Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

Chapter 11. One Mac, Many Users

For years, teachers, parents, and computer lab instructors have struggled to answer a difficult question: How do you rig one computer so that several different people can use it throughout the day, without disrupting each others’ files and settings? And how do you protect a computer from getting fouled up by mischievous (or bumbling) students and employees?

Mac OS X solves the problem swiftly and thoroughly. Like the Unix under its skin (and also like Windows XP and Windows 2000), Mac OS X is designed from the ground up to be a multiple-user operating system. A Mac OS X machine can be configured so that everyone must log in. If it is, you have to click or type your name and type in a password when the computer turns on. And upon doing so, you discover the Macintosh universe just as you left it, including these elements:

• Your icons on the desktop and in the Dock

• Your desktop picture, screen saver, and language settings

• Your Dock settings (small or large icons, bottom or side of the screen, and so on)

• Your Web browser bookmarks, Web browser preferred home page, and email account

• Your personally installed programs and even fonts

• Your choice of programs that launch automatically at startup

If you’re the only person who uses your Mac, you can safely skip this chapter. You will be using one of these accounts, whether you realize it or not—it’s just that there won’t be any other accounts on your Mac, so it’ll appear as though you’re using a Mac just as you always ...