or even better a Firewire 800 port on your Mac then get a Firewire drive. This will make for faster backups. Note that your first backup will seem like forever.

My favorite drives are NewerTechs MiniStacks. I like the look, the different capacities and the ability to use it as a startup drive if necessary. If you need a new wireless base station then backing up over Apple’s new Time Capsule is great.